"The sovereign country of Japan once again demands that the South Korean government cease bombarding the Japanese islands. South Korea has no battles to fight with Japan-" the Prime Minister of Japan announced over the television.

Sunggyu sighed as he leaned on the back of the couch where Dongwoo and Sungjong were sprawled. Dongwoo poked him under the chin with the of the remote control. "What's got you sighing like there's no tomorrow?" he asked.

"That," Sunggyu sighed. He turned around to where the other boys were scattered across the room. "It's just sad."

"Sad is an understatement. Just think about how awful that would be if we were recruited into the battlefield as well," Sungyeol commented, draping himself on the back of the couch, near Dongwoo.

Dongwoo began to speak, but as his throat began to articulate the sounds, the door to the room swung open, and his brother, Yunho, strolled in--followed by his friends who doubled as his assistants and guards.

"What brings you here today, Hyung?" Dongwoo asked, patting Sungjong's cheeks absentmindedly.

"Sad to say, but we're going to need you guys out there with the rest of us," Yunho said. "We need more soldiers because North Korea is fighting back as we fight Japan. Putting you in as a team sounds like a good plan since you've been trained together."

Woohyun glared at Sungyeol. "You just haaad to say it."

"It's going to happen even if I don't say it out loud." Sungyeol reasoned. "I'm sure you thought of it as well," he shrugged.

Woohyun was about to reply when Myungsoo said, "He's right--I did think of it at some point."

Sunggyu chuckled. "I guess just thinking about it is enough, huh, Woohyun?"

"So how about it, Dongwoo? Will you guys be a team?" Yunho asked.

"Under whose command?" the younger prince asked.

"Yours--and mine, technically, but let's give you a team that can move independently of the main chain of command," Yunho said. "It's always a trump card."

Dongwoo glanced at his friends, sizing up their reactions. Then, he took a deep breath and replied, "Okay."

Yunho nodded. "I'd like to ask you one thing, though."

"Yeah?"

"Are you willing to go head-to-head against Celestial Being?" he asked.

"Of course," Dongwoo replied with a dark resolve.

Yunho nodded again--this time a little too much, a little too quickly--before heading out, with his team following him. In a way, he regretted throwing his brother back into the flames of war. But there was also a part of him that said that Dongwoo may want this opportunity to come for himself. For the flames of anger were as difficult to be rid of as the flames of war. And as effective hate was at creating conflict, so was pain.

~°~

As the meisters exchanged blows with the soldiers of the South Korean army and, to some extent, the Japanese army, Sumeragi notified the meisters of an approaching new warship--the carrier of the Prince of South Korea himself. The meisters scrambled to get themselves ready for another attack, when an announcement that was carried over the common radiowaves came. It was from Prince Yunho.

"Celestial Being, the army of the mighty South Korean army commands you to withdraw from this battlefield at once," he said. "This is a battle between the Japanese forces and the South Korean forces: your presence is but an inconvenience to both armies. Retreat or surrender: these are our terms. Otherwise, we will send our best knights to destroy you."

"Oi, oi, this little prince is a little cocky, isn't he?" Lockon commented to the other meisters.

"Be careful of the knights," Tieria warned. "They're of a different level."

"We can take them," Ailee said. "We're a team."

"Yes, but so are they," he replied. "We-"

Tieria's words were cut off when a claw from the sea grabbed one of the legs of the Seravee, jarring him. The 00 moved to chop off the claw, but it was thrown off course by a mobile suit that had thrown itself at the 00.

"They're attacking?" Allelujah exclaimed as he began to engage one of the newcomers.

A blue machine came from beneath the surface of the sea as it tried to reign in the Seravee. A green one engaged the Cherudim, as a white-and-blue one barred the 00's way.

-All systems go. You are clear for launch.-

He flicked the switches on, and settled into his seat. With his helmet in place and all systems go, he announced, "Jang Dongwoo, Lancelot Albion, launching!"

"Gawain, The Knight, Kim Myungsoo, launching!"

"Dongwoo, Myungsoo, can we leave the red frame to you?" Jaejoong asked as he countered the blows from Allelujah's machine.

"You got it," Dongwoo affirmed. "Let's go, Myungsoo."

"Roger."

"It's amazing what your new machines can do, Sunggyu," Yunho noted as he watched his brother and his knight engage the red mobile suit.

"Thank you, your highness," Sunggyu replied with a bow. "However, there is a need for them to deal with the enemy as quickly as possible; their energy source isn't as heavy-duty as those solar reactors."

"Why is that?"

"The machines aren't compatible with the solar reactors, sir. I have not found out why, but I think there's something in the machines' system that needs a different source from the system of the regular army's machines," he explained.

"Do you have a possible source of energy?" he asked. "You sound like those battery packs can't last more than about 15 minutes."

"Roughly around that time, sir. I have been eyeing the sakuradite industry--sakurasdite seems to be a powerful energy source, if not nuclear energy," he replied.

Yunho nodded. "Very well. I shall give you the budget for improvements of these machines," he said. "I'd like you to design something like these for my knights as well. Or, if you can, modify their machines to achieve such efficiency."

"Yes, sir. I'll do my best."

"Dongwoo!" Myungsoo called out worriedly as the red machine attacked their frames viciously. It might not have  looked like it had the same reactor as the others, but it was just as powerful, if not more. And with their limited enery source, they did not dare think that it would be a target that could be easily taken down.

Dongwoo grunted from the force of the impact, but he went back to engaging the red suit. Myungsoo had drained a large portion of his machine's energy by using one of its main cannons, successfully destroying the red one's rifle, but it wasn't enough to take it down.

The red suit took a sharp fall, and attacked Dongwoo's suit, causing him to fall a little further away from the battlefield than he would have wanted. Myungsoo moved to save him, but the red suit pulled out a beam saber and chopped off the right leg and arm of his machine. He was forced to retreat back to their ship.

Ailee moved towards the ship. She transformed her mobile suit into its claw-like form in order to fire its main cannon, but before she could, the white suit that she had thrown off rammed her towards the ground. The impact crushed one of the boosters of the Aegis and destroyed its own ers, causing them to fall towards one of the smaller, uninhabited islands near the coast of the Japanese peninsula.

The two mobile suits crashed to the ground, the sheer strength of the collision caused a crater-like dent to appear on the ground. The two suits fell apart, and Ailee sent a coded transmission to her fellow meisters. She loaded her gun, sure that her machine would not move well enough to get her out of there. All she could do now was get that pilot and hope that the others could survive on their own.

Dongwoo concealed the data of his mobile suit--knightmare frame, as Sunggyu had called it--and purged his identification details from its database. Whoever piloted the Gundam probably already knew who he was, but it was standard procedure, according to his mentor. There was always something new that an enemy could uncover if given data.

He pulled out his knife, took off his helmet, and carefully climbed out of his machine. The Gundam's pilot was still inside, he noted. Its cockpit was still closed.

Ailee crouched behind one of the four spikes that acted both as a focuser and as a claw of her machine, gun ready. She watched as the pilot of the machine--she couldn't call it mobile armour; it looked markedly different--climb out, a handknife gleaming in the summer sun.

Her breath was caught in once the sun no longer blocked her view of the pilot's face--Jang Dongwoo.

Leaves rustled, catching Dongwoo's attention. He inched closer to the source of the sound, walking in a sort of crab-walk style to make sure that he would not fall so easily if someone tried to attack him. He gripped the knife tighter, holding onto that knowledge that he was a very capable man when it came to close-quarter combat. He could deal his enemy harm if he wanted to.

He squinted into the shadows as he inched closer. Closer. Closer-

A figure jumped him, causing him to drop the knife. The force of it took them both tumbling through the ground. He positioned his head as he was taught to protect it from a hard hit that could be fatal as he struggled against his attacker.

When he gained the upperhand and tried to trap his attacker under himself, the attacker kicked him off, placing a reasonable distance between them. It was then that he realized that the red Gundam's pilot was a woman.

She kicked herself off the ground and ran for cover. Dongwoo chased her. He threw his weight at her direction and they barrelled into the trees.

Dongwoo was able to pin her firmly onto the ground even as she struggled. He noticed that her struggling wasn't just the random struggling of a civilian, but rather a trained kind of struggling, the kind that normally could have thrown him off, had he been weaker and lighter than he was.

She stopped struggling, breathing heavily from the exertion. He reached for her helmet, and she tried to throw him off herself again. This time, she was successful, but then, so was he.

Her long, brown dyed locks flew out from their original arrangement within the helmet. She tried to use them to shield her face, but knew it was too late. Dongwoo had recognized her.

"Ailee?" he asked incredulously.

She faced him with resolve burning in her eyes. "Yes, Dongwoo. It's me."

"You're a Gundam pilot?" he asked, their situation momentarily forgotten.

"Gundam Meister, actually, but I think that amounts to pretty much the same thing," she shrugged.

"How could you?" he asked, his tone pitiful.

"How could I? How could you?" she asked. "What are you doing on the battlefield, Dongwoo?"

"I am a prince of South Korea, or have you forgotten that?" he asked. "I have a duty to my country."

"And so do I," she replied firmly.

"Celestial Being? That's not a country--that's a terrorist group," he spat.

"We are not a terrorist group!" she retorted, flailing her arms roughly to emphasize her point. Their weapons: forgotten. "Celestial Being is an organization that wants to simply rid the world of war!"

"By violence?" he asked, his voice going an octave higher.

"If there is one thing that unites the world instantly, Dongwoo," she said in a detached manner. "it's the presence of a single enemy. Over and over, history has shown us that, and we're just taking advantage of that knowledge--it exists for a reason."

Dongwoo's breathing was laboured. The shock of it all, compounded with the stress he'd been under (fighting in a mobile suit that was markedly different from the others, fighting against Ailee physically, and the struggle to piece together and accept the fact that his girlfriend was standing in front of him, trying to kill him) made it difficult.

"Dongwoo, I need you to understand. I'm not fighting just for the heck of it," she said. "Please. I'm not a terrorist. I-"

Dongwoo collapsed to the ground. Ailee was shocked by this, and ran over to him. She felt for his pulse, which thudded steadily under her fingers. But he was sick. She could feel his temperature burning like an oven under her skin.

She sighed in relief, but she knew it would not last long. So, she dragged him back into his suit, tucked him in warmly, its locator, and hid her machine out of sight.

The others would kill her for letting him live knowing who she was, but she didn't have the heart to take his life. Instead, she bet her life on him.