New Age Chapter 27, 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

Battle mode 0972 was an older mode, mostly abandoned just like 0138 and close to a thousand or more others. It was, like several other battle modes, a battle between two or more sides taking place within a gigantic cage built around a six hundred foot wide, fifty foot deep crater. The difference between 0972 and it`s various counterparts was that it, like many of the older, rarely used battle modes, had the added stipulations that the only way to victory or defeat was surrender or escaping the cage.

The Zoids didn`t have to be intact for either to take place. More than any other, battle mode 0972 had cost numerous pilots their careers, and almost as many had lost their lives. Battles could last for hours on end, and to have battles last for a day or more at a time wasn`t that uncommon with 0972, nor was it terribly uncommon for pilots to climb out of downed Zoids and try to go at it hand to hand, which was where most of the real injuries tended to come from.

What differentiated 0972 from any other cage-styled battle mode however, was that the cage joined the fighting as well. The bars - which themselves were as tough as the heaviest armor on a Gojulas - were randomly charged with enough voltage to turn a cockpit into a deep fried oven, while now-aged, somewhat obsolete machine guns lined the underside of the Judge pod, still functional even after so many years of relentless torment from the local weather and even further relentless neglect by the Battle Commission that had forgotten them.

The Cage of Fate hadn`t taken a life in nine and a half years. Today, there was a very real, palpable chance that it would claim another victim. Or two of them.

With the ring of the bell still fresh in his ears and the sight of the Blue Saber Tiger in his eyes, Steven Tauros cracked his neck from side to side, pulling his gloves tight. It hadn`t always been this way, and it saddened him at what things had come to, but now it appeared that there was simply no other way to settle things. Attempts at conversation failed miserably, attempts at mailing failed even worse, gifts hadn`t worked and offers of friendship hadn`t worked, even the attempted peacemaking when one of the two men was half-dead had not worked.

Miles upon miles away, in unison, both children of Steven and Rina Tauros blinked and unwittingly glanced in the same direction, and even further from them, Oscar Hameros almost choked on his mid-morning cup of coffee, and just a room away from him, Maria Hameros seized up in the middle of flipping over the pancake she was making for a late breakfast.

"Shall we?" Steven asked, not the faintest hint of hesitation in his voice, though there was still something of a weight tied to it. "Lets," came the answer from Leyon, and in a matter of seconds, the silence that had only been interrupted by an infrequent blast of dusted, desert air erupted into the sounds of gunfire.

The two Zoids and their pilots were evenly matched, even though Leyon had a technological advantage, mainly since Steven had the same combination of skill, reflex and outright patience that his son was starting to show - even if the older Tauros male happened to be a bit loopy sometimes. Blasts of plasma echoed out of the barrels of the two large guns on the side of the Saber Tiger, only to be met with a silver burst of energy from the Liger`s Shield.

With speed and intensity, the two Zoids rounded after one another, dodging away from every incoming shot with skill and speed that had been dulled by years of inactivity, yet still held a very potent edge over anything that even many of the top Class A or mid-level Class S pilots could ever dream of touching. Suddenly though, the Saber Tiger slid to a stop, it`s mouth swinging open and from it issued forth a white burst of light, surrounded and etched into view by a neon blue outline.

The Red Shield Liger narrowly dodged, corkscrewing out of the way in mid-air and going for a classic shield ramming move like the one created by Van Fleiheit. This time, the Saber Tiger slipped out of the way, craftily jumping straight up and twisting upside down, landing that way on the inside of the enormous bars.

Somewhere in this darkness
There's a light that I can't find
Maybe it's too far away
Maybe I'm just blind...

The Saber Tiger rebounded before gravity could even take effect, springing back down at the Shield Liger and -

["Hey! Steve!" A twenty-five year old Leyon Martin called out. The other man, Steven Tauros, had to crane his neck to look back at his team mate from the under belly of the Red Shield Liger.

"What can I do for ya, Leyon?" He asked, loudly enough to echo through the currently half-empty Zoid hangar.

- Steven dodged out of the way by inches. The claws of the Tiger slammed into dirt, but the claws of the Liger hit home as the Red Zoid spun around on it`s hind legs, ruthlessly smacking the Saber upside the head and sending it into a twist through the air. Leyon recovered though, his Zoid landing with grace and ability that defied it`s own design. On all fours and with seconds to spare, the Blue Zoid hunched forward, and Leyon exposed one of his trump cards to the other -

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone

"What the heck is going on?" Leon asked himself, ignoring completely the bickering between Kyle and Marcus. For the life of him, he couldn`t figure out why Naomi had bothered sticking around to hear the two of them jabbing at one another, her sense of humor was probably more morbid than Brad`s could be at times. He didn`t ask though, and Naomi, for all of her usual observance, hadn`t been paying attention to the strange way he`d become detached in the past minute or so.

Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be

At the same time, around fifty or so miles away, Leena Tauros asked herself the same question, having yet to take her eyes off of the same direction that her brother was also still staring in. Unlike him though, she found herself staring not at the desert a few miles from where the battle raged, but instead at a currently unlit wall.

"Something..." She thought in slow unison to her older sibling. "Something is wrong..."

[The base`s kitchen, a day and a half later, roughly 3:25 AM. Leyon was gone, renewing the team`s registration and Steven was currently thumping his head against the same table that would one day be used as a skull cracker by Brad Hunter after losing the Shadow Fox to Marcus Harlock in a game of cards.

"Somethin` wrong?" Oscar asked with a yawn, apparently roused out of his sleep, either by his fiance`s recent cold or the one that he himself was starting to come down with. "Yeah," Steven asked between thumps and thuds. "And that would be?"

Oscar perked in disbelief. "You? Love? Is that even possible?" The hispanic man asked in outright surprise, mainly since Steven had a formidable track record of burying his face into his work every time a girl so much as winked at him. "... Still..."

"Can`t come up with the right wording," Steven explained, holding up a half wrinkled sheet of paper that looked like a rough draft. Oscar groggily swiped it and began to read.

"My love for you... Blah, blah, blah... Jesus, Steven. You`re a sappier bastard than I thought..."

"Shut up," the other grumbled. "I could do it for ya, if you want," Oscar offered, crumpling the already battered piece of paper in one hand, tossing it to the other and then dropping it into the nearby trash can. The idea was more than a little appealing, especially given that Oscar had written love letters that had reduced his fiance, Maria, to little more than a puddle of mushy sap and goo in a matter of days - and that had been before he`d ever actually identified himself.

- and a blast of what looked like a visual distortion of air slammed into the ground around where the Shield Liger had been standing. The result was a complete negation of gravity for almost two tenths of a second, flinging the hapless Steven for a loop at the same speed as the planet`s rotation, only to have gravity kick back in just in time to yank him back down before his Zoid could be sliced in half by the dull, round cage bars. At almost mach two or three, the Shield Liger smashed into the ground, rebounding back up and skidding along to the edge of the crater wall and kicking up a sizable cloud of dust as a result.

It was only by the grace of luck and chance that the Zoid and it`s pilot hadn`t both been killed by the impact, in fact - Steven`s modifications to the Red Shield over the years insured that it had come through almost unscathed aside from a few dozen superficial scratches and a big dent across the back of the Zoid`s head.

"I see you refined your Anti-Gravity Device," Steve exclaimed between ragged gasps for air. Even if little physical trauma had taken place, it had still knocked the air right out of his lungs.

"Be glad I aimed away from you. You don`t want to know the effect it has on the gravity that holds your sub-atomic structuring together," Leyon replied coldly. Dizzily and exhaustedly, the Red Shield Liger rose back up, shifting uneasily as the Zoid sought to regain it`s own balance. "Lets not make this anymore technical than it already is," Tauros muttered. "Agreed."

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

"Something wrong?" Naomi asked, finally taking notice of the strange way that Leon had been staring in a worried fashion off in the distance. She also finally noticed that he hadn`t blinked for two minutes straight. "Leon?" She asked again. Still no response, but he finally blinked and shook his head no.

"I don`t think so," he replied in a delayed manner, still looking overly thoughtful. "You sure?"

Naomi quirked up a thin, red brow but said nothing. Leon Tauros wasn`t indecisive unless something was eating the hell out of him, and even then he tended to get over it with a speed that Naomi almost envied at some times and felt glad it wasn`t her own pacing at others. Right now though? Right now she was very correct in reasoning that something was gnawing away at the edge of the man`s senses like a piranha going after the carcass of a dead horse in the water.

["Bwahaha!" Leyon grinned with an almost insane tone to his voice as he toppled Steve`s forces for the third straight time in one evening. It was raining like a wet hell outside the base, but inside the main hangar - like almost every other night in the huge structure, the sounds of a game to be played were running rampant in the ears of the base`s four occupants. This time, it was a game of Fitz Battling, but usually it ranged from mish-mashed, scrap-constructed simulator combat to old school LAN networking.

Maria and Oscar weren`t too far away, but like most nights since the two had first become an item, the two were more focused on sprucing up the Raynos - one of their mutual passions happened to be piloting. Maria`s own Pteras sat not too far from the Raynos, a stark contrast since it was geared more for pure agility and burst firepower than speed and sustained combat.

A crack of thunder though, and a knock on the door and Leyon paused his celebrations of victory.

"Loser has to get the door," he stated, rubbing in his night of victory. Steven shrugged good naturedly, hauling his body off the floor and stumbling over to the door after tripping on a pipe that had been lying in the way.

Without further delay though, the supposed junior member of the Blitz Team arrived at the smaller, personal door that sat a few feet to the side of the enormous hangar door that outright dwarfed it three or four times over, if not more so. A hand on the knob, a simple flick of the wrist afterward and a tug to follow, and the door swiftly opened to reveal a dashingly beautiful young woman, dark red hair done up in a fairly lengthy, high ponytail at the back of her head, dressed in a long raincoat and holding an umbrella.

"Uh... Here to s-" "I got your letter," Rina Fleiheit stated with a quirky little smile before standing on her tip-toes and outright leveling Leyon and Steven alike, the former by watching and the first by experiencing a kiss so intense that it almost buckled his knees.

- and both made the same move at the same moment, lashing out with their claws rather than their guns. The two Zoids crashed into one another halfway through their jumps, practically coming to a dead stop in mid-air for all of a split second before Steven took the offensive, locking the Shield Liger`s jaw around the base of the Saber Tiger`s neck, then yanking the other Zoid straight down to the ground for a near body slam-type of move. Again, dust rippled from the impact point, and again, there was a pause.

"Give it up," Steve ordered. The reply that met him was defiant and angry, in more ways than one.

"I told you already," Leyon began, just as the Saber Tiger rose with a war cry, smacking the Shield Liger off guard in the chin and throwing the other Zoid into a backflip.

Leyon again pulled the trigger and the dual pulse cannons in the sides of the Blue Tiger flipped into view once more, just as Steven flipped his own heavy weaponry out of it`s place atop the Red Liger`s back.

When your education x-ray
Can not see under my skin
I won't tell you a damn thing
That I could not tell my friends

["It`s not his fault!" Oscar yelled as an irate, tearful Leyon stormed for his Zoid. "I`m the one who wr-" "SHUT UP! AND WHILE YOU`RE AT IT, TELL THAT BACK STABBING SON OF A BITCH I QUIT!!!"]

["Leyon?" A severely burnt Rina Tauros asked, her voice as raspy as someone with throat cancer. Despite that, the ring to it still stirred the former Blitz Team member right out of his light rest, and his hand tightened reflexively around her own. "I`m here."

"It`s okay, I`m right here. To the end," Leyon stated darkly, scooting forward and placing his other hand around the one he was already holding. Steven wasn`t in the room, the two had drawn straws since neither was really able to stomach the sight of the woman who had captured both of their hearts, not in her current state anyway. He was sitting outside, with Oscar, Maria and he and Rina`s son and one year old daughter.

"Thanks... You`ve always been there for me, haven`t you?" Rina asked between a pair of hacking coughs, almost stirring Leyon to call a nurse out of concern for her. In answer though, he just nodded lightly, giving an affirming squeeze since he doubted she could see him given how much damage could have been done to her sight. "Steven`s outside with... Leon and Leena. We drew straws since neither of us were really up to seeing you like this an-" "You don`t. Need to explain it," she cut him off with a small sigh. "It`d be the same either way..."

"What do you mean?" He asked cautiously. Rina gave a small, very resigned sigh, raspily breathing one of her last.

And with that, Rina Fleiheit-Tauros died. Leyon felt the life seep out of her comparitively frail, badly burnt form, and the experience was one that would mar him to the end of his days.]

Six explosions rocked the crater, causing the enormous cage that domed over it to rumble about ever so slightly from the sheer force of the blasts. Steven`s aptly dubbed Impulse Shockwave Cannons were more than an even match for the Ion Pulse Guns that Leyon had designed, and the combined effects of all six shots going off at once had been enough to rattle just about everything within the space of a an eighth of a mile around the crater-turned-warzone.

Brutally again, the two Zoids met, clashing violently and rapidly as claws and fangs flew, but the mentality of the pilots went beyond mere combat. This was a battle of spirit against spirit, fate against fate and spite against pity. Again, the Red Shield Liger buckled, Leyon took the offensive but Steven was a split second faster, yanking the raker-styled controls into the proper pattern and allowing the Blue Saber Tiger to smash head first into his energy shield, flinging the other Zoid straight back into the air.

Leyon recovered with a back flip, landing with a four-round procession of thuds on the hard packed dirt of the crater, squeezing the trigger again and unleashing a blitzkrieg of hellfire from the triple impact cannon on the Tiger`s chest. All of the rounds hit the shield, vaporizing instantly in puffs of super charged static and smoke - Leyon`s technical prowess struck again, the effect was that the shield cut out instantly for a split second.

Steven had to react at a blinding pace, side-flipping the Liger out of the way of another four pulse cannon shots, then repeating the dodge into the opposite direction as Leyon let loose with another beam of energy from the Tiger`s fanged mouth.

It was a vicious battle, no quarter asked, none given, and only one victor could emerge.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone

[Slowly, in dejected fashion, the door into the hospital room swung open and Leyon Martin stepped out, eyes clenched shut, face held nearly taut in an expression of pain that said his words for him. Steven, who sat nearby with his outright traumatized son, Leon, sitting beside him, instantly broke down. Maria, who held the snoozing Leena also came close to the edge of tears, and Oscar was gravely silent. Leon had been the first to arrive after the accident had happened, the boy was probably going to be effected for the rest of his life. Everyone else had pieced things together as it was - the constant bickering between Steve and Leyon had meant that neighter thought to fix the only automobile owned by the entire Blitz Team, and Oscar wasn`t fit to handle such a thing.

Sorrowfully, Leyon walked away. He said nothing, he made no motion or acknowledgement of anyone and instead just walked away, halting a few dozen steps down. The sound of a hospital wall giving to the force of a solid punch gave off a few seconds later, and Leyon continued on his way, leaving behind a visible hole in the side of the hallway. It would be a long time before he even spoke to anyone, and it would be a longer time before the Tauros family pulled themselves back together.]

Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be

"You`re really starting to worry me here..." Naomi stated with actual, visible concern. Mark and Kyle had left by now, but the other two were still lingering around, if only because the original Red Comet was too concerned to really do anything other than stare at her zoned out team mate. Whatever was wrong with Leon, it had to be very bad to keep him focused on it for this long.

"What`s wrong?" She asked, a frank expression showing on her normally placid, laid back face. "... Nothing," Leon replied, still staring off in the distance. "Bullshit, Leon. Your attention span for problems isn`t long enough to keep out of touch with reality this long unless something is very wrong. Now tell me," she demanded hotly, brows furrowed with annoyance and concern, perhaps a hint of betrayal given that the two were literally so close that neither really kept anything from the other. Heck, they`d both seen each other nude more than a few times, and that was simply because they were as comfortable as they were around each other.

The end result was that Naomi didn`t like feeling as though Leon was hiding a secret from her. It wasn`t a romantic relationship, but it wasn`t an ordinary friendship either. There were literally no secrets between them, at least none she knew of.

"I don`t know, alright?" Leon grumbled out after a brief delay. "Just feels like something is wrong and I can`t tell what."

"Does it have to do with the fact that you`ve been staring out at the desert for close to fifteen minutes without blinking more than four times?" Naomi snorted. "... You`re right. It does," Leon replied with a blink.

Naomi didn`t even get the chance to question him further, Leon was already turning back and breaking into a sprint for the Red Blade Liger, and by the time she had even gotten the words out of her mouth, he was already climbing inside.

"I`ll meet you back in Farentown!" Leon yelled out, just as the Zoid`s cockpit slid shut. With a roar of both boosters and the Liger`s own vocals alike, the large, crimson Zoid was already zooming away at full speed. Naomi was left alone to blink for several seconds and then seethe a bit.

"Men," she finally thought with a baleful shake of the head, climbing into her Gustav and driving off after Leon at the transport Zoid`s full speed.

"Something is going down out there," Leon began, feeling it all nagging at the very edge of his senses. The Red Blade gained a quick burst of speed as it`s pilot`s thought was unwittingly finished out by someone else.

"And I`m gonna find out," Leena Tauros stated to herself in thought, ruthlessly commandeering a jeep since her Gunsniper was weighted down by all of it`s modifications. A twist of the key and the small vehicle took off into the desert, in the same direction as the one her older brother was headed in, much to the curiosity of Brad Hunter, who was still standing in the hangar, and still listening to Bit and Bill argue about the sandwhich that had earlier been smathered across the side of his face.

It was probably the first time in a week or more that Leena had gone outside to begin with. The air might do her some good after all.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

In vicious fashion, chunks of the crater walls kept outright vaporizing, the very molecules that held the dirt together ripping apart from one another for seconds on end before clouds could even emerge as a result of each impact, and for every pulse of anti-gravity, another four bursts of plasma and three individual shots from a triple impact cannon. All of them missed, and for every shot from them, the Red Shield retaliated with two bolts from it`s impulse cannons, three shots from it`s triple impact cannon and two sustained beams from the double laser gun hidden in the Zoid`s back. All of them missed as well.

There was a hard crash and the Shield Liger faltered back amid a shower of sparks, landing with a thud on the crater`s gently angled wall, rolling down briefly before making it back to it`s feet. Steven was breathless, Leyon was as well. For close to twenty minutes now, the two had been exchanging gunshots and claw swipes, but neither had spoken much of a word during the furious, almost unending exchange of attacks and defenses, parries and dodges.

"Not as rusty as I thought I was," Steven commented with a dry swallow. Leyon mirthlessly smirked from within the cockpit of the Blue Saber Tiger. "We`ve both been better," he exclaimed reluctantly. "But enough with talking, I want this over with."

"You`re never going to stop and call it quits without this ending, are you?" Steven asked after a several second long lull.

["Hello there, Tauros," Leyon exclaimed proudly, leering down at the trashed Zoids on the battlefield. Even the Judge was down. Class D wasn`t a familiar place for either of the former Warriors, but since Leon was still a considerable rookie, Leena was just getting her feet for Zoid combat and the mercenary named Brad wasn`t exactly at the top of his game either, it was all they could manage. It was, at least, a good step up from Class E.

"Leyon?" Steve asked in surprise and anger at the sight of his team, the Judge and the opposing team all leveled in a matter of seconds by the EMP missiles of the passing Whale King. "Who else?"

It had been one of the countless battles between the two, but it had also been one of the most foreboding as well.]

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone

"Faster," Leon thought in a rush, pushing the throttle forward to it`s absolute limits, then thumbing the booster hard enough that it almost became stuck at full power. Again, the Red Blade Liger responded in kind, bursting forward like a cheetah and tirelessly blasting by the nearby Blitz Team base, much to the curiosity of those who were still assembled in the hangar. Seeing the red streak didn`t mean they could identify it, but it was still quite a surprise given how relatively peaceful things were most of the time.

Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be

It was another unintended coincidence that Leon`s actions came close to mirroring those of his sister. Leena wasn`t the best driver, she`d probably flunked the test to get a permit two or three times before ever succeeding, but she was still competent enough to handle a four wheel drive vehicle in the middle of the open desert at full speed. Planting the petal almost through the flooring of the vehicle wasn`t the smoothest thing to do - especially since that type of action put a lot more wear and tear on it than would happen otherwise - but given the strange feeling bugging at the edge of Leena`s senses, she could`ve honestly cared less about the condition of the jeep by the time she finished with it.

Something was going on, and moving at just over a hundred miles an hour, Leena was intent on finding out just what in the hell it was.

I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good

And far behind both of them, at full speed, came the Gustav. With nearly the same top speed as the jeep that Leena had commandeered, it was still getting outpaced badly by the Blade Liger but it was also still making relatively good timing.

"I`m gonna jerk a knot in his ass if he doesn`t tell me what this is about when I see him," she grumbled in thought, brows still furrowed into a very serious frown. With a quiet rumble, the Gustav continued trucking along at full speed, heading for the same battle that was still raging on within a crater within a valley in the desert, hundreds of miles away.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

"Yes. This has gone on long enough, it`s time to end our little game. Once and for all."

"A Zoid battle. Your Shield Liger versus my Saber Tiger, best equipment we can find on both."

In the middle of a crater situated in the middle of a valley located in the middle of a desert, two men and two Zoids fought each other. Morality was out the window, friendship once tighter than brothers went with it. Ethics and mercy meant nothing, there was no surrender, no retreat. The cause they fought for was as deeply personal as any other excuse men had ever used to fight one another, perhaps even more so than a good many of them. It was also a battle as intense as any that had raged across Zi during it`s conflict-prone history.

It was a battle for the heart of a woman dead for close to fifteen years, and a battle over revenge that held little true logic to it.

The Shield Liger took the offensive once more, crashing into the battle weary Saber Tiger with a colossal hail of fragmented debris - pulverized armor from both Zoids that had been struck away by the impact between them. Again, the Saber Tiger faltered back, and again, Steven charged forward, throwing up his shield and ramming Leyon head to head.

Steven made for another charge, but this time, Leyon was more than prepared for the attack, jumping straight up into a corkscrew of twists and turns and landing right behind the Red Shield. Steven cornered hard, running at an angle that defied the laws physics along the crater wall, continuing until he was springing along on the huge bars of the caged battleground, just as the machine gun turrets swung up into active.

Sparks flew from thousands of missed impacts, and the Red Shield seemed to almost skid to a halt, completely upside down in the process. As soon as gravity had begun to take effect, Steve jumped his Zoid, twisting it upright in mid-air only to let out a scream of surprise when the Blue Saber struck out, lunging through the air and outright tackling the slightly larger Zoid from the air.

- and the Shield Liger slammed into the ground with a roll, flinging the Saber Tiger up into the air and springing back to it`s feet -

- only for the Liger`s back to vaporize at an instant from an anti-gravity pulse, followed by it`s hind end. A loud screech of an almost dying Zoid and Steven yanked on the ejection lever, causing the cockpit to blow open, his chair bursting up like a phoenix from within, powered into the air by a lone single stage booster, which dropped away after less than a second. In the process of this, Leyon, irate as ever, neglected to realize the enormous electrical surge running through the bars of the cage as the Tiger came ever closer, finally landing on one of the huge bars at an angle and...

The cockpit lit up like a Christmas Tree, but Leyon absolutely refused to quit, smashing through the small covering over the ejector button and causing the electrified cockpit of the Saber Tiger to blow open just like that of the Liger.

With a burst of his own single stage rocket-powered ejector seat, Leyon Martin went flying forward at an angle, heading straight at Steven Tauros. Leyon was still in his ejector seat, Steve had just popped open his low altitude parachute, and the collision between the two was both violent and ugly, with Steven almost outright impaled on Leyon`s shoulder, his parachute yanking the two into an even uglier crash landing along the side of the crater wall, with Leyon taking the brunt of it upside down in his flight chair, the padding being the only thing that saved he and Tauros both from serious injury or death.

For a second, they hung like that, both men gasping for air, and then they tumbled loose. Leyon rolled down, springing out of his chair halfway and launching himself into the wall, Steven sliding along into him with what looked like a dropkick into either shoulder. Rapidly, the two continued down before coming to a stop at the edge of the flat portion of the crater floor, both lying there.

"This," Steven began between ragged breaths, not yet able to budge an inch. For all intents and purposes, Leyon was the same, Steven`s booted feet still planted firmly into his shoulders, lying on his face in the dirt.

"Is absolutely insane," Tauros managed to finish after getting his breath. "Then give up," Leyon ordered exhaustedly, slowly coming up to his hands and knees and then rolling away onto his back. Neither man could move, both were just having to lay there and get their breath and strength back after one of the most intense battles that history would never record, yet that had only been half of the battle.

After almost twenty more minutes of lying there, saying and doing nothing, the two worn down scientists slowly rose back up with the resilience and determination - and sheer spite - of warriors not seen on Zi in centuries. Both stood with their arms hanging, their postures mirroring each other, their expressions the same, even their breathing was in the same pattern.

With loud, matching yells, both men charged at each other, ragged steps turning into exhausted sprinting strides. They met halfways, and Leyon`s size came into play as Steven jump, yanking his body backwards at the same time as he planted his feet into the heavier man`s stomach, flipping Leyon right through the air. Both skidded along to a stop over the course of a foot from where each landed, and they were back up at the same time, driving together and locking hands in a power struggle like few others.

Leyon took the initiative first, using his weight and the leverage that came with it to fling Steve right off his feet in a near judo-like fashion, though there was nothing pretty about the move. Neither of the two knew more than a basic style of hand-to-hand combat favored by the militaries of the Guylos and Helic nations, and it wasn`t a flashy technique. That aside, they only knew how to brawl, and contrary to popular belief, Steven Tauros and Leyon Martin(along with Oscar Hameros) had been in more than a few bar room brawls over the years.

Steven rolled back to his feet though, not terribly quickly or with much agility since he, like Leyon, was still completely winded from the earlier crash landing on the crater wall. Even then though, the two continued fighting, with Leyon barreling forward as quickly as he could, then literally plowing through Steven with a shoulder into the chest. Both men toppled over, with Tauros taking the majority of the impact and Leyon rolling away on his shoulders from his own momentum.

Again though, they were back up, and just like before, Leyon charged in, but Steve was ready for him this time, ducked under the former football player`s fists and grabbing him by the legs. Once that was done, all he had to do was stand up straight and throw the larger man right back down to the ground, continuing the attack with a jump and an elbow into the side of the neck. Leyon gave a hacking sputter afterward, but he was back up once more at the same time as Tauros, grabbing the lighter of the two combatants by one arm and outright throwing him straight up into the air -

- then yanking him back down by the same arm, slamming Steven into the ground with what sounded like a soundful crack of the younger man`s lower back.

"Take it up with Oscar, I only messed up by not telling him who it was supposed to be from," Steven replied after several seconds, pain echoing through in his voice. Leyon kept his grip though, yanking the other right back to his knees and then decking him flat out across the face. With a spurt of blood from a busted cheek, Steven toppled over onto his side and stayed there.

"Crazy, pointy headed bastard," Steve muttered, coming up on hands and knees and then making it slowly back to his feet, though his back was noticably stiff.

"Better to be insane and pointy headed than to play with toys," Leyon shot back, straightening up. Steven twitched.

"Better to play with toys than to have a Ramen noodle fetish!" He yelled, straightening up in kind.

The next exchange again saw no words, Leyon started the attack and Steve sidestepped, letting loose with a swift kick into the back of the heavier man`s legs in mid-stride, then as Martin fell back, the younger scientist flatly smashed him across the cheek with a backhand, furthering the older man`s fall before toppling over backwards as well.

Now they were both bleeding, from places on the cheek that made their facial wounds look like mirrors of each other. For several seconds, neither did anything other than lay there, but then, Steven sprang forward, just as Leyon threw a punch at random, catching the other completely offguard with a shot into the bottom of the jaw. Steven`s entire skull rattled, it was a wonder none of his teeth flew out, but the result was that his head flew back, followed by the rest of him. He landed with a sickening roll backwards, right onto his stomach.

Leyon was the only one to get up this time, grinning like the absolute maniac that he was as Tauros pried himself back off the ground with an exhausted wheeze or two. Only one of them stood straight now, and that was the older, heavier of the two. Steven was practically on dream street, his vision was somewhat blurred and his head was throbbing, but that didn`t matter.

This time, the younger of the two made the attack, literally throwing all of his weight into a single punch that Leyon barely ducked under. The heavier man grabbed the lighter around the waist in a bearhug, and then it was all over as Leyon put every ounce of pressure he could on the small of Steven`s back, heaving the lighter of the two off of his feet and stumbling around as he did so.

A dry thud, a delirious laugh and then a second thud followed by a second delirious laugh a few minutes later. Steven lay on his back, Leyon on his side, seperated by about two feet, laying with their feet nearest each other. Both of them were laughing.

Author`s Note: Those two may be old but they can still throw the hell down with the best of them, huh? x_X; And on a sidenote: Expect this to be one of(if not) the only true songfic chapter in the entire story of NA. When I`m Gone just happened to suit the whole feel of what I was going for so...

And yes, it was intentional to make Rina`s last name Fleiheit. And yes, that does make Bit distantly related to Leena and Leon. It will probably be explained in depth later on, but for a bit of a starter on it: Van wasn`t an only child, remember? There was also Maria *Snicker.*

Zinou: *Gets out the branding iron with "KFG" on it, aka Kale Fan Girl.* :P And yeah, the whole interaction between the Blitz and Thunder Teams was pretty fun to write. I had been wanting to have Zeke, Borealis, Bit and Bill all meet for a good while, so it made for a nice bit of comedy relief to have them bludgeon the snot out of each other over a sandwhich... Which wound up splattered on Brad`s face >_>; *Quickly puts the remains of said-sandwhich up for auction.* The scene with Stoller and Vega was actually meant to flesh them both out... Vega`s matured a bit too rapidly for his own good, Stoller is still very obscure but consider that the first bit of a look into the character dynamic of those two.

And as for the heavens weeping... Meh heh heh hehhhh... *Twitch.* And also: I rather prefer one I ripped off the Warhammer 40kers, namely "REPENT, FOR TOMORROW YOU DIE!!!" Just has a nice, subtle ring to it, yanno?

EndlessAdventure: Mark and Kyle`ve had their major shining moment for the time being. They`ll keep showing up whenever I can cram them in(there are still a few scenes I have in store for them, after all...), but that was basically their main starring part/s. And yes, I rather enjoyed them half asleep and mildly insane, but ah well... Least they`re still bitching, bickering and ripping each other to shreds, yes? As for Leena... I`ve been needing to flesh out the damage that Kale inflicted on her pretty badly. Really, she`s been hospitalized for most of the story so far so it`s time for some character development.

Mark and Brad may or may not have their duel anymore. I`m not sure if and when it`ll happen, and Brad isn`t being Fox-sick because he misses the Shadow Fox. It`s another thing you`ll have to wait to see fleshed out :P I got the name 'Kale' from a character in a Dragoness Eclectic story(Mythic Descent and then Yamcha`s Student, both good stuff), later it evolved into Kalan(which has a story of it`s own) and then switched back to Kale around the time of Just A Kid.

In case ya didn`t figure it out: Leyon won. Bet you were expecting Tauros to pull one out of his ass, huh? As for the Geno Breaker... Technically thats out of the question. The Fury is the next evolution up from the Breaker in NA, which means Shadow and Kale have something else up their sleeves. Leena will pilot a Zoid, yes.

Rhade: Glad someone agrees about the defeat... Even the Blitz Team took a loss in the original series, same with the CC/GF cast. It was also to prove a point that Kyle and Mark still have a long way to go before they realize their 'potential.' *Hears Zinou snickering in the background.* ... >_>; Don`t mind her. And yes, action tends to get shoved aside in most romance fics. Hell, most of the characters tend to get shoved aside in romance fics too, but thats beside the point.

Hopefully this one blew the lot of you all away. By and far, I`ve always felt that the triangle between Leyon, Steven and Leon and Leena`s mother was always one of the few things that the series(and every single god damn fanfiction around) neglected. As such, someone had to give the lot of them some spotlight, and this is that moment. And hopefully you could sense some real emotion in the flashbacks(which were bracketed and italicized) rather than overdone dramatics... Was one of the few times I`ve tried to pull off a romantic tragedy so...

*Shrugs.* Enough rambling from me. Enjoy, leave a review, Sh33p out and see ya next time!

New Age by Sh33p

Chapter 35

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New Age

Chapter 27

When I'm Gone, The Duel of Fates