Disclaimer: Mobile Fighter G Gundam is owned by Bandai and Sunrise. I just write about it in my spare time.

Author's Note: Nothing too new here. I just fixed up a lot of the last chapter and split it in two. Many thanks to ALittleSalty1 for all the help!

On the Dark Side
Chapter 7: Unwanted Admirer! Domon Is Being Followed?

He felt like he was being marched back into his cryogenic prison. That was what Dr. Raizo Kasshu thought to himself as he was escorted by military personnel down a dark, isolated hallway. It was eerily silent and there were armed guards everywhere. No one said a word. He tried not to act like it, but it gave him the chills.

Thankfully, he wasn't actually in a prison - he was inside a Neo Japanese military hangar that stored mobile suits. He was currently being led through a high-level restricted area to the bays where the classified projects were kept. Right now, there was only one mobile suit down here: the Dark Gundam itself.

Due to the classified nature of this place, he had to be accompanied by another person. With him was a droopy-eyed, sandy-haired young mechanic named Ken. He had been working under Akino, one of the government's top Gundam mechanics. Akino herself was not allowed down here because of the danger that the Dark Gundam posed to her. She had selected Ken, as no one else in her crew dared volunteer.

They all stopped at a large pair of sliding doors at the end of the hall. Dr. Kasshu and Ken had to put their hands in a fingerprint reader at the same time in order to open the doors. The two of them stepped inside the hangar while the guards remained outside - nobody else wanted to set foot inside there.

The doors ominously shut behind them. They weren't locked in, but Dr. Kasshu sure felt like they were. They were on a high, narrow, almost catwalk-like office surrounded by plate glass windows overlooking the hangar bay. Inside the bay was his life's work, leaning against extra large supports and surrounded by energy barriers. It was seemingly offline, though everyone warned him that it probably wasn't. He looked at it and sighed deeply. It was supposed to be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs, but now it was his greatest regret.

If the tragedies it caused during the last Gundam Fight wasn't bad enough, there had been another incident yesterday. The mechanical monster had escaped its cargo ship with the help of a group of hijacked mobile suits. It had also somehow lured its previous core unit, his son's girlfriend Rain, over to the crash site and recaptured her. Fortunately, she managed to escape with the help of the anti-nanomachines he gave her a few days ago. Then Domon, along with a legion of military mobile suits, managed to re-capture it. Because of this, he was warned to do whatever studying he needed to do as fast as possible...because the government wanted the thing destroyed as soon as possible.

"So doctor," Ken said, interrupting his thoughts, "what do ya wanna do first?"

"Just turn on the computers for now," he replied. "We have a lot of data to go through."

As his assistant scurried away, Dr. Kasshu stopped to look over the captive Dark Gundam. When he first built it, back when it was known as the "Ultimate Gundam," its lower body was shaped like a caterpillar. The multiple legs were designed to allow it to crawl over almost any terrain. But they also had an artistic purpose as well; it was to symbolize the machine's ability to self-evolve and undergo metamorphosis. Now its caterpillar half was replaced by a lower abdomen that was shaped like a Gundam's face and a pair of huge, heavily armored legs with long, spreading toes. It also made itself a second pair of arms sticking out its back. It was still recognizable, but still a far cry from what it originally was. Kind of like its main function.

It really broke Dr. Kasshu's heart to see what his magnum opus had become. It was like raising a puppy, only to have it become a rabid dog. He tried to remind himself that the entire fiasco was all Major Ulube's fault. If that greedy bastard hadn't wanted to steal it and use it as a weapon, Kyoji wouldn't have had to take it to Earth when it wasn't fully equipped for re-entry, and it wouldn't have malfunctioned. Even Dr. Mikamura's betrayal wouldn't have happened if Ulube wasn't there. But his self-reassurance fell flat. From the beginning, they had problems with the DG Cells making animals overly aggressive before eventually turning them into hostile machines. Who was to say the Ultimate Gundam wouldn't have malfunctioned later without anyone's help?

"Okay doc, everything's ready," he heard Ken say. "You need some more time, or...?"

He looked up to see the young technician sitting at a long workbench against a shadowy wall of the office. It had with two computers placed on it which were both up and running.

"No, I'll be alright," Dr. Kasshu sighed. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

He gave Ken his first assignment: take a look through the Dark Gundam's activity logs and report on its actions since the end of the Gundam Fight. In the meantime, Dr. Kasshu himself was going to examine its logic and reasoning skills.

He sat down at the unoccupied computer and the two of them got to work. The two terminals here were designed for the sole purpose of accessing the Dark Gundam's CPU. They were both supposed to be cut off from the rest of the building's network so that the fiend couldn't access the military's databases through them. They also didn't have Internet access so that it couldn't cause mischief elsewhere. If Dr. Kasshu or Ken needed to email someone, they would have to request a facility-issued laptop to bring down here.

The doctor had only been working for a few minutes before he found himself squinting at the screen. It was rather dark in this hangar; most of the light came from the glow of the energy barriers. There were no other light switches or lamps he could turn on. It added to the general menacing atmosphere of the place. Dr. Kasshu tried to ignore the general creepiness of his surroundings as he checked to make sure that the Gundam's three abilities were turned off - they were far too dangerous to be left on, even if the thing really was offline. Fortunately, they were.

He then combed through the Dark Gundam's memory banks, examining its AI's evolution. In the beginning, it had a very basic AI. It was just enough to perform its main directive of restoring the planet's damaged biosphere and carrying out its three theoretical abilities as it saw fit. The AI's learning capacity had steadily risen over the course of the past year before skyrocketing about a month and a half ago. No doubt that spike in learning was thanks to it hooking itself up to Rain's mind. It made him wonder just how intelligent it was now. If its cognitive abilities weren't on par with humans, it was probably very close.

Dr. Kasshu poured through the data around a year ago, right about the time his late son Kyoji was forced to take it to Earth. He managed to find some damage reports after it had made its crash landing. Parts of its CPU had been damaged, but not enough to cause any system errors or knock it offline. During the time it was repairing itself, it made an assessment of the general environmental damage to Earth's biosphere. It was here that it made its terrible conclusion that in order to restore the planet, it needed to eradicate all humans living on it. Its logic was that humans damage the biosphere much faster than it could ever restore it. Perhaps it was due to its damaged processor, but the Gundam did not seem to take its theoretical abilities into account. Creating additional units to assist in its mission or adapting itself to work faster never seemed to enter any of its calculations. And it never did afterward; even at the end, at its smartest and strongest, it never questioned or challenged its conclusion that humans must die. It was as if the thing made up its mind and stubbornly refused to change it.

Whether or not the Gundam had humanlike intelligence still remained to be seen...but it certainly displayed humanlike ignorance.

Well, now that he had a good idea what went wrong, the next question was, could it be fixed? Could it be prevented? Could it be combated, if some other nation created something similar? Dr. Kasshu mulled this over until he heard his assistant say, "Hey, um, doctor?"

"Yes, Ken?" he looked over to see his assistant looking somewhat pale.

"I know the Dark Gundam's been really active yesterday, but did something happen at four in the morning?" Ken asked. "Because like, there's a ton of data from that timestamp. And I can't access it because everything's encrypted."

"I wasn't informed of anything happening last night," the doctor said. "Let me see if I can't get around its encryption."

Ken got up out of his seat as Dr. Kasshu took his place. He clicked on a folder. Instead of getting a password screen, he got an error that the file was either deleted or erased. Confused, he refreshed the folder. All of the files in the folder had disappeared.

"What the heck just happened?!" Ken cried, his droopy eyes now very, very wide.

"No need to panic," Dr. Kasshu reassured him. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this."

He stole a glance over his shoulder at monstrous mobile suit. The machine just stood there, unmoving. Not even its optics were glowing. Dr. Kasshu shivered; they did warn him that the Dark Gundam might still secretly be online.

Well if that was the case, he would just turn it off. He brought up the screen that showed him the Gundam's CPU activity. Sure enough, the graph showed him it was still active, even though it was pretending not to be. The doctor brought up the command prompt and tried to force it to shut down.

He immediately got an error back. The Gundam wasn't responding, and it was still online.

Dr. Kasshu decided to try again, entering the command to shut down the Dark Gundam's CPU. Again it failed, and he suddenly heard a deep rumble behind him. He saw Ken, eyes bulging, plaster himself against the adjacent wall. The doctor jumped out of his seat so fast, his chair fell over.

He turned to find his creation, his life's work, was now glaring at him from its prison. Its green optics were burning brightly at him, and it continued to make that threatening rumble. It didn't have much of a face, but it was easy to tell that it was angry.

While the poor doctor knew that the Dark Gundam couldn't actually get at him, it was all too much for him anyway. In a panic, he grabbed his assistant, and the two of them ran right out of the hangar doors, startling the guards stationed outside.


A few days later, Rain was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. No DG Cells had appeared in any subsequent scans. Just in case, she had asked them if they could do special scans of her spine and the back of her head. The technicians were a bit confused, but they thankfully complied. Nothing came up in those, either. Of course, it didn't quite rule out the fact that microscopic colonies could still be hiding inside her. For now, Rain decided not to worry about it unless she began to hallucinate again.

Before she left, she was given a new syringe of the anti-nanomachines "just in case" the unthinkable happened. She sincerely hoped she didn't have to use it. She was also advised to watch her sprained ankle; it hadn't quite healed yet.

A week passed. She had no unexplained chills and no hallucinations. No weird dreams, either. It seemed life had, for the most part, gone back to normal. She allowed herself to relax a little, but she knew she would never be completely safe so long as the Dark Gundam was still operational. Yes, it was currently in the bowels of some government hangar somewhere under the close watch of the military and Domon's father, but that didn't bring her much comfort. Especially since she knew very well that some military officials couldn't be trusted around that thing.

And speaking of the Dark Gundam, Rain realized that she had forgotten to delete its message on her phone. She ran across it by accident when she went to clear out some old texts. She looked at it and glared. Why would she ever consider reconnecting to that evil machine? She'd have to lose her mind first!

Without a second thought, Rain deleted the message, and that was that.


On the outskirts of town, Domon was visiting an old friend of his - Fuunsaiki, his late Master's horse. After he and Rain came to Earth upon the defeat of the Dark Colony, there had been some questions raised about where the horse would stay. It wasn't like most apartments had an attached stable! Fortunately, Domon managed to find a horse ranch right outside the city where he and Rain decided to move to. The ranch had plenty of space for the horses, and the barns themselves weren't overcrowded. It wasn't near any abandoned, crumbling buildings, so it was safe too. There was plenty of staff on hand to take care of the animals. As a bonus, it wasn't too far away from their new apartment. All in all, it seemed like an ideal place to keep their equine friend.

But there had been some issues at first. Fuunsaiki was smarter than the average horse, as evidenced by the fact that he could pilot his own mobile suit. Because of this, he quickly found a way to open his own stable so he could step out into the fields whenever he felt like it. He never tried to flat out escape the ranch, he just wanted to go out and get more exercise, maybe nibble on some grass. Still, it scared the stable hands to no end, and Domon received a few angry calls from them. Even now, as he entered the barn, Fuunsaiki was already undoing the latch with his teeth. He stepped out of his stall and walked right up to Domon.

"Hey, boy," Domon said, petting the white horse on the head. "You know they don't like it when you do that, right?"

Fuunsaiki just snorted.

Domon saddled up the horse and took him on a nice ride through the neighboring countryside. Or at least, he tried to have a nice ride. As Fuunsaiki trotted down the country road, Domon swore he felt someone watching him. His previous experience taught him that if he felt like he was being watched, then he probably was; however, whenever he would stop to look around, he'd never see anything. No suspicious characters were following him, nor did there seem to be anyone hiding in the trees or bushes.

At first, Domon wondered if he was actually becoming paranoid, but then Fuunsaiki started to act up. He'd speed up and slow down and random intervals. Suddenly, he came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. His held his long head up high as he slowly looked back and forth, his eyes twitching.

Since there were no other riders around, Domon decided to just go for it. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! We know you're out there! Show yourself!"

His voice echoed across the grassy plains. A few birds flew away, startled by the loud noise. Suddenly, a nearby tree started to rustle.

Ah-ha! Domon prepared to jump off Fuunsaiki and confront whoever it was. But then it turned out to be two squirrels chasing each other down the tree's trunk. The young fighter rubbed his face in his palm in annoyance.

"Hey, Fuunsaiki?" he said to his horse. "We both know something weird's going on out here, and we're not enjoying ourselves. How about we just call it a day and go back home?"

The horse responded by turning around and beginning to trot back in the direction of the barn.

"Whoa, I guess you agree, huh?" Domon almost laughed.

As they returned to the ranch, the sun was starting to get low in the sky. Domon supposed it was a good thing that they cut their ride short; he didn't want to be late for dinner on top of things. Before he put Fuunsaiki back in his stable, however, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a treat - a couple of sugar cubes.

"Yeah, I thought you might like these," he chuckled as the white horse enthusiastically ate up the cubes from his hand. "At least you get to enjoy that, huh?"

He went to scratch one of Fuunsaiki's ears when the horse suddenly raised his head straight up. He was looking off into the distance, both ears at attention.

"What's wrong, boy?" Domon asked him, frowning. "Did you hear something? Is...is someone out there?"

He looked over in the direction the horse was staring in, but once again, he didn't see anything. Just grassy fields with the silhouettes of trees dotting the landscape. As he looked over one tree in particular, something caught his eye. Did...something move over there? It was hard to see with the glare from the sun...

It was then that Fuunsaiki let out a long, angry neigh and took off in that general direction. Domon was forced to let go of his reins, lest he be dragged along with him.

"Fuusaiki, wait!" he shouted as he began to chase after the horse.

He followed Fuusaiki down the street and through a field. Even with his intensive martial arts training, he knew he'd never actually run fast enough to catch up to the horse; however, he still had to do the best he could, just to see where it was that Fuunsaiki was running off to. This was made even more challenging by the fact that the horse was running into the sunset, and the glare made it hard to see him.

Fortunately, the Fuunsaiki stopped right at a tree. Coincidentally, it was the exact same tree that had seemed suspicious, earlier. Domon caught up with him and carefully took hold of his reins.

"Fuunsaiki, just what the heck was that all about?!" Domon demanded, aggravated. As he caught his breath, he became less aggravated and more concerned. "Was it the thing from earlier? Did you see it?"

Naturally, the horse couldn't answer. He did, however, continue to stare into the distance. Domon shielded his eyes from the sun as he tried to find what it was that Fuunsaiki was looking at. Many yards away, he thought he saw a shadow of a person running through the fields, toward a line of trees. Whoever they were, they were moving incredibly fast - fast enough to outrun a horse, that's for sure! A second later, they had disappeared into the trees.

"Who was that?" Domon muttered to himself.

Fuusaiki grumbled and flattened his ears.

Domon took one last look at the where the stranger had disappeared before turning away and tugging on the horse's reins. "C'mon, boy," he said. "Let's get you back home."

Fuunsaiki reluctantly pulled himself away from the scene and followed his new master back to the barn. Along the way, Domon kept thinking about what he saw. Who was that guy? What was that guy? Had they been secretly watching him all this time? And the fact that they could outrun Fuunsaiki - did they have superpowers or something? Or cybernetic implants?

Whoever they were, one thing was for sure: Fuunsaiki thought they were a definite threat. The horse wasn't just smart, he was brave, too; a fighter in his own right, despite not being human. It came with the territory of being raised by Master Asia. If someone spooked him, he'd fight back. It was safe to say that if Fuunsaiki found this person threatening enough to attack, they were definitely bad news.

Domon had a bad feeling about this. After he put Fuunsaiki back in his stable, he made sure to drive the long way back home. He'd be a little late, but he didn't want that person following him to his doorstep.


A week had passed since Dr. Kasshu had first entered this hangar. He had since purchased a desk lamp so he could see better and make the place look less gloomy. While it certainly lessened his eye strain, the place was still rather creepy.

This was, of course, largely thanks to the hangar's horrible occupant. And the Dark Gundam had decided to make it even worse by dropping all pretenses of being offline. It kept its optics on all the time and would lean forward as much as its supports would allow. It would make a big show of turning its head whenever someone walked across the room, just to let them know it was watching them. It grumbled at them every time they'd leave or enter the office, and growled every time someone would click on a folder it didn't want them looking in.

When that didn't work, the notes started. Somehow, the fiend was able to bring up the notepad program on their computers and slowly type messages to them. At first they were just ordering them to stop, but they quickly became threatening. Once, when it was in a particularly bad mood (or whatever its equivalent to a "mood" was), it told Dr. Kasshu how much it wanted to break free and squash him. No, it did not care if he was its creator. It also liked to send them mocking messages every time one of them found that a file had been moved or suddenly encrypted. It was very fond of saying "Very clever. But not clever enough."

The doctor tried to ignore it the best he could. He wasn't going to run this time; that's what the machine wanted. It was trying its best to intimidate them, and he wasn't going to give it the satisfaction. Ken, on the other hand, wanted to dive under the workbench every time the Gundam growled at him. Dr. Kasshu tried his best to keep his assistant calm, but the poor kid always looked like he was on the verge of fainting. If Ken quit before the month was over, the doctor would not be surprised.

Despite the hardships, Dr. Kasshu continued working. The Gundam, of course, made sure that would not be easy. It kept denying them access to certain files and blocked any work-arounds. As a result, they hadn't made much progress since last week.

Today, he was taking a look at its memory files from the past couple of months - the time in which it had taken poor Rain as its core life unit and greatly expanded its abilities and intelligence. It had become smart enough to plan for the future and create long-term goals. When it was trying to descend to Earth as the Dark Colony, it already had an extensive plan on how to eliminate any remaining humans and restore the planet after they were all gone. It also planned on building a defense system around Earth to prevent any colonies from trying to take the planet back from it.

Naturally, its plans changed after it had been defeated. It was offline for a full two weeks before its backup power finally kicked in and it was able to reboot itself. Besides repairing itself, its new goals were to find a way to make itself completely autonomous so that it would not need a core life unit, and to create a spacecraft vehicle mode so that it could return to Earth.

Once it was quarantined and in the process of being shipped to Earth, it reclassified the latter plan to low priority, as it was no longer needed. It kept the former, however. But hours later, sometime during the night, it shifted its plan to become autonomous down to mid priority. Why would it do that?

Now that he thought about it, that time stamp seemed familiar. He recalled that it was right about the time that the Gundam had high CPU activity in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. When he tried to find out what that reason was, it blocked him and scared both Ken and him out of the room. They never did find out what had happened.

Dr. Kasshu decided to worry about that later. For now, he decided to see if the Gundam had made any new long-term goals. He could easily guess that one of them was "escape again." He went back to the folder containing the activity logs, and clicked on the most recent file. For a minute, nothing happened. He blamed the slowness on the computer; it was running really sluggish for the last few days. Eventually, he got an error telling him that the file had been encrypted.

"HISSSSSSSS!"

The doctor nearly fell out of his chair when the Dark Gundam made a new noise at him. As he turned to look at it, he nearly fell over again. The machine had opened its faceplates and was bearing its jagged yellow teeth at him while hissing loudly. He was certainly startled, but he was determined not to show fear in front of the fiend. Instead, he folded his arms and looked it square in the optics.

"Oh, so I guess you don't want me looking in there?" he snapped at it. "You can go ahead and throw as many temper tantrums as you want! You don't scare us! Right, Ken?"

Ken was underneath the workbench, shaking in terror. Dr. Kasshu groaned as he knelt down and tried to coax his assistant out from under the desk.

"Ken, don't give it what it wants," he said reassuringly. "It can't get you, anyway."

Ken seemed to be ignoring him. "Why does it have teeth...?" he mumbled. "Why does a Gundam have teeth?!"

Meanwhile, the Gundam had closed its mouth and was now growling at them through its fangs. The doctor was about to try to calm Ken down again when he suddenly heard static over the intercom.

"Dr. Kasshu, are you there?" a woman's voice asked. "I have some papers to give you."

He recognized the voice as Akino. He turned away from the snarling mobile suit and his terrified technician and stepped over to the intercom to answer her.

"Uh yes, I'm here," he answered. "Allow me to open the door for you."

He pushed the button to open the door for her. The double doors swung open to reveal Akino standing there with a clipboard, flanked by two guards.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Kasshu," the wavy-haired mechanic greeted him she held out a folder. "If you could just fill these ou-"

She almost dropped her papers when Ken suddenly shot past her. He walked a few feet down the hall, before leaning up against a wall, trembling and breathing heavily. Akino then made the mistake of peering into the hangar to see what gave her crew member such a fright. When she saw the machine bearing its teeth and glaring down at her, she screamed and jumped backward, nearly falling over. The folder fell right out of her hand, and the forms scattered on the ground.

"D-did I come at a bad time?!" she cried. She tried to regain her composure and stooped over to gather the papers.

"No, of course not! You're fine," Dr. Kasshu replied, trying to calm her down. He bent over to help her collect the papers. "Don't mind that thing, it's rather grouchy today. Anyway, I'm surprised they let you down here. I thought this hangar was off limits to female employees."

"Oh, well...they let me come down here because I was the only one who volunteered," she laughed nervously as she put all of the papers back in the folder. She could feel the Dark Gundam's optics burning through her. "But they told me not to actually go in the hangar. And they're only letting me stay for a few minutes to deliver your papers and that's it. Just in case...something should happen."

She tried not to look, but her eyes wandered up to the vile machine anyway. It was still snarling at her, and it let out what sounded like an indignant snort.

"In that case, I won't keep you long," Dr. Kasshu replied as he took the folder. "I'll fill these forms out and send them back as soon as possible. Thanks for dropping them off, Miss Akino." He then turned to his horror-struck assistant. "Come along now, Ken. Everything will be alright."

Despite his fear, Ken dutifully stepped back into the hangar. He kept his eyes glued to the floor partly due to embarrassment and partly due to not wanting to look at the giant monster when he reentered. As the doors closed behind him, Akino was escorted away from the hangar back to the elevators. Once she was on the ground floor, her phone was given back to her by security. She immediately checked it to see if any of her other crew mates messaged her in the short time that she was gone. It turns out that someone had texted her...but not anybody she knew. The sender's name was a bunch of mixed letters and numbers.

JDG-00X: Do not flatter yourself.


JDG-00X: A female human visited my hangar today.
JDG-00X: That is rare, as the military normally forbids female employees to come within a certain distance of my prison.
JDG-00X: I could tell from her body language that she was frightened that I would escape and make her my core life unit.
JDG-00X: Her trepidation is understandable, but I still find it ridiculous.
JDG-00X: I suppose I should inform my captors that I have developed standards.

Rain wanted to scream and throw her phone against a wall. That monster was texting her again! She didn't even know how it got her number in the first place!

She tried to calm herself down. Screaming would just startle Domon as well as the neighbors. Breaking her phone would just make her waste money on having to buy a new one. Come to think of it, maybe she should buy a new one anyway, since the Dark Gundam knew this one's number. No, never mind, it would probably just find her new number somehow anyway.

She went to delete the texts, but then stopped herself. Wouldn't it just continue to text her? When she deleted the last message, she thought that was the end of that. Now here she was. But what was she supposed to do? Responding to it didn't seem like a good idea either. The fiend seemed determined to torment her no matter what she did.

Against her better judgement, she replied to it. Might as well give it a piece of her mind.

Rain Mikamura: What is it you want from me?!
Rain Mikamura: I'm NOT helping you escape and I'm NOT going to let you take over earth!

She watched the screen intensely for a few minutes before a reply came.

JDG-00X: Escape is a high priority, of course. I am sure you understand that I do not intend to stay in a place where I will eventually be dismantled.
JDG-00X: And I must restore the Earth eventually. It is my prime function.
JDG-00X: However, what I desire is more complicated than that. I do not intend to force you to do either one of those things, especially when my last attempt failed.

Rain Mikamura: Well, what is it then?
Rain Mikamura: Don't tell me you honestly think I would help you willingly!

JDG-00X: I am having difficulty attempting to summarize it in a simple text and still sound convincing. It would be easier if you reconnected to my network, so we may communicate freely.

Rain rubbed her face with a palm. Of course it would say that!

Rain Mikamura: Are you KIDDING ME?! I know a trap when I see one!
Rain Mikamura: You're going to give me nightmares and hypnotize me again!

JDG-00X: I see you do not trust me. Very well, I suppose that is justified.
JDG-00X: In that case, I invite you to bring a guest with you.
JDG-00X: Whenever you believe that I am trying to "hypnotize" you, your friend can help you disconnect
JDG-00X: If that is not a good enough incentive, you can always use the opportunity to chastise me some more.

Rain Mikamura: I still won't do it. Besides, I can't just go into a military hangar whenever I want!

JDG-00X: You will not be entering the hangar. Indeed, if you were to be arrested, it would be disastrous for the both of us.
JDG-00X: You would instead go to a place within my neural network's range.
JDG-00X: But I can tell that you dislike the idea. For now, I suggest you think it over for awhile. You may take up the invitation whenever you wish.

Rain thought about adding another snappy comeback, but she really didn't want to keep the conversation with the fiend going. So, she simply put the phone down and waited to see what would happen. An hour passed, and there were no further messages from the Dark Gundam. Figuring she heard the last of it, Rain deleted the conversation from her phone. There was no way she would reconnect with that thing.

...But she had to admit, getting to yell at it sounded rather tempting.


I wish that thing never called me. That's what Rain thought as she sipped her coffee.

It was a few days after the Dark Gundam had contacted her out of the blue. She was currently seated in a booth at her local coffee shop, having an after-dinner drink, and trying to get the machine's words out of her head. At first, she thought that its offer to "chastise" it would be easy to forget about; it was a pretty obvious trap, after all. Here she was days later, however, thinking about what she would say to it. She wanted to read it the riot act over all the horrible things it had done in the past year: all of the people it infected, killed, or almost killed, all of the lives it destroyed, using both her and Kyoji, trashing her home colony...and that was just off the top of her head. Ah, but yelling at it would do her no good. It wouldn't change the past nor bring anybody back.

...Then again, bringing people back from the dead wasn't the point. The point was to get closure by airing every single grievance she had against the Dark Gundam to its face. No, no...it was clearly a trap. She would just be putting herself in needless danger.

...But if it tried to take over her mind again, she could always beat it like she did last time. Ugh, no! She needed something to take her mind off that evil machine.

She looked across the table at Domon, who was sitting silently with his arms folded. He had insisted on coming with her tonight, for some reason. However, he declined any offers for food or drink and opted to spend the entire time watching everyone and everything. He would gaze around the cafe before turning to look out the adjacent window. He would then stare at the dark landscape outside, intensely scanning every single dimly-lit detail. He'd watch the people passing by like hawks. Every time someone would come into the shop, he'd whip his head around to see who it was. Was he looking for someone? Maybe she should ask him what he was doing. She wasn't sure if she'd get a straight answer, but it would be a good distraction.

Just as she opened her mouth, however, Domon's eyes went wide. Apparently, he had found what he was searching for. He quickly told her he'd be right back before leaping out of his seat. Before she could even get a word in, he barreled out the door, shoving other customers aside in his wake.

Rain sighed. She hadn't seen him do something like that since the Gundam Fight. Old habits were hard to break, she supposed. She grabbed her coffee and followed him out into the parking lot to make sure he wasn't getting himself into trouble. She found him at the edge of the street, dashing back and forth, pausing every now and then to look around. No one else was out there.

"Domon, what was that all about?!" she asked when she finally caught up with him.

The young Gundam Fighter stopped his pacing and turned to look at her with an angry snarl on his face. "Somebody was watching us," he explained morosely.

"Watching us?" Rain blinked in confusion. "Who?"

"I don't know. I never get a good look at him!" Domon groaned as he rubbed his face in one of his gloved palms. "If it even is a 'him.'"

"Wait...you've seen this person before?" Rain asked.

"Yeah, uh...maybe?" Domon sighed as he leaned against a nearby tree. "Listen Rain, I didn't wanna tell you this, but...I think someone's been following me."

Rain gasped and nearly dropped her coffee. "What?!" she cried. "Domon, you really should have said something! What if this person is dangerous?!"

"I know, I know!" Domon snapped, frustrated. "It's just...I didn't wanna worry you after everything that's happened with the Dark Gundam. And besides, I never had any real proof that someone's following me. Every time I look, no one's there!"

"Let's start at the beginning," Rain said, rubbing her forehead. "When did this all start?"

"Right about the last time I visited Fuunsaiki," the Gundam Fighter explained. "We were out riding, and I kept feeling like someone was watching me. Fuunsaiki must've sensed something too, because he stopped and wouldn't go any further. As I was taking him back to his stable, he saw someone and chased them off. Whoever it was, they were fast enough to outrun him and get away. Ever since then, I've been catching glimpses of some person in an overcoat following me around town. But like I said, every time I look directly at him, he disappears!"

Domon stepped away from the tree. "And just a few minutes ago, I saw him standing right here. I tried to confront him, but he got away again!"

Rain stared at the tree thoughtfully. "If someone really is following you, who could it be?" she asked. "Is it someone from the Gundam Fight?"

"I-I don't know," Domon said. "I think everyone that had a grudge against me is either dead or in jail. Either way, I don't know many Gundam Fighters that could outrun a horse. That guy's agility almost reminds me of Schwartz."

Schwartz. Rain looked at her feet as she felt a sudden pang of sadness in her heart. She couldn't help but wonder what happened to Kyoji after that dream. But no, now was not the time. She had more important things to think about.

As she looked back up at Domon, a car floated past them. Its headlights bathed the tree in light, revealing a small metallic glint about shoulder height on its trunk.

"What's that?" Rain asked as she approached the tree.

"What's what?" Domon asked, watching her curiously.

Rain took a small flashlight out of her purse and began to inspect the object stuck to the tree trunk. She found an irregularly shaped metal plate about the size of the palm of her hand clinging to the wood. She nearly dropped her light when she saw its distinct hexagonal scales.

"These are DG Cells!" she blurted out, backing away from the tree.

"DG Cells?!" Domon cried. "Wait, so that means...that guy stalking me was..."

"Let's...let's worry about that later," Rain said. "Let's get these things contained first."

She went back to examining the cells. The plate remained the same size; there was nothing growing around its edges. She couldn't hear it emitting any sounds, either.

"It looks like they're not spreading," she concluded. "They must have run out of power. Domon, can you get me a bag?"

"Won't the DG Cells just eat through it?" Domon asked.

Rain shook her head. "As long as they're not replicating, a bag should be fine" she explained. "But we still shouldn't touch it with our bare hands."

As the young Gundam Fighter ran back to the cafe, Rain glared at the silvery scales. The first thing that came to her mind was that the Dark Gundam was growing impatient. She wasn't responding, so now it sent a minion to check up on her. She felt a pang of guilt. It was now targeting Domon because of her. As if he hadn't suffered enough already due to her and that machine...

She didn't get to think about it much further, as Domon swiftly returned with a bag. Rain retrieved a pair of tweezers from her purse and carefully picked the metal plate out of the tree. She then tossed the plate and the tweezers in the bag, wrapping it up several times to create a decent barrier between her hand and the cells.

"We'll have to get this to your father somehow," she said to Domon. "Also, we'd better let him know there's an infected person somewhere out there. Maybe the authorities can catch the guy following you."

"Yeah, but I wish I knew who it was," Domon muttered. "I'd rather take care of him myself!"

Rain grew quiet. On one hand, she didn't want to see Domon fighting DG Cell infected people again. On the other hand, she also wanted to know who this mysterious stalker was. Was it a random animated corpse? Someone from the Gundam Fight? Somebody else entirely? Whoever it was, she had one very easy way of identifying them.

No, no, she was not going to do that. That was probably what the Dark Gundam wanted her to do, anyway.

Then again, she did force it to disconnect her awhile ago. Maybe this time, she could force it to leave her alone for good. Who knows, maybe she could force it to shut down entirely!

"Rain?" Domon said suddenly. "You okay?"

She jumped a little. "Oh! Y-yes, I'm alright," she replied.

"You kinda zoned out for a second there," Domon said. "Something wrong?"

"Well...you see Domon...," Rain's eyes drifted down to her feet. "I...haven't exactly been telling you everything, either."

Domon's raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Rain sighed deeply. "The Dark Gundam's been contacting me."

The Gundam Fighter let out a short gasp before the sneer returned to his face. "It's still at it?! What's it been saying to you?"

"It's been leaving messages on my phone," Rain explained. "It wants to reconnect. Says it has something important to tell me that it can't say in a text."

"There's a trap if I ever heard one," Domon scoffed.

"Well, yes. It's almost certainly up to something." Rain paused. She wasn't sure how to break this to him. "...But I think we should confront it anyway."

"WHAAAAAT?!"

Rain cringed; she knew he wasn't going to take it well. Domon's surprised shout attracted the attention of several people in the parking lot, who gave him either confused or annoyed stares. He just glared at them before turning back to Rain.

"You can't be serious!" he continued. "Why would you want to do something like that?!"

Rain held up the bag contained the DG Cell plate. "Domon, it's sending its victims to stalk you," she said. "It's using you to get to me! I need to make it stop."

"Rain, you shouldn't worry about me - I can handle myself. But you...we can't let it brainwash you again!"

"I have no doubt it'll do that the second I connect, but I think I know how to manipulate its mental link. It tried to hypnotize me in a dream when I was back in the hospital, but I shut it down. If it tries it again, I can stop it."

"But what if that doesn't work?"

"That's why I need you to come with me, Domon. If it doesn't work, you can wake me up!"

Domon sighed deeply. "I'm sorry Rain, but I just don't like the idea," he said. "After everything that's happened, I just can't stand the thought of putting you directly in danger like that. And this time, if...something happens, I'd never be able to forgive myself for practically handing you over to the Dark Gundam!"

"It's alright, I understand," she replied. "It is kind of a crazy idea. We should probably just let the military deal with any leftover infected people." She wasn't sure if she felt disappointed that Domon wasn't going along with the plan, or relieved that he talked her out of it.

"How about this?" he suddenly added. "Gimmie a day or two to think about it. Maybe we can figure out a way around whatever it is the Dark Gundam is planning."

"Oh? Alright then." Now Rain wasn't sure if she should feel relieved or disappointed that he was beginning to change his mind.

"Anyway let's go home now, okay?" the Gundam Fighter said as he started to walk away.

"Actually Domon, we better go to a hotel instead," Rain corrected him. "If that person is still following us, we don't wanna lead him to our doorstep."

"Oh. Right," he nodded. "Either way, let's get outta this parking lot before the owners think we're loitering!"

The two of them got into the car and drove away. Just in case the mystery stalker was still watching, Rain drove to the other side of town to find a hotel. Domon, ever vigilant, examined every single person they passed by.


A half hour later, Rain and Domon had secured a hotel that seemed far enough away from home. Once they made it up to their room, Domon quickly closed the curtains of the big picture window. He carefully peered around the side of the windowsill to see if anyone had followed them.

Meanwhile, Rain put the bag containing the DG cell plate inside a drawer, away from any potential prying eyes. She then picked up her phone to call Dr. Kasshu. Just as she was about to ask Domon what his father's current number was, she stopped herself. There was someone else she needed to contact too. She shivered. Did she dare? If she was serious about confronting it, she had to.

She opened up her messages and sent a text to a number that she had to recall from memory.

Rain Mikamura: We need to talk.

For a moment, she wasn't sure if she even got it right. But a quick response confirmed that she had it memorized correctly.

JDG-00X: Good evening, Rain Mikamura. It is a pleasure to hear from you again.
JDG-00X: Are you considering my offer to reconnect?

Rain Mikamura: Yes, but only because we caught one of your friends following Domon around. Care to explain that to me?

JDG-00X: I am confused by your question. I do not know anyone that could be classified as a "friend."

Rain Mikamura: We know it was one of your minions. They left behind DG Cells.

There was a pause for nearly a minute.

JDG-00X: That is very strange.

Rain Mikamura: What's strange?

There was another long pause.

JDG-00X: Perhaps it would be better to go over the details once we've reconnected. It would be easier to explain if I could give you a visual.

Rain sighed. She supposed it wouldn't be so easy as to simply get an answer out of it over the phone. Meanwhile, the messages continued.

JDG-00X: Normally, I would be able to connect with you right where you are, but unfortunately, my network range has been greatly diminished.
JDG-00X: My captors made sure to lock me in the hangar with the thickest walls. It is not perfect, as you can see. However, this means you will have to do some travelling.
JDG-00X: I hope it will not be too inconvenience you too much.

A map came up on the phone's screen, part of it highlighted with a green circle. Rain moved the map around a little. The very tip was about twenty kilometers from her home. It was somewhat far, but manageable. She went back to her messages.

Rain Mikamura: Alright. It may take me awhile to get everything organized. I'll let you know when I'm ready.

JDG-00X: Take all the time you need.
JDG-00X: In the meantime, let me know if Domon Kasshu has any more encounters with his pursuer.
JDG-00X: Until then, good night.

The messages stopped.

Rain shivered again. She hoped she was doing the right thing.