New Age Chapter 12, a Zoids fanfic by Sh33p

Hats off to this fic. It tops most fics I've read....including most of the ones I posted here. Tim Seltzer, seltzer@seltzerbooks.com

"Can`t anyone issue a challenge to me without trying to kill me?" Marcus growled angrily in thought, rounding the corner to enter the parking lot and heading straight for the cockpit of the Gustav, heedless of the Fox`s low screeching rumbles of question. "Nothing," he grumbled at the Zoid, all but yanking the cockpit open and climbing inside without another word. If the Fox had any movable eyebrows, they`d`ve likely been quirked up in curiosity at it`s partner`s behavior.

As it stood, Mark was swift in slamming the cockpit shut and promptly reprimanding himself over it.

"Need a phonebook," he muttered to himself, trying to calm down while setting the roses, the stems a little redshifted in some blood, down onto the passenger`s seat, getting back up and crouching his way into the back of the Gustav`s cockpit to look around for one.

Outside of the Zoid though, the Shadow Fox was still waiting for an answer for several seconds.

Then it`s head tilted warily back, crimson eyes glowing as it caught a bit of movement up on the roof of a nearby building. It was slight, only vaguely noticable but still there. Seconds passed and the Fox shrieked a warning, loudly and proudly, over at the unseen intruder, watching and listening to a quick patter of human-sized feet, followed by a swift jump and a feathery light landing in the distance.

The cockpit flew open and an annoyed Mark jumped out, storming around to glare daggers up at the Zoid.

"What the hell was that about?!" He demanded. The Fox leered back down to him, motioning with it`s head towards the roof of the building the Gustav had parked next to. "Eh?" He asked, following the movement and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. The Fox growled something along the lines of a warning and rose it`s main gun out of forward-only firing mode, waiting patiently.

"Right," Marcus muttered. "You just keep a watch and don`t blast anything unless it attacks," he ordered in a sigh, walking over to a nearby phone booth and reaching for his wallet in the process.

- it had apparently been stolen. There was a plop along the ground next to him, followed by a quick skidding motion. Mark jumped back in reflex and glared down, only to find his wallet lying on the paved ground, freshly opened. "... What the hell kind of asshole am I dealing with here?" He growled angrily, swiping the wallet back off of the ground and checking through to make sure none of his cash had been stolen, the same for his driver`s license, Gustav registration card and the other things he kept in his wallet.

He was more than a little mortified when he found that only two things were missing.

The first was a picture. It wasn`t a very serious thing though, he kept two copies of it and could always just replace it, but it held more importance to find the picture was gone when he found the old stick-it note he`d crammed into his wallet just in case had also been stolen.

That was because that stick-it note happened to have Abbie`s phone number, dorm room address and workplace listed. The picture was also one of Abbie giving a smile and a peace sign the night of High School graduation.

"Shit," he growled to himself, turning back towards the Gustav and breaking into a sprint.

"Where is he?" Vega asked as he and Stigma exited the hospital, the older of the two walking slower than normal for fear that he`d accidentally outpace the younger. "'He?'" Stigma asked, still walking alongside his younger counterpart. "Yeah. Fury," Vega answered. "Oh... It is at a local shop for repairs and maintenance. Why?" The man asked as the two continued on down the sidewalk.

"Because..." Vega paused in speech, trying to pick his words carefully. It had been a stressful number of weeks for the boy, and he wasn`t very clear in his thoughts at present. "Because?" Stigma asked quietly.

"Why is that?" Stigma asked again, pausing in his steps and holding a hand out in front of Vega just in case the boy didn`t see the light for walk-don`t walk switch over in favor of oncoming traffic. "Is it about the Blitz Team?" He asked.

"Kale isn`t a registered warrior," Stigma reminded. "I know," Vega replied, glancing around. "Then why?" The veteran asked again.

"Because I need to get better so that I can stop him. I need to fight the kind of battles that Class S will give me and I need to do it soon. I have to improve, Stigma," the former King of Unsanctioned Battles stated grimly. "I have to improve enough..."

"To kill your brother," Stigma finished gravely. Vega gave a dark, numbed nod and the two continued onward, not another word said between them.

A knock at the door. Abbie groaned to herself, she had been up all night and had only managed to get to sleep all of three hours earlier, when the party outside of her bedroom had finally died down and things went to their usual settled tone. It was a holiday of sorts, Independence Day in the Helic Republic, which was why she had the day off from her schoolwork, leaving her instead to focus on sleeping extra late and going in to work.

If not for the knock at the door of the on-campus apartment she shared with two other girls.

Neither of the others were awake of course, Hope was likely passed out with whatever overly muscled guy she had run into at last night`s party, likely in bed this time with any luck, while Jess was probably snoring on the kitchen floor, probably surrounded by beer bottles.

That was one of the few things Abbie hated, she decided while putting her robe on after climbing out of bed, stumbling over to the door and opening it into the three-door hallway that lead from the living room to her room, Hope`s room and the bathroom. The door to Jess` room was next to the door to the hallway.

"... I live with total pigs," Abbie thought dryly, stepping over a small pile of empty bottles and then around a snoring Jess, who was camped out on the floor with her hands as pillows, lying next to one of the local guys she had become relatively attached to lately. The green haired college student didn`t even want to know what Hope`s situation was, just being glad that the other girl`s door was shut.

Trash littered the floor, Abbie ignored it, rounding her way over to the entrance into her private little hellhole and opening the door hazily. "What?" She asked at the young man standing in front of her.

"By any chance, do you know where Mark is?" He asked. Abbie didn`t recognize him, but given his appearance she was willing to bet she`d`ve tried to play herself off as if she did if it weren`t for her current relationship. Few things could even come close to making her look at another man the way she did Mark, mainly since the two had been together(sort of) since they were pre-teens.

"All I know is that he needs to call more, why?" She asked groggily, wiping the sleep out of her eye. He nodded and smiled in a manner that she guessed would melt most women her age and then spoke up again a second later. "If you see him before I do, just tell him Kyle Mazemia has an offer for him," the man stated before tucking his hands into his trowser pockets. "... I`ll remember that. Bye," Abbie stated, dully shutting the door with a thud before slipping the locks into place and heading back towards her bedroom.

"GO AWAY!" Abbie screamed angrily at the door, though none in the dorm even stirred an inch.

The knocking stopped. Abbie went back to her room, shut and locked the door and then returned to sleep.

Arihmanes growled to himself silently, glaring daggers through the small glass dot in the door that let one see who was knocking, or who was answering. His growl softened though, at the sight before him, and the mask he wore rose slightly at the sight of the young woman sauntering - at least to him it looked that way - back to her room.

All he had to do was get rid of Harlock - as the mission required, then he would have her all too himself, whether she liked it or not. Turning back down the hall of the floor he was currently on, Arihmanes silently left, taking the opposite direction from the one that Mazemia had arrived and left in, his Khukriesque knife slapping lightly against his leg in the process.

Rounding, down the steps without so much as a sound, Arihmanes made his way to the front door of the dormatory, ready to make another spectacular exit...

If not for the blunted circle pressed into his temple. Beneath his mask, Arihmanes smiled.

"You think you can play sick headgames with me?" Mark asked sternly, putting a bit more force into how he was holding the shotgun to his future opponent`s head. "Who said I was playing?" Arihmanes asked. "All the more reason to make smear out of your skull," Mark replied. "How quaint. The psychological profile of you is very fitting you know, I was almost in awe at how you helped Hameros destroy the Riven Facility... That was one of our chief suppliers too," he stated.

"I don`t know what the hell you`re talking about and I could honestly care less," Mark growled. "Of course," Arihmanes replied in a low chuckle.

There was a rapid swiping sound and three things happened in a blindingly fast instant, filled to the brink with a good deal of precise movement and very little sound to accompany it, ending with Arihmanes standing several paces to the right, with Marcus already re-leveling the shotgun on him in a blur.

Then the weapon split in two down the barrel, a perfectly made, diagonal cut leading from the bottom of the barrel`s tip to just above the back of the firing chamber, causing the top half to slide forward and then fall off entirely to the ground with a metallic clank while the masked assassin resheathed his Khukri, mask sliding up briefly as if he was smiling beneath it.

"I have a better point to make," Mark replied smugly, pointing to his right with one finger. "Observe," he ordered, just as the Shadow Fox came padding around the corner of a campus building, both of it`s forward guns slinging out of their hidden and/or fixed positions to swerve just a bit and lock onto Arihmanes` solitary form.

"Concession accepted, gimpy," Mark stated insultingly. "Of course. But when the fire comes, only I will be there to protect her. You and your Zoid both... Well," he trailed off as the Fox growled uneasily, promptly swinging it`s AZ 30 around to lock onto a Lightning Saix as it appeared from nowhere, menacingly staring down at the other Zoid from a few dozen meters away, both guns fixed to fire directly onto it.

"... Keep the hell a-" Mark paused as Arihmanes all but vanished, an action followed by the Saix. An instant passed and there was a loud roar of engines as a Hammershark blazed overhead, vanishing in a chameleon-like color shift, followed by a distant sonic boom.

"... Now I`m really pissed," Mark growled ferally, swiping the remains of his shotgun off of the ground and storming towards the Shadow Fox.

Jamie sighed in relief as he was finally shot down, ending his tenure in the overly drawn out arcade battle as the virtual reality cockpit slid open with a false gasp of air, allowing him to step out and wipe some of the sweat from his forehead and onto the shoulder of his shirt. It hadn`t been taxing to keep playing for so long, to be honest, but it had been fairly hot inside the simulator, Jamie guessed that it was due to the fact that none of the things were air conditioned, but didn`t let it bug him too much.

"How long `til Leyla finishes?" He wondered to himself, watching the girl`s score continue piling up by the truckloads. "At this rate, probably around the same time they kick you us out for staying here past closing time," the Wild Eagle replied. "And I thought I had a problem being optimistic," Jamie commented. "You do," the other pointed out sourly.

"Took ya long enough," Jamie said after having watched the game for another five or six minutes, where Leyla finally exited on her own and emerged from the cockpit holding a strip of tickets roughly three and a half feet long, more than twice the length of the one Jamie had accumulated in the course of his time in the game, causing the teen to gape a bit in surprise before straightening up, just as she started speaking. "Not my fault the competition here is kinda lax..."

"What now?" Leyla asked casually, tucking her hands into her pockets. "Could get some lunch or continue to terrorize the arcade," Jamie replied with the same tone and a shrug, trying to think of things to say without embarrassing himself.

"Hmm... Your call," Leyla finally said after a brief pause. "Eh... You pick," Jamie ordered. "Nah, you," Leyla replied with a snicker. "Fine, fine..." Jamie`s choice was made by a brief rumble in his stomach, nothing too loud of course, but still. "Guess I shouldn`t`ve skipped breakfast, huh?" He asked sheepishly. "That makes two of us," Leyla replied. "Pizza?" She asked. "Sure," Jamie answered as the two teens exited the arcade, leaving more than a few people to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Hello?" Brad asked after the hospital phone finished ringing. "That you, Hunter?" A familiar voice asked. "What do you want, Harlock?" Brad asked with an almost sour tone of voice. "A little help and the chance to provide a little warning to one of your team mates, Jamie Hameros - I think," Mark replied. He sounded angrier than Brad had thought at first, a lot less patient as well.

"What happened?" Brad asked in a sigh, plopping down into the nearest vacated chair as Leena stirred out of her sleep. "Who`s that?" She asked, recieving a motion to pause from Brad. "A guy calling himself Arihmanes came after me early today, making a threat that if I didn`t help him, he`d try and kill me. He`s also trying to stalk my girlfriend."

"That explains why you sound like you just took a dump on a landmine," Brad replied sardonically. "But how does this involve us?" He asked. "Just after I took in the Shadow Fox a few weeks ago - before my match with Bit Cloud - I was ambushed by a rogue Gunsniper. At the time, I thought it was just a gang, but when I... Persuaded the guys who attacked me after I took the Zoid down into giving me their home base`s location, I found it was more or less a military outpost of some kind, unlisted on any maps I could find."

"The Arihmanes guy I told you about, he had the same symbol on his clothing as on the Gunsniper, and on the base itself. Called it 'Riven Facility,'" Mark informed. "And how does this tie in with Jamie?" Brad asked curiously. There was a shocked pause.

"I wasn`t the one who trashed the base. Some crazy bastard stole one of their Pteras Zoids and fragged everything there, I recognized the voice from when he ordered me to cover the escape of a few of their prisoners. Sounded like Jamie, but a little more..."

"Yeah. That`s it. He killed a few gaurds according to the people I helped escape, then shot down virtually every Zoid there, jumped out of the Pteras just before it drove into what I think was the base`s main power plant and that`s the last I saw of him."

"I see..." Brad nodded quietly. "And if the people associated with that base sent someone to off you..."

"Exactly. I managed to get a picture of the symbol on the Gunsniper, but I don`t have anything I can use to cross reference it. You guys on the other hand," he trailed off. "Logical choice," Brad commented. "Alright, we`re at the Padre Medical Center, room #448, Warrior Treatment Wing," Brad informed. "Got it, want me to look for that Jamie guy?"

"No, we have someone who can do that already," Brad replied as Bit exited the bathroom, looking about six and a half pounds lighter than when he`d gone in. "Don`t go in there," he ordered plainly, reaching back in and flipping the fan on before slamming the door inside shut.

"Okay, I`ll be over as soon as I can. Gotta make sure that bastard isn`t still lounging around on campus first..."

"Yeah, see you then," Brad replied dryly, putting the phone back on it`s rest and glancing over at Bit. "You know where Jamie was going, right?" He asked. Bit gave a nod. "Good, I need you to go get him on the double... Bring a gun if you think you have to," Brad stated, already getting to his feet and heading for the door himself. "What about you?" Bit asked. "I`m gonna get the Doc," Brad answered, already out of the door by the time Bit finished registering his words.

"What about me?" Leena asked, even though she`d gotten the words out just as Bit had left the room, darting down the hallway by the time the door shut. Privately, she condemned her own inability to be of any use at the moment, and even more privately, she condemned Vega for having indirectly caused her to wind up bedridden in a hospital, scarred and left with vision that would probably require corrective surgery or glasses to fix.

Leyon smiled despite himself. Injured still, only having escaped from the hospital on a fluke the day before - in his wheelchair no less - and having spent the rest of that day lying in a timed regenerative chamber he`d built himself off of plans thought up from the known pods of Ancient Zoidians. A bandage around his head and a padded, metallica vest around his ribcage to act as a support mechanism for his sore upper body, he was still smiling. That was because he had done what was considered utterly impossible to most of the so-called scientists in his fields of genius .

"Finished," he said to himself, regarding the interior of his greatest creation to date. Fourteen years of work on hyperevolving Zoid cores, half of it with Steve`s help, half of it without. Months of kneeling to the demands of the Backdraft Group while hiding the project from them at the same time, months of leeching from their resources and personnel, trillions of dollars of money stolen from them with the proper hacking techniques to convince them otherwise...

It had all paid off as he regarded the perfectly finished command and control room - the bridge, if you will - of his finest creation. There were a few kinks to work out of it, of course, there always were, but he had done good anyway.

"Now all that`s left is to make sure it can never be used the wrong way," he thought aloud, his voice carrying something of an echo. Stepping over to the main control panel of the enormous room, Leyon cracked his neck and sat down in the pilot`s seat, cracking his knuckles and setting the empty cup of what had been ramen noodles down into the trashcan hidden in the chair`s right side, smacking it shut a second later.

Author`s Note: Fear the evil geniuses... So you know, it`ll be a few days before I update again. Probably a week or two, kinda stalled on chapter thirteen and being pressed into work around the house, not to mention having to go visit my grandparents on Thanksgiving :\ See ya when I see ya, leave a review and enjoy until then!

New Age by Sh33p

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New Age

Chapter 12

Preparations and the Stalker