New Age Chapter 16, 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

Various clicks, clacks, snaps and an equal number of electric shocks sounded off in the hangar of the Hammerhead II as the Berserk Fury was turned into just the Fury, the Berserk Armor being picked off by several dozen mechanical arms before the rail moved itself forward two slots, coming to a stop at the only part of the hangar that actually had a new armor system in it. Vega cracked his neck readily, steeling himself for the battle he was about to rejoin.

Seconds went by as the arms of the second CAS point went to work on the Fury, moving forward with close to two dozen pieces of armor and equipment, each of which snapped into place on the Zoid perfectly, each arm carrying or helping to carry another piece of armor or equipment, and each part of the set working to form up onto the Fury`s body like some sort of puzzle.

"CAS complete, ready to mobilize the Storm Fury," Katherine`s voice stated as Vega licked his lips. The emotions of the Zoid had shifted once again, from calm to a serious doseage of pride, though the pilot couldn`t really blame it. In all of a half of a minute, Vega was certain the Lightning Team would know why...

"Damn," Jack muttered to himself, the Saix Twister finally having ended after several seconds without any of the Lightning Team Zoids to keep it going. "So the runt has transformable armor too," Chris figured in an instant. "Which means that whatever comes out of that Hammerhead II is going to be even more of a pain to try and deal with," Kelly finished with a sigh. "We`ll just have to be ready to pull another Twister on him... Either that or think something up on a fluke," Jack stated, watching as the space above the launch rail that showed the inside the carrier-type Zoid was suddenly shut out.

"Here he comes," Kelly said, more to herself than the other three. Slowly, the platform lowered down from within the bowels of the Hammerhead II, and with it, came something neither the Taskers nor Jack ever expected to have to fight.

A flare of magnetics, the clash of lightning between rails and it was launched, erupting into the low skies above the battlefield for the briefest of instants before slamming down on both feet with a hard skid, stopping several dozen yards from the bewildered, stressed Lightning Saix pilots. "Let`s see how well you guys do when the playing field is leveled," Vega said with a tone of threat as the Fury roared it`s challenging call to the other pilots.

It was a unique irony that the Storm Fury, something so majestic as it was, was so opposite from the only thing that really compared to it in every way. It towered over the Saix Zoids at near-equal height to a Gojulas, but it was sleek, obviously made for speed. Two enormous ion boosters similar to those of the Jaeger, yet very obviously styled for the Fury, were positioned behind a pair of Geno Breakeresque claw arms, both of which added to the fierce attack capability they already had with a pair of dual-firing pulse cannons, while on the space just fore of the elbow joint on either arm, there were a pair of light gattlings like those found on the arms of the Gunsniper. The last pieces of considerable firepower were the two machine guns mounted just above either knee on the outer thigh/hip joins of the large Zoid.

Yet the final irony to this was that the Storm Fury was colored orange with a black stripe running from it`s nose to it`s tail, with its guns painted black as well and it`s claws a solid silver, contrasting it perfectly with the colors of the Liger Zero Jaeger.

There was a quick bit of movement as the Storm Fury`s ion boosters slid out of their neutral position and moved to either side of the Zoid, followed by a loud scream of tortured, burning atmosphere when the boosters and the rockets in both legs ignited at full thrust, sending the large Zoid forward at a blinding pace towards the enemy team, streaking in at such a rate that only Chris and Jack managed to dodge out of the way in time, leaving Kelly`s Saix to deal with the onslaught.

The first attack, it narrowly avoided, leaving behind several holograms, leaving the Fury`s jaws to slam shut around thin air. The second attack was another she narrowly avoided as well, missing the first of the two clawblades on the right shield arm by mere inches, but the third was the clencher. Kelly Tasker`s Lightning Saix screeched as the second shield arm`s clawblades locked in place around it`s body from the front, literally plowing through the right side of the double cannon mounted on it`s back like a hot knife through butter, stopping inches short of slicing through the rest of the Zoid`s right half before nonchalantly swinging it up and off of the ground.

"One!" Vega announced over the broadband, flinging Kelly`s Lightning Saix aside and turning to the two remaining members of the Lightning Team.

Kelly let out a scream as her Zoid slammed into the ground and rebounded back up, skidding along after corkscrewing awkwardly through the air and hitting the ground a second time. The pilot was unharmed, by some miracle of god, but the command and combat systems both had completely frozen up. Much of the right side of the Zoid`s body from the space beneath the back of it`s gunmount to it`s right shoulder threatened to tear loose easily.

"KELLY!" Chris screamed, glaring back at the Storm Fury angrily. "I`ll make you pay for that," she threatened. "Don`t!" Jack yelled, though it was already too late. In a blur of movement, Chris` Saix launched itself forward at Vega, firing off several seconds and missing with each shot. Mere instants before she could crash into him though, Vega`s Zoid rocketed off of the ground in a blast of superheated ions, moving up several dozens of feet into the air above the Saix` head as it passed underneath.

Shots rang out shortly afterward, coming in four streams. Two smaller ones coming from the Fury`s arm-gattlings, two larger streams coming from it`s hip-mounted machine cannons. Chris expertly dodged each of them, and in doing so left Jack with a damnably tight window of opportunity to attack, lunging his own Saix forward and crashing into the upper back of the Storm Fury at near-full speed, rebounding off and backflipping for a perfect landing before opening fire on the Zoid, which had stumbled forward a bit.

The Storm Fury rocked back, six shots had hit it`s left shield arm, but it seemed unharmed aside from that, both main boosters swinging down a bit with the right veering out somewhat before igniting, sending it flying sideways at Jack. The season mercenary dodged what would have been something akin to a martial arts dropkick by rushing under the Fury but -

- he hadn`t counted on Vega`s right pair of pulse cannons, which rained down shots directly in front of him. On the other hand though -

- Vega hadn`t exactly been counting on Jack to make use of the Saix` holographic projector systems, swerving to the side before the boy had even pulled the trigger but using a well executed hologram to fool the former King`s eyes, and his trigger finger.

"You okay, Jack?!" Chris asked with concern, rushing back in and opening fire in a precise, yet obviously rushed and slightly frantic firing pattern, grazing over the Storm Fury with three of the twelve shots fired, missing with all of the rest. "Could definately be better," Jack replied, keeping his cool and swerving around to catch Vega and the Fury off gaurd again, tagging the Zoid across it`s tail with a double impact from his guns.

"I`m out!" Kelly shouted over the comm, having finally regained enough composure to actually speak. "We figured as much," Jack said, dodging to the side with a corkscrew movement in the air as Vega flashed by again, coming to a lengthy pause several hundred feet later before narrowly turning around and screaming right back towards him.

Again, Jack used the holographic system, dodging to the side in a well hidden move that was precisely timed. Again, Vega slammed through the after image and continued moving, but this time he came to a stop far quicker, with the Storm Fury wheeling around like it had expected the move and coming to a stop accordingly. An instant later, Jack found himself backpedaling out of the way of incoming weaponsfire, with gattling rounds blasting potholes into the ground in front of his Lightning Saix, missing by fractions of feet each time until...

Until Chris Tasker charged back in, slipping through the air like a shark through the water on Vega`s left. True to his injury, the response from Vega was slowed by hundredths of seconds, but the response from the Storm Fury wasn`t. "Not really," Vega replied, just as the Fury`s left claw arm swung up and blocked Chris` strike, only to tilt on impact and slide her over, right into the second pair of claws, which latched tightly around her Zoid`s mid-section, promptly clenching shut and cutting through the armor to either side of the smaller Zoid in similar fashion to how it had dealt with Kelly mere minutes earlier.

"Just lose with some dignity," Vega advised with a bit of juvenile pride, taking control back from the Fury and pile driving the Saix face first into the ground with a screeching crumple of alloy and glass, leaving the pilot only barely unharmed before he threw the Zoid out of the way and turned his attentions back to the last remaining member of the Lightning Team. Jack grit his teeth.

Still picking pieces of glass and metal out of his light blonde hair, Bit Cloud returned to the hospital room with a visibly annoyed frown, glaring daggers over at the innocent looking Leena, who casually played it off like nothing had happened. The glass had somehow already been replaced and the room was cleaned up as if it had never happened.

"Vega`s well on the way to winning, and you have a phonecall," Brad informed, keeping his foot aimed towards the bed, at about the same time that Bit noticed Leena`s face had a boot mark on it. "I don`t even wanna know," he muttered before glancing over at Brad. "Good. Who called?" Bit asked. Brad gave a shrug. "Still on the line actually," he stated, tossing the phone over at the other member of the Blitz Team, who fumbled briefly before managing to get his hands on it completely, whipping around in a blur on reflex and catching Leena in the face with his palm, even as the girl savagely fought towards the phone.

"Is this Bit Cloud?" A woman on the other end of the phone asked. "That`s the name, don`t wear it out."

"Ah... Right," the woman replied dryly before continuing. "There have been some... Complications with one of your family members. Uh... Let`s see... Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother... Did I get that right?" She asked. "Yeah, she`s old, let`s leave it at that. What`s wrong with her?" He asked. "Apparently, late last night she had a severe seizure. She recovered but she won`t leave for a medical check-up and your parents, brothers and sisters and your grandparents can`t seem to convince her, so we checked family records to see if there was anyone left and -" "And you figured I`d be a decent last resort."

"Yeah," the woman answered. "You`re the only family member we haven`t tried yet. Can you come and take a shot at getting her to recieve some treatment?" She asked. "Alright... I`ll be there in four days, that`s how long it`ll take me to get from Forintown to the Wind Co-" "Sir, it may be more serious than we think."

"It`ll do. Just hurry up, the rest of the family is extremely worried about this."

"Yeah, no crap," Bit muttered, turning the phone off and tossing it back to Brad. "Hey Doc, I`m goin` away for a while," Bit stated. "Where to?" Steve asked suspiciously. "Home for a while, family emergency. Jamie can cover for me, and I`ll be takin` the Liger Jaeger," Bit exclaimed, already out of the door before the older Tauros could try and pry out any further information out of him.

"Well, that was weird," Leena stated sarcastically. "Since when has anything normal happened to us since he came along anyway?" Brad asked with the same tone.

Explosions rocked through the battlefield as Jack Sisco slammed the breaks as hard as he could, watching a number of energy bolts fly in front of his Lightning Saix` nose, narrowly missing by a few feet at most. A few seconds more went by and Jack found himself again dodging through a hail of gunfire, with rounds zinging past his Saix like a furious wind, narrowly missing with virtually every shot, though at least one tagged the Zoid on the right side of the head and put a crater into it`s ear.

"Give it up! You can`t win now!" Vega exclaimed menacingly, swinging the clawblades back out of view and halting his ranged attacks before launching forward. The Storm Fury was incredibly fast alright, it easily exceeded the top speed of the Lightning Saix but Jack Sisco was not a man who had earned a reputation of rightly deserved fear and respect for not noticing smaller things about his opponents - like how the Storm Fury`s manueverability was only barely on par with that of the Lightning Saix when Jack pushed it to it`s limits.

"You`d do well to think before you speak, punk," Jack stated, dodging to the side with a corkscrewing flip that had fully turned him around by the time that Vega slipped through the area the Saix had been standing in, Jack had already set himself up to catch the former King just fore of the tail, squeezing the trigger with little more than luck and a prayer going for him in the process.

Unfortunately for Jack though, he hadn`t taken into account the Fury`s ability to jump, which is exactly what it did, firing off jets in the soles of it`s feet and springing up off of the ground, allowing the incoming pair of shots to fly right between it`s knees and lance out into the desert before twisting around in mid-air, skidding to a stop and coming back around at Jack.

"Shit," the former mercenary thought, crouching the Saix down and lunging forward, diving under the Fury and rolling along twice before springing back up to it`s feet. The manuever almost cost him dearly though, even a few feet to either side and he would have torn off two of his Zoid`s legs, any further up and the gun would`ve been damaged beyond usage in the battle.

"Trickier than last time," Vega complimented, going into a wide angling turn before coming back around. This time, Jack stood his ground though, opening fire with a loud scream. The Storm Fury responded in kind, bringing it`s claw shielding to bear, setting both directly in front of itself while closing in. Vega was left blind, the Zoid was too, but both knew what Jack`s next move was and they were equally prepared for it, with Vega terminating power to the thrusters and the Fury slinging down both foot locks, dragging the Zoid to a complete stop, just as they anticipated Jack dodging to either side, using that foresight to send off shots from the pulse cannons before lashing out to either side with the shields like hammers.

Jack was coming down from above, Saix screeching out a challenge, which the Fury answered in kind, snapping it`s blades back into attack positions and swiftly shooting them both up, knocking the Saix into an awkward flip with the first impact even as a pair of shots tore into the back unit, then stabbing into the small of it`s back, narrowly avoiding the Zoid core in the process as the lower blades seized back up, slicing into the shoulders of the Saix with ease.

"Good match Jack," Vega stated. "Now you can either surrender or we can do this the hard way. Take your pick," he offered, a rare show of mercy from a boy who had knowingly killed people in battles before, even if they were unsanctioned at the time. Jack spent several seconds hanging upside down in the cockpit of the Saix before sighing to himself.

"Congratulations," Jack stated soberly as the Fury lowered his Saix back down towards the ground, easily drawing it`s clawblades from the smaller, downed Zoid`s body and allowing it to hit the ground with a hard thud, retracting both tools blades on either shield arm back out of usage and then lowering both arms into neutral, with the Storm Fury letting out a roar of triumph seconds later.

"Thanks, good luck on fixing your Zoids," Vega finally said as the Judge lifted off, while the Hammerhead II lowered down towards the ground, paused above the back unit of the Berserk Armor, a magnetic unit not unlike the kind of cranes one could find in a junkyard lowering down to scrape the piece up. It raised back up into the airship a few seconds later.

"See you again sometime, kid," Jack said with a begrudging tone as the Storm Fury lumbered towards the Hammerhead II`s launch deck. "You too, oldbie," Vega said with a slight tinge of a jab in his voice.

The once peaceful scenery of the desert several dozen miles from the Blitz Team base was erased in a fluid streak of blue trailed by a massive dustcloud and a furious pair of whitish blue fireballs to either side of said-streak. The streak let off a roar that seemed... Oddly concerned.

The streak had many names over the past centuries, but now it`s name was Liger Zero. Currently that was dashed at the end with 'Jaeger' to denote it as being in possession and wear of it`s current armor, which was a striking, somewhat dark shade of blue mixed with white. The Zoid`s pilot was the youngest of five children, two brothers and two sisters. He came from a relatively humble background, a sub-par student in High School with a genius IQ and an athletic street to boot, as well as a fairly talented mechanic and salvager.

His name was Bit Cloud. Right now he was in his normal clothing, a thickly stuffed backpack sat between his feet in the floor of the Zero`s cockpit, he was reclining and he had on a look of worry and concern. This was due to a key reason, because Bit Cloud hadn`t been home in close to two years, he was a nineteen year old who should have been convicted of grand theft auto for stealing his father`s garbage truck, not to mention property destruction when he converted it to a salvage truck.

Then there were other things he had to deal with, such as how bad his relationship was with his family. He hadn`t seen them, just like he hadn`t seen his home, in close to two years. The only one he tended to keep in contact with was his eight times-grandmother, who should have died of old age yet had continued to live on, literally outliving every one of her descendants thus far and proving very likely outlive Bit himself given his lifestyle as a Zoid warrior, a profession where longevity wasn`t exactly gauranteed. She was the only person in his family whom he kept in contact with, phoning her at least once a month and often at least trying to send out letters.

Unfortunately, something was terribly wrong and she wouldn`t listen to anybody else, so Bit Cloud was making the tough decision to head back home, simply because he gave a damn. The key mystery though, was why the Liger gave a damn. Bit didn`t know, he could probably care less, but the Zoid seemed at least equally as worried as he was, if not more so.

"Guess we`ll find out soon, eh Liger?" Bit asked. The Zoid rumbled it`s answer in affirmation.

The partners continued on their journey, tearing through the desert like a bat out of Hell. They were on a mission now, and they wouldn`t stop until they completed it.

Author`s Note: And so ends one of the most spectacular fights of the series to date. What`d everyone think of the Storm Fury?

Zinou: Eheh... Glad someone picked up on the Yuck Fou thing >_> And yeah, Stoller seems practically made for the role of mentor to someone like Vega. It actually wouldn`t surprise me if the series ever used that idea itself. And yes, writing owns doing mail :P

That`s all for now, the next two chapters are also going to focus exclusively on Bit for the most part. I figured it`s time to pay some attention to the little blonde shnitz to some extent or another, especially given what I have planned for him. It`ll also feature a special cameo from a certain someone and establish quite a bit of the backstory that I`ve left blank so far and... Well, don`t wanna spoil too much, now do I?

New Age by Sh33p

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New Age

Chapter 16

Assult of the Hurricane - The Storm Fury