New Age Chapter 19, 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

"What now?" The Wild Eagle asked dryly at the sight of the information on the laptop`s monitor. "We kiss our winning streak good-bye. Again," Jamie replied with darkly intended sarcasm. "What`s the verdict?" Brad asked knowingly, leaning back in his chair and lazily regarding the teen seated across the table in the hospital room. It hadn`t even been an hour since Bit had left and things were already starting to go to pieces, it seemed. "We`re screwed?" Jamie asked cynically. "You really need to learn what the word 'confidence' means, yanno that?" The Wild Eagles questioned.

"Just shut up or I`ll start plucking feathers," Jamie threatened, second nature to the extent that he actually spoke different words than he thought without the slightest bit of strain coming through. "In other words you think we`d need Bit to win," Brad deduced in a second or so flat. "Pretty much."

"Who are the opponents?" Steven asked, cutting into the conversation rather flatly. "The Thunder Team and the Mercer Team," Jamie grumbled in reply. "Grand," Brad replied with a tone so sarcastic that it was even a surprise to himself.

"Who`re they?" Leena asked, sitting on the edge of her bad and eating lunch with her father. "The Mercers are the premier husband-and-wife team, they use different Zoids and different styles that back each other up perfectly. The Thunder Team is an up and coming group on par with the Blitz as far as I`m concerned. Their leader is a guy piloting a blue Genosaurer that can switch it`s entire arsenal around at a moment`s notice. They`ve also got a modified Gunsniper dubbed the Spike Sniper on their team, and a souped up Command Wolf..."

"In other words we`re both dealing with a three-on-one against enemies who will probably be working in concert with each other," Brad surmised tiredly, reaching up and rubbing the spot between his eyes. "Shame that Leon and Naomi aren`t Class S, we could probably 'borrow them' from the Fluegel Team with enough persuasion," Steve thought aloud, grinding his teeth together annoyedly.

"Do you know the capabilities of the enemy Zoids?" Brad asked, tabling his own feelings for the time being. Jamie gave a nod. "Tom Mercer uses a Pterasniper equipped with a variation on the long range rifle of the Gunsniper, so he usually hangs back and lets his wife, Samantha, do the point blank dirty work in a modified Stormsworder that offers incredible speed and strengthened cutting blades but leaves her with only her machine guns for ranged attacks. Neither of them use missiles though, they`re good enough to actually not need them," Jamie stated with a slight twitch.

"Feh! I`ll show those sappy bastards who really rules the skies!" The Wild Eagle exclaimed angrily, and Jamie could almost visualize the alter ego shaking it`s fist in testament of it. "The Griffin is basically unmodified, think of a Shield Liger without the shield, then pop two gattling guns, a back mounted beam cannon turret and four sixteen shot missile launchers. It also has a pair of machine guns on it`s tail, and it`s speed isn`t too bad either..."

"I`d at least like to see what`s screwing me, ya know," Brad shot back. Jamie relented with a sigh. "For starters, you`ll be dealing with a blue Genosaurer. It`s not quite as agile or fast as Kale`s but it`s definately more heavily armed, two beam cannons on the nose and two eight shot rocket boxes on the hips, plus the dual barreled cannon on the back - which can pivot, unlike Kale`s."

"Then there`s the Spike Sniper... Which is basically a Gunsniper created for melee battle. It`s hands have been replaced with grappling/stabbing claws that can shoot out on tow cables to be dragged back in, it`s tail has three rows of spikes in addition to a toughened up version of it`s sniper rifle and it has a rotating gattling gun on it`s groin instead of a plain machine gun. It also has three stabbing spikes on it`s head and it`s armor`s been toughened up dramatically."

"And the Command Wolf is almost barebones, except that it`s got a triple shot impact cannon on it`s chest and it`s packing a long range rifle and two machine guns on it`s back like your old Wolf did," Jamie finished with a bland expression.

"... My heart is singing with joy," Brad muttered with another surge of unbelievable sarcasm. "So how do you think we`ll squeak through this one?" The former mercenary asked. "I seriously doubt that we will," Jamie replied darkly, turning his eyes back to the monitor. "Our only real chance is if Griffin pilot decides to focus more on the Mercers and they try to focus more on the Thunder Team," Jamie stated.

"So all we really have to worry about from the Blitz Team is an A-level Raynos with a schizophrenic pilot," Samantha thought aloud, obviously amused. "Right, but the Griffin from the Thunder Team will be a royal pain to deal with... It`s probably packing the whole load if it really is an assault type," Tom replied, cutting into his wife`s show of bravado with a well timed bit of common sense. "No big deal, I can gut that sucker like a fish," Samantha shot back.

"Maybe but the Raynos is also capable of Lightning Saix-style sonic shockwave attacks, and it can burst-accelerate and break on a dime if it has to, at least as well as your Stormsworder," Tom stated, utterly unphased by Samantha`s severe lack of confidence in enemies. That was her one failing, he thought. She underestimated every aerial Zoid pilot around, even to the extent that she could knock off the original Wild Eagle if given the chance.

"What?" Sam asked, leering over from the controls of the pair`s Gustav to put a quick eye on Tom`s face. He was again unphased. That was probably the first reason the two had been attracted to one another, so few men could deal with a woman like Samantha and not even notice her ego - let alone her looks for that matter - and so few women could stand to be with someone as dedicated as Tom.

"Remember how you said you could trash the Wild Eagle?" Tom asked with a smirk. "Yeah?" Samantha asked curiously, leaning forward and then arching a brow right up into her forehead. "Who the heck is that?" She asked at the picture of a teenaged male, no older than fifteen or sixteen at best. Her husband`s reply shocked quite a bit of overconfident mirth out of his wife`s eyes though.

"That, Sam, is Jamie Hameros. The son of the last Wild Eagle, and current holder of the name and title."

Samantha grinned that same grin that had precursed the emergency crash landings of dozens of unfortunate Zoid pilots. Things were becoming rather interesting now...

"In other words our only enemy on the ground is going to be a dope in a dinkier-than-Laura`s-ass Scout Fox," Jeffrey Halsworth stated. "Seems that way," the leader of the team replied, a black haired young man with brownish-blue eyes by the name of Bill Chapman. "My ass is not dinky," Laura Tendro grumbled. "Nobody cares, when`s the battle slated to begin?" Bram Hunt cut into things with a lazy tone.

"In about fifty minutes," Sloan replied, still sitting at the controls for the Thunder Team`s red-and-black HoverCargo.

"Dibs on the Scout Fox," Bram proclaimed dryly. "No way! You honestly think we`re gonna let you have all the points from this one?" Bill asked sardonically. "Better me than to waste it on you and that damn Organoid," Bram shot back. "It is NOT a waste!" Bill yelled. "Waste, waste, waste," Bram retorted, completely unphased at his teammate`s comment. "We`ll see who`s a waste," Bill grumbled. "I`m the one who got us into Class S in the first place after all... While you were busy getting your ass kicked by a freaking Iron Kong," the black haired teen reminded the former mercenary.

"I was only getting my ass kicked because you were too busy trying to give your pet a therapy lesson," Bram shot back.

"Enough already," Sloan Tendro cut in. "Save the witty comments and the annoyance for your opponents," he ordered, watching as Bram nonchalantly continued egging Bill on as if he hadn`t even heard the former engineer`s words. "Kids," Jeff muttered. "You would be one to talk," Laura retorted, chopping down the fifteen year old`s attempt at confidence with one witty shot.

"You`re only a year older than me, yanno... If that," Jeff grumbled. "A year is old enough," Laura replied, gingerly pressing her elbow into the short teen`s scalp and leaning like it was an armrest. For all of the annoyance it caused, Jeff merely grit his teeth and stood there.

"So the Blitz Team is having a match today too?" Vega asked with audible amusement as he slipped out of his vest and glanced around the bridge of the Hammerhead II. Having received no answer though, the boy`s thoughts soon turned inward, though his legs continued moving, carrying him over to a spare passenger`s seat just a small distance behind that 'Pip' fellow, where he promptly sat himself down and crossed his arms over his stomach, leaning forward.

"I won`t," Vega sighed in thought, a little disgruntled that the Zoid was unwilling to let him enjoy himself after a battle given how dedicated things had become over the past days. Kale was still out there, after all, and Vega was going to have to be ready for him in their next encounter - and there would be another battle between the two, Vega was as certain of it as he was certain that he needed air to breathe. "There any way you can uh... 'Listen in' on the Blitz Team`s battle?" Vega asked.

"Good to see what our primary competition can do when we make it in," Vega answered.

Vega distantly registered what felt like something akin to strain, maybe the telepathic equivelent of a grunt or two, and then what seemed to him like a few muttered curses before finally...

"As you can see, Tod, the teams are already arriving and it seems as though Bit Cloud has gone missing from the Blitz Team! What impact will this have on the battle? And where did the Royal Cup Champion go?"

"Odd. Isn`t very like Bit to just head off on his own from what I know," Vega thought, closing his eyes and getting something of a black-and-white picture in his sight as a result, though it soon faded to poorly defined color ala a 1960s-era television. The visual was of a Gustav arriving at the edge of a battlefield, followed by a Pterasniper and a Stormsworder being flung into the air by magnetics in their trailers, while in distance from that there was also the joint arrival of not one, but two HoverCargo-class Zoid Carriers...

Vega did as told, and several seconds later, he felt the rumblings of something or other, not noticably beyond a series of clicks in the background noise of the transmission itself. "Nothing," he reported back to the Fury, which seemed a bit annoyed and amused at the same time as a result.

"Mobilizing the Raynos," Jamie stated, right as the Zoid blazed out of the cockpit with several twists, it`s main engine blasting to life and thrusting it forward before the pilot shifted slightly, bringing it to head upward towards the skies, but not too far up. "You should let me handle this," the Wild Eagle blandly stated. "You may be improving but you aren`t anywhere up to what I can do."

"Yet," Jamie corrected annoyedly, dragging the Raynos upward and into a wide, angling turn, keeping an eye to the scanner as he did so.

"Mobilizing the Scout Fox," Brad stated, the small golden crafted Fox tearing out of the main launcher of the HoverCargo a few seconds later as a result, continuing on before landing on it`s feet in a sprint, it`s pilot already tensely awaiting the arrival of his enemies. It wouldn`t be an easy battle for him, but then again they never really were anymore, were they?

One by one, the Thunder Team`s Zoids launched, starting first with the Assault Griffin, which practically rocketed up into the air under it`s own power out of the forward launch bay. After that came the Genosaurer, which rumbled through the air with a blast of flame and a smoothed-over roar, followed by a mysterious blue streak. The next to come was the Spike Sniper, screaming off of the launch deck with a menacing tone before touching down with a skid several steps in front of the larger Genosaurer, and the Command Wolf landed to their mutual right without so much as a word, glaring over at the small Scout Fox in what probably looked like - to the other Zoid, anyway - a combination of a dog in heat with a dangerously psychotic expression to boot.

Brad on the other hand, was the picture of calm as the small Zoid stood it`s ground defiantly.

"You should surrender while you`re ahead," Bram`s cool voice ordered menacingly as the Thunder Team`s ground membership started gathering together. He only let out a smirk. "Who`s first?" He asked dangerously, drawing a few surprised sounds from Laura and Bill, both of whom were taken aback by anyone being outright crazy enough to try and fight a three-on-one battle with anyone, let alone in Class S, of all places.

"Take a guess," he stated, the Command Wolf starting to wander forward towards the Scout Fox, just as the Judge touched down with an ear shattering sonic boom.

"Sounds like we`ve got company," the Wild Eagle thought to his semi-comrade in arms. Jamie only grimaced and checked the scanner. Jeff and the Griffin were coming in at a faster speed than Jamie had anticipated, not fast enough but he was obviously trying to get into weapons range for a missile assault.

"This zone is now restricted. Only competitors and personnel have authorized entry."

To make matters worse, the Mercer Team was dead ahead, with Samantha`s Stormsworder making a snap U-turn to try and attack dead-on, while Tom`s Pterasniper was moving towards a cloud, obviously intent on finding a good vantage point to snipe at targets on the ground or in the sky.

"You`re mine, Wild Eagle," Samantha`s voice exclaimed with challenge over the broadband.

"She wants me, let her have me!" The Wild Eagle demanded. Jamie met him with nothing but cold apathy though. "It`s my time birdy, take a number," he ordered, surprising himself with his own thought.

The Command Wolf and the Scout Fox met half-way, staring each other down to the bemused looks of the other members on either team who were free to pay attention.

"Brad looks pretty stoked out there," Steven thought dryly, wondering if there was any actual history between Bram and Brad, or at least enough contact for them to actually try and insult one another`s appearances. Then again, it was probably just trash talk at random.

"He can`t be serious!" Laura growled. "I was looking forward to some easy points, damn it," she added in the same tone. "Let `im have his fun, we`ll just pick off the other guy if he manages to squeeze through," Bill ordered, maintaining a surprisingly level head as that blue streak touched down onto the Geno`s shoulder, revealing itself to be a thickly built, smoothly textured blue-black-and-red Organoid, one eye blue on the side of it`s face with a red eye socket, the other eye red on the side of it`s face with a blue eye socket.

"Keep him off balance, Sam, I`ll try and knock out that Griffin ahead of time," Tom ordered, calmly strategizing as the Pterasniper soared around in the cloud he had picked, turning around completely and hitting the air brakes while rising up out of the top, aligned perfectly with the sun to it`s back and the other three aerial Zoids practically lined up in front.

"Balance? This poor bastard won`t know what balance is!" Samantha yelled back with reckless abandon, the Stormsworder and the Raynos continuing toward one another with the Griffin in tow.

"Here we go," Brad thought in unison with his foe, the Command Wolf and the Scout Fox both beginning to circle one another with matching growls.

"Time to kiss dirt, Wild Eagle," Samantha stated over the broadband with an audible grin. "My name isn`t the Wild Eagle," Jamie replied coldly as the two Zoids came closer and -

- The Raynos swung out of the way, wings folding in with a swift series of movements, at the exact moment of the Griffin`s attack. Samantha instantly found herself having to dive through a hail of rockets and missiles, narrowly avoiding a sniper round from her own husband, precisely firing straight past his wife`s cockpit only to plow through an incoming missile, zinging down through the air and gouging along the surface of the Griffin`s left wing. Even an inch lower and the other Zoid would`ve been knocked out of the sky.

"Remember it!" Jamie yelled, a blistering salvo of pulse cannon-fire coming from the Stormsworder`s right side as the Raynos dove back into action, cutting into her flight path in such a way that any normal pilot and any normal Zoid would`ve been - for lack of a better term - screwed senseless.

Samantha Mercer and her Stormsworder though, weren`t a normal pilot-Zoid pairing.

She proved this seconds later, folding the wings in and hitting the air brakes combined with the retro-thrusters and the stomach mounted secondary thruster on it`s stomach, sending the Stormsworder to a near-reverse stop while ascending up and out of Jamie`s line of fire. The Raynos was swift though, dodging out of a stream of gattling gun-fire right as it`s own attack had ended.

"Forgeting someone?" Jeffrey asked smugly, swooping up and diving down, only to let out a yell of surprise, luck literally being his only savior when Samantha whipped back into the fray, narrowly missing in her attempt to slice his Zoid in half down the middle. "Fluke," she muttered over the broadband, only to have to dodge out of the way herself a second later as the Raynos cut a shockwave into her path, trying to literally smash her and drag her to the ground with a sonic boom.

"Not bad for an amatuer," she stated, simply diving right into the shockwave of the Raynos` flight, folding her wings in and dropping down behind the other Zoid, which promptly slowed down and changed directions. It seemed almost like he was getting instructions from someone else in mid-battle...

On the ground though, things were just as chaotic as the Wolf and the Fox matched wits, claws, fangs and guns with one another, literally surprising Sloan, Steven and the Thunder Team entirely with the sheer ferocity with which the two fought.

Bram dodged the Command Wolf out of the way of the Scout Fox`s main gun, Brad literally backflipped the Fox out of the way of the Wolf`s follow-up, and after several such attempts at a parry, the two Zoids finally clashed with one another using themselves as weapons. The Fox was smaller but it was tough, the Wolf was stronger and it`s size didn`t take away from it`s agility one bit. The first move went to Brad though, lunging forward and slashing out with one of the foreclaws, but the Wolf narrowly sidestepped and snapped it`s jaws shut around the Fox`s tail -

- or not. The Scout Fox narrowly twisted out of the way, seeming to vanish in a split second and leaving the larger Command Wolf to stand in annoyed silence as Bram glared around, trying to find just where the other had vanished until finally -

- the Fox reappeared, it`s right forepaw ruthlessly slamming into the side of the Command Wolf`s face, raking it with it`s claws. Bram wasn`t ready, but he still responded in kind, sending his Zoid into a tumble and grappling around the Fox`s smaller body with ease, rolling over and smashing the little Zoid onto it`s side, leaving the two to continue rolling in a fierce biting match, before finally, Brad and Bram broke apart, darting away from one another and twisting around in the same exact moment, opening fire on each other - one shot from each.

The result was probably one of the first times in recorded history that a bullet and a bolt of energy canceled one another out, with the bolt vaporizing the bullet only to short out after expending the greater deal of it`s energy in the process, fading out just a few feet short of hitting the Wolf in the back of the neck.

"This may take longer than I thought," Bram admitted dryly. "Damn right it will," Brad replied sternly, squeezing the trigger again.

The battle on the ground was intense but the battle in the skies was virtually redefining the meaning of ferocity, with the Griffin, Stormsworder and Raynos involved in one three-member furball and the Pterasniper taking potshots at anything that moved aside from it`s teammate, narrowly missing on each occasion. It was probably the first time in years that Tom Mercer had missed a shot more than once in a match, and to say the least, it was probably beginning to frustrate him.

"Sit still? For god`s sake, it`s a supersonic air battle! You`re supposed to keep moving! And while you`re at it, keep an eye on your eight," the Wild Eagle advised boredly. The fact that Jamie was relentless in keeping his alter ego out of the battle directly was really beginning to annoy the heck out of him, but for some reason or another, the Wild Eagle seemed too weak to really do anything about it other than whine.

"I prefer it with ketchup, thank you very much," Jamie replied with cynical calm, narrowly dodging ahead of a stream of incoming gattling-fire before bringing the Raynos around. As the Wild Eagle had predicted, the Griffin appeared at what had been his 8 O` clock position, meaning that it had come in from Jamie`s left, a little behind him. "How did you dodge that?!" Jeff demanded over the comm, twisting into a barrel roll behind the Raynos before settling into a pursuit position.

"I have a little voice in my head telling me how to?" Jamie asked with obvious sarcasm. The sad part was the he was actually telling the truth.

"... That isn`t funny, schizo," Jeff grumbled, promptly opening fire on the Raynos again. Once more, Jamie dove out of the way but this time it still ended in damage being dealt out to a very severe degree, and not to the Raynos.

"SHIT!!!" Jeff screamed as the Griffin went tumbling down, a single hole having been punched perfectly down it`s throat as the Pterasniper barrel rolled right over the hybrid Zoid, having taken the shot mere seconds earlier. After that, the Stormsworder went to work and the Griffin -

- lost it`s head less than a second after the Thunder Team member had ejected, sending the already-system crashed Zoid tumbling to the ground miles below without even a head to speak of, the pilot, now in his parachute, screaming out insults and curses at the Mercer Team members.

On the ground though, things had taken an increasingly violent turn as the Fox and the Wolf dodged around, slamming sideways into one another several times. Damage was obvious on both Zoids, but the pilots refused to stop for another, taking shots when they had the chance and trying to survive when they didn`t.

Eventually though, it came down to the two breaking apart and coming to a dead stop several hundred yards apart. "Give up yet?" Bram asked.

"Your mom," Brad replied, just as both of the two gave the triggers a pull and...

The Fox had three rounds of varying size lodged in between it`s shoulders, the Wolf had it`s throat effectively blown open by three pulsed gattling shots. Brad and Bram were both out of the battle.

Up in the skies, the battle was still as fierce as ever as Jamie dodged his way around, rabidly trying to keep from being picked off by Tom or cut to shreds by Samantha, who also started using her machine guns when all else failed.

"They`d certainly eat Pierce for breakfast," Jamie thought darkly, twisting the Raynos by another shot and then dropping down, narrowly avoiding Samantha`s wingblades for the umpteenth time. "Who wouldn`t wanna eat Pierce for breakfast? Seriously, didn`t you see how she was stretching that flight suit?"

"... You really sicken me sometimes..." Jamie muttered in thought at his alter ego, even while corkscrewing down to avoid another stream of machine gun fire from Samantha, a sniper round stabbing through the air just behind the Raynos after a few seconds. "Are you going to just shit around with these people all day or are you going to take them out?" The Wild Eagle asked boredly.

"... Fine, you want `em?" Jamie demanded annoyedly, again dropping down to try and avoid yet another series of machine gun rounds from Samantha. "PLEASE!" The Wild Eagle answered, literally screaming loud enough that Jamie felt physical pain in his ears. "Alright already," he muttered.

"G-oh yeah..." The change was quick enough to take place in the span of a single spoken letter as the teen leaned forward with a fairly twisted little smirk as Samantha came in for another attack. "Think you can take me?" He asked, a great deal more confidence than Jamie had shining through in his voice. "Who the... What did you do with Hameros?!" Tom demanded angrily, literally hearing the change happen.

By the time the woman had even managed to grimace, the Raynos was gone, streaking up towards the clouds at mach three, twisting out of various sniper rounds from a newly desperate Tom Mercer. "I`ll be with ya in a minute, babe, I just have a little thorn I have to pluck from my side," he stated. At around the same time, a fairly sharp green blur shot by the Pterasniper, and a few seconds later, the sonic shockwave following said blur literally smacked the Zoid off course, sending it into a completely involuntary ascent, just as the Wild Eagle pulled into a snap J-turn, heading straight back down and then -

- the Pterasniper had it`s left wing cut off, along with the 120mm sniper rifle it had been using to try and take down the Raynos from the start, causing Tom to scream while the green Zoid set itself upright several hundreds of feet below, just as Samantha came up, reluctant to use her machine guns for fear of hitting her husband, who had just narrowly ejected from the crashing Pterasniper.

The Wild Eagle on the other hand, didn`t have to worry about hitting someone in a parachute, opening fire in a calculated manner. As predicted, Samantha snapped up and from there, it was all over.

The Stormsworder had been sliced in half on the Raynos` wing, right at it`s midsection in a diagonal cut. Samantha let out a cursing scream and then hit the ejector switch, zinging out of the cockpit with a puff of smoke as the ejectorseat`s engine kicked in, throwing her away from the soon-to-explode Stormsworder.

The Raynos on the other hand, swooped around a bit longer before the Wild Eagle set his sights on the two remaining targets on the ground. With a smirk though, he ceded control back to Jamie.

"You can deal with `em, I got what I wanted," he stated, just as Jamie let out a gasp and took back over, breathing hard as the Raynos slowed back down. It never felt easy when he switched in and out of personalities during a battle, even more so when the delayed realization that his surroundings had changed for some reason or another hit him. "I guess that leaves two more," he said to himself, raising the Raynos up and getting a good eye on the two targets on the ground. All it would take would be a good strafing run for the Spike Sniper, but the Genosaurer was going to be far harder to deal with.

"Warning! Warning! Unauthorized personnel have entered the battlefield, exit immediately!"

The Judge`s words seemed to fall on deaf ears though, just as a black streak shot into Jamie`s field of vision.

"Jamie Hameros?" A voice asked over the comm, surprising both Jamie and the Wild Eagle at the same time, causing the teen to glance up from his would-be targets and set his eyes on the incoming blur of movement in the distance. "Yeah?" He finally asked.

In a matter of seconds, the green Zoid shocked from almost a dozen small impacts, sending it to wobble in it`s flight path as the black streak dashed overhead, now revealed to be none other than a slightly familiar Black Stormsworder. Gritting his teeth slightly, the young pilot barreled out of the way of a return attack, quickly trying to avoid getting filleted on the Black Stormsworder`s crest-blade.

"Unauthorized interference! Battle canceled! Battle canceled! This match is a draw!"

In a flurry of dodges and attacks, the Stormsworder and the Raynos dueled, with Jamie only barely pulling through each time before breaking into a mind numbing series of loops and corkscrews in a vane attempt to escape his would-be assassin, but the Black Zoid kept after him, following every move he made with the skill of a seasoned master behind the joystick. Sonic booms flared, and several lasers pulsed through the air at the Stormsworder, the result of a severely ticked off Bill Chapman, though it was only a prelude to a streak of blue, red and black, stabbing through the air at the Black Stormsworder with agility no normal Zoid could hope to match in a thousand years.

For it`s effort, the Organoid known as Borealis managed to shake the pilot of the Stormsworder into breaking off of the attack on the Raynos.

"Rayth Takahori, leave the area at once or face strict penalties enforced by the Zoid Battle Comi-"

The one in the sky was followed by a smoking Borealis falling down from behing shield rammed by the equivelent of a normal Shield Liger, proving that the Black Stormsworder had more than a few tricks up it`s sleeves. The second came from a thinly crafted plasma beam, raining down from low orbit and cutting a swath of flame right up to the Judge Capsule, completely annihilating it before it could send off Rayth`s identity or the coordinates for a Judge Satellite to strike, let alone anything else.

"Borealis! You son of a bitch!" Bill yelled over the comm, just as the Genosaurer locked it`s footlocks down and started charging up, letting out a medium powered charged particle beam at the intruder a few moments later. The Black Stormsworder swiftly dodged, but it`s pilot let out a curse as Jamie reappeared, raking across his attacker`s back with all three of the Raynos` pulse guns, causing the Stormsworder to wobble around slightly from damage.

Another charged particle beam tore through the skies, Rayth narrowly twisted out of the way, Jamie followed suit.

"Want me to deal with him?" The Wild Eagle asked finally. He had been silent since giving control back to Jamie but now things had drawn him out of his semi-stupor. "No," Jamie stated resolutely. "I can handle him..."

And with that, Jamie hit the afterburners, breaking past the sound barrier three times at once in the course of only a few seconds. The acceleration slammed him back into his seat but that wasn`t a real issue. The Raynos broke into a barrel roll and the Black Stormsworder began to try and doge but by then it was already too late. With a raking screech, the back of the Stormsworder burst into flames as the Raynos skimmed by it, using the very tip of one wing to put a precise line right into the other Zoid`s back.

"Damn it," Rayth growled, rolling away and hitting his afterburners as well, promptly heading away from the battlefield, still being pursued by charged particle beams in the process.

Jamie only wiped the sweat from his forehead, slowing back down to a far saner speed, swinging around in a wide angled turn with an equally widening grin. For the first time, he had proven that he truly didn`t need the Wild Eagle, even if only because Rayth had allowed his ego to get the best of him, letting his guard down as a result. As for what happened after that?

God I love Babylon 5 :D And also: Yes, it was intentional for the Thunder Team to be so evenly matched with the Blitz Team. And yes, it was also intended that each member would share initials with his/her opposite number. And if you`re wondering: Tendro is a name pun. Tauros could be thought of as a mispronounced Taurus, a sign of the Zodiac. Tendro is Rodent if you spell it differently, and Rats are a sign in the Chinese or Japanese Zodiacs(forgot).

And no, Bram and Brad don`t have a history. They were just randomly insulting one another right off the bat.

Endless Adventure: Yeah, guess when ya look at it from that angle it isn`t TOO surprising. And yes, Bit is a closet Papaya addict *Snicker.*

Zinou: Yeah. Zeke always seemed the type that`d become a bit sarcastic over time, and given that he`s had around 245 years to perfect the art... >_> Eheh. And yeah, it`s nice to see him portrayed as someone who`s actually both competent AND! intelligent at once! Not to mention almost normal about his lovelife >_>; As for the handleblade... He`ll be getting a whole lotta mileage outta that thing when the time comes @_@

New Age by Sh33p

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New Age

Chapter 19

Broken Mirrors