By Sh33p, CultofSh33p@aol.com
The great sequal of New Age. It'll knock your socks off. Tim Seltzer, seltzer@seltzerbooks.com
Sh33p Disclaimer: I don`t own Zoids. Consider this disclaimer valid for the whole damn story :P
Foreword: Pick something laid back and dark, if possible, though
I do recommend something like the opening theme for Babylon 5`s fifth season
for one part in specific...
"How did we get in here again?"
"Your friend overtook one guard, I tackled another, you managed to kick one in the shin and deck him and then your friend shot all six of them. Then the two of us managed to cram ourselves into the vents," Leyla haphazardly explained from the front of the two-part line that she and Jamie had formed in their path through the cramped space of the Emerald Nightmare`s ventilation shafts. It was only just wide enough for Jamie - being passingly wider, a bit thicker and about a forehead taller than Leyla - to fit into, and even then he was having to compress his shoulders up into the sides of his neck, hustling along and dragging himself on his elbows since his legs and arms were just an inch or two too long to allow him to crawl like Leyla could manage.
About the only blessings he had right about now were two things. The first was that he`d had the seeming misfortune of having never taken off his flight suit after the battle - which meant he`d been wearing the same thing for about three days now. Give or take a few hours. That meant that although he did smell a bit rank, he was still wearing elbow and knee pads under his clothes, and even if they`d swiped his vest, he still had his gloves, boots and the fact that his shirt and his jeans were both required to be padded for dealing with point blank shrapnel damage, and while the padding wasn`t thick enough to be visible, it made quite a difference when one was hauling along on their elbows, knees, scraping along with the sides of their feet and laying on their stomach in a cramped air vent.
The other plus?
He wasn`t sure if that thought came from his hormones or the Wild Eagle, but he felt that the other plus was the view. Jamie was a fifteen year old male. Sure, he was civilized in comparison to the usual young man his age, sure, his brain was in the big head, but still. He was hauling himself along behind a girl his own age(physically and mentally, at least) who was wearing semi-tight, slightly thin, white clothing and on top of that, she was starting to sweat...
"And you call me a pig..."
"You are. Shut up," Jamie retorted sharply at the voice in his head, utterly annoyed in the extreme to have his nice little pleasant train of thought knocked off track.
"Could you please stop doing that?" Leyla asked knowingly, halting and glancing down between her arms and legs, so that her head hung upside down and allowed her to see Jamie.
"Doing what?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Talking to that thing."
"I can`t shut him out like you could with yours," Jamie replied annoyedly.
"Well, I`m hearing enough voices right now. Cut me some slack and just shut up with him, or talk with your mouth so that I`m not having to tune you out too," Leyla ordered, having finally set her foot down on something. That was something else Jamie liked about her - he finally realized. She never made a demand without having a valid reason for it, unlike Leena, who stole his clothes, Naomi, who barely even acknowledged him without wanting something from him, or Pierce, who had merely teased and mocked him the one time they`d met.
"Will do..." He finally half-mumbled, continuing to squirm along in
the dark. Half-heartedly, he actually realized that he`d been spending
a lot of time in the dark lately. About everything.
Street rat. Pick pocket. Gang member. Drug smuggler. Gun runner. Zoid thief. Mercenary. Professional.
Bart Huntley, Brandon Hunt, Bill Huntsman, Bret Hunts...
Brad Hunter had been a lot of things and a lot of unimaginatively named people in his lifetime, but being disguised as a nameless private wasn`t one of them. The uniform had no listing on it other than his rank. Styled similarly to those of Guylos officers, to an extent, it was baggy at some parts, tight in others, and about the only thing he actually liked about it was the fact that it was all black and had nothing flashy hanging off of it. Even the tag representing his rank wasn`t made of any metals, it was more or less a piece of plastic that blended in with the rest of the uniform and had only the rank and a barcode stamped on it, barely visible.
The uniform was a bitch for his hair though, he`d had to tuck all of it into the back of the collar in such a way that it wouldn`t look like that was what he was doing, and he`d managed. Not easily, but he had pulled it off with reasonable success. He wasn`t wearing a Gestapoesque hat like some of the officers - he guessed they were officers - so that made hiding his identity a bit more troublesome. The answer to this?
Make sure to stick to the darkest places possible. The entire Whale King was kept pretty well lit but there were limits in any massive Zoid`s convenience for crew - and those limits were where the benefits started for intruders. In this case, it was the poorly lit areas like the brig, or hallways that only served the purpose of exposing pipes and circuitry for repair, or those rarely visited rooms and passageways like the cargo holds.
Currently, he`d settled quite nicely into one of those same cargo holds, having found himself a strangely useful seat on a steel beam just a few feet under the ceiling, just out of the direct line of sight for anyone coming in and just wide enough to hide his thin body if he laid on his side and they looked up. The air was unmoving, stiff and lacked any real smell to it other than what smelled oddly like one of the chemicals used by most modern military to store just about everything, mainly since this particular chemical was designed to eat away at the specific molecular formula that was responsible for dust. Kill the dust, you kill any insects that eat it.
He could tell this particular chemical wasn`t used for food or clothing because it lacked the side-stench that came with human-friendly pesticides. That meant - judging by the size of the crates that were stacked just a few feet shy of the girter he was sitting on - that this was an ammo hold or a gun storage room. If either were correct, that would make his day a whole lot easier.
"To check now, or to wait until a lackey comes and leaves?" He asked himself, wondering when someone would periodically check up on ammunition, which was standard procedure in just about any military or paramilitary force.
"Should`ve found a food room," he thought to himself upon deciding to
wait it out, giving off a sigh and laying his head down onto the bend of
his elbow. Better safe than sorry, right?
"Slow down!" Leon yelled out, his voice packing all the authority of a general at war. The evacuation was proceeding at a remarkably smooth pace, even though it was fracturing more families than he wanted to think. At present, he was standing at the right side of the forward edge of the Empress Heart`s jaw, positioned atop an empty ammo crate that was some twelve or thirteen feet tall, holding a portable loudspeaker in one hand and a jury-rigged walkie talkie-styled communicator in the other.
It was just an example of what people like Leyon and his father could come up with in thirty seconds of boredom. There were ten of them already, thrown together out of misc cell phone parts and a few stereos, connected on an newly-created frequency(courtesy of Naomi, actually. Few people could ever guess it, but the Gunsniper pilot was a fairly skilled communications specialist) to the Whale King`s main network. Each had about a half a mile for range and were perfect for holding a short-distance conference call, even through the armored hull of the Empress Heart.
"Once inside, await further instructions! Do not touch the Zoids and avoid any ordnance, if you find any problems, report them to a speakerphone - but only if they`re severe! If you have any experience in the military, feel free to head to elevator three and report to the bridge! If you have any experience as a doctor, do the same!" He continued shouting, much to the amusement of several people on the bridge of the Whale King, chief among them being Sarah Obscura.
Over the course of the past hours, she had increasingly come to the forefront, having more experience with people and manipulating, leading, comforting and keeping them in order than any of the others put together. She was effectively the brains of the operation thus far, and for someone who had once longed to hold the reigns of power in another group, and in another time, it was quite a refreshing change. Not so refreshing were the change in clothes - she`d only had time to switch from her prison jumpsuit to a pair of blandly grayish-colored pants and a black t-shirt under a thin, light blue jacket - but it was still good to be in control of something.
As for what was amusing to her?
"He`s a natural," she finally said with a shake of the head, looking away from the small monitor and glancing over at Leyon and Steven. They`d been having a regular ball with themselves, serving as the operation`s hands. When something needed to be fixed or created - like the communicators that they`d basically thrown together in under ten minutes of actual work - they were the ones who did it.
"That`s my boy... And that`s my cup of noodles, you damn pasta fetishist!"
"DAMNIT, I WAS THE ONE WHO COOKED `EM!" Leyon screamed back irately, holding the cup of steaming ramen noodles in one hand and using his other - along with a foot - to hold Steve back from stealing them.
"... Hnn..." Sarah sounded, quirking a brow up and ignoring the antics of her not-so-esteemed colleagues, glancing back to the monitor and switching over to another camera. This one showed Leena, who had essentially become something of a jackette-of-all-trades. She helped where she could, if it was in just throwing more hands into a job, crowd control, checking out problems before they could become serious, even going so far as to help move most of the Zoids onto the HoverCargo and out of the hangar - with the aid of Naomi`s Gustav, of course.
The scarred girl was rapidly growing up and maturing quite nicely, in Sarah`s eyes, changing from a spoiled brat to a hands-on anchor to reality for just about everyone she spoke to. Another switch of the camera view, Sarah observed the other of the two most recent additions to the misfit crew that was manning the Empress Heart.
Naomi Fluegel was playing the part of dedicated crowd control, standing on the crate at the opposite side of the Whale King`s jaw to Leon, holding an assault rifle in the classic ready-to-aim stance of a peacekeeping soldier, having kept the weapon neatly concealed in the floor of her Gustav, right in front of the back seat. She`d also opted out for a change in clothing, switching from her former outfit to a pair of black, tight pants with a pair of red stripes running along the outer side of each leg, along with a matching, sleeveless top. She wasn`t going for style, she was going for intimidation, and that was about the most intimidating outfit she`d had readily available.
Not that an assault rifle being held by one of the most accurate gunfighters alive wasn`t intimidating enough, as is, but she was still going for that extra 'umph,' so to speak.
"Keep `em coming! Slowly, if you get seperated from family or friends, step off to the side and wait for them, if that fails, we`ll just have to improvise a loudspeaker and pick a spot to bring you back together! Stay calm, keep moving..."
"Repetitive, isn`t he?" Naomi droned in thought, reaching up and brushing
an errant strand of hair out of her face, then dropping her hand back down
onto the stock of the weapon, looking ever ready to blow someone`s brains
out on a moment`s notice. She didn`t want to, of course, but she was ready
to do so, all the same. Despite it`s slow pacing though, the evacuation
continued onward without pause or delay, slowly inching towards it`s end.
"We`re here," Paul announced tiredly, slowing down as the Gustav rumbled it`s way onto the road from the barren dirt around it, moving smoothly now as he shifted into the right lanes. Drake only barely stirred, having spent the majority of the trip either asleep or asking questions about the chaos that was currently wracking the planet, or why his big sister had been taken in by the authorities when Zoid battles were supposed to be at least a little on the violent side. Unusually perceptive yet still incredibly naive, just like any four year old.
Bitter irony that Drake`s birthday had been the first day after the beginning of the apocalypse.
"I`ll wake you up later then," Paul said, more to himself than his son. Pressing the brakes a bit more, the gray Gustav completely slowed down the rest of the way, halting just a few feet from the makeshift barrier at the edge of Farentown.
"Identify yourself or the newbie blows your heads off," a fairly stern voice ordered with all the grace of a half-dead animal that had been awake for far too long.
"I`m not a newbie, you fucking chin-whore."
"Eat me, newb," the first voice growled back at the supposed interrupter as Paul sized up the two Zoids that were responsible for maintaining guard over this particular inroad. He recognized both clearly after several seconds, identifying the first as the Shadow Fox - Blitz Team member, Brad Hunter`s old Zoid, currently belonging to a rookie lunatic by the name of Marcus Harlock, one half of the Suicide Team. That meant the other Zoid, a Blade Liger which was a bit larger than the one used by Leon Tauros, was the Ivory Blade Liger, Kyle Mazemia`s Zoid and the other half of the Suicide Team.
Absently, the huge man twitched one eyelid and spoke up.
"I`d like to enter already, I`ve been travelling with my son for two days to get here."
"... Pfah, let `im in," Mark grumbled.
"He could be a spy though," Kyle retorted, levelling his dual impact cannon on the Gustav`s cockpit. Mark was less than enthused.
"True, true... I guess there`s only one way to find out," he mumbled, trying to think of something to use.
"No, I don`t have anal warts, my mother is dead and no old men touched me inappropriately when I was a child, can I come in now?" Paul groaned out, having obviously been paying attention to the five day festival of insanity that had been the Suicide Days.
"... You didn`t say anything about your dog though, which means..." Mark snorted. "You sick bastard! LEAVE THE POODLE ALONE! PUT DOWN TH-" "Just let the guy in," Kyle interrupted with a dry tone.
"Riiiight... Thank you," Paul mumbled out sardonically as the roadblock opened, allowing him to pull past the two arguing members of the Suicide Team and continue into the city.
"I`M TELLING YOU, HE HAD A POODLE FETISH!"
"You have a sick, sick mind, my friend."
"I`m not the one who taped six hours of 'All My Organoids.'"
"SHUT UP! I DID THAT FOR MY GIRLFRIEND!"
"Yes, and I bet you got sodomized by a popcorn bowl for her too, huh?"
"... You f-" "And let`s not forget your passing obsession with toaster ovens! Whoooo boy..."
"I hate you."
"You`re a bishounen. On top of that, you`re a good guy. You can`t hate me. It`s not possible. You either love everything and everyone or you`re apathetic about everything and everyone but your nemesis!"
"... Oh fuck you, you are my nemesis!"
"... Then I`m putting on a few hundred pounds and growing a beard to avoid the underaged, sex-obsessed, angstful, gay-romance oriented fangirls. And the underaged, sex-obsessed, angstful, gay-romance oriented fanboys too, for that matter."
"You would..."
"Unlike you, I`m faithful to my girlfriend and proud of it."
"Trists with a blender don`t count as unfaithful!"
"I do not wanna know where that came from..."
"Bah."
"Meh. Peon."
"Newbie."
"Cheesefucker."
"Lambchop."
"Lambchop?"
"Lambchop."
"That is just wrong on so many levels," Mark said with a sickly expression.
"But so very correct at the same time," Kyle retorted, finally having
won one from the looks of things.
At age thirty-one, Susan Turpscavey was what most people would call a career bitch. Those who worked beneath her were kept in strict discipline, enforced by the fact that she wasn`t above carrying out punishments herself - and at the same time, she tended to get down in the trenches and share their grit, pain and just about everything else with them. It broke them and it endeared them, she was a harsh task master but they at least liked her for it. If they didn`t, she`d`ve been executed in a mutiny by now.
A bit on the tall side for a woman, she also lacked much in the way of femininity. If she`d bothered with things like make-up or hair dyes or had bothered with plastic surgery, she would`ve been an absolute knockout. She didn`t care enough to bother with that, about the only things she really did care for were her crew and her job. Anything else was expendable.
A burst of green light next to her reminded her though, that her job involved a good many things other than pirating or taking prisoners, though the insanely large construct in front of her could`ve done about the same with ease. The Hellwalker, one of two immensely powerful Zoids developed over the past years, but it was conveniently half-shrouded in shadow, especially around it`s large head. Only sparks could be seen around that area, where welders and the like were still working on the enormous killing machine.
"I take it you`ve come to see me about this... Changeover, you`ve got intended for me?" She asked with the air of a professional, utterly unphased by the extremely unconventional way that her employer got around, receiving only a quiet 'yes' in reply, followed by the low rumbling of the Organoid that almost always accompanied him around.
Spectacle stood tall after a moment or so of creeping around, looming protectively over the form of the snappily dressed Vilhelm Rommel. As world destroying villains went though, the Organoid was about all that Vilhelm had in common with those who had come before him, at least as far as appearances went. Where Gunther Prozen had typically worn a rather odd long coat of armor and a red bodysuit underneath, and where Hiltz had worn some odd concoction that looked like a bondage halloween costume, Vilhelm favored more practical clothes.
In his case, it was a black business suit with an emerald green undershirt worn beneath it, projecting an air of sophistication and class with his evil, rather than paranoia or a horrible taste in clothing. As an aside, only one or two people other than himself knew that the business suit was made of an extremely durable, lightweight and flexible variation of kevlar, or that Vilhelm was carrying two custom-made Magnum-styled handguns capable of blowing holes in people`s chests with ease. He may have been stylish, but he had teeth.
"I believe you`ll like the change, actually. Your crew will be going with you," he stated calmly, stepping up to the safety rail of the catwalk that the two were perched on, with Spectacle still standing attentively behind him.
"To this?" She asked, still as professional as ever, her hands placed on the rail as she regarded the Hellwalker once again, what little she could actually see of it, anyway. A dark red overshadowed by a mostly green body, easily big enough to level a city even without the arsenal she knew was going to be placed onto it.
"To this? No, I have something else in mind. The Hellwalker is intended for... Someone else," he cryptically answered. "Besides, it`s a one-person crew, while the Black Ultra is intended to operate with the full staff of a Whale King," he added as an afterthought, knowing to sprinkle in just enough information to get the captain even more interested than she already was.
"I see. Who`s the lucky contender?" She asked again, playing a dangerous game of prying for information with one of the best manipulators on the face of the planet, and receiving only a stinging defeat in the form of a chuckle a second later.
"Wouldn`t you like to know?" He asked with a smile, and Susan felt her
blood run cold.
A dull rumble filled the almost empty room that was filled with several tables and several chairs, the door marked on both sides with 'Command Staff Only,' with several water coolers, a canned drink machine, two coffee makers, a fridge and a stove sitting off to the side, though it`s three occupants weren`t even close to sitting at any of the tables.
The dull rumble was the sound of the Empress Heart`s engines burning to life, the three occupants were the overworked trio of Naomi Fluegel, Leon and Leena Tauros, the older two standing and the younger third sitting on a chair that had been hijacked from one of the tables. Naomi was sipping water, Leon had downed what was probably his fiftieth cup of coffee in however many hours it had taken to complete preparations for the evacuation - including protests from the local Guardians. They`d all felt that at least a few more Zoids and pilots were needed for it, and eventually, they`d gotten their way to an extent, since the Pteras group that had formerly been patrolling the local airspace had swiped some space in the main hangar, forcing the crowded evacuees to spread out from within and start occupying the actual 'guts' of the Whale King, moving wherever they were allowed.
It had only a skeleton crew, still, but that wasn`t the reason for the particularly dreary feeling that had overcome the three people who were currently watching the airport at Romeo City start to get progressively smaller over the course of several seconds, eventually vanishing from sight and leaving the trio to watch the rest of the cityscape for a few seconds before the huge aircraft turned and veered away, hovering still for a while longer.
"Am I the only one who feels like we`re never going to see Romeo City again?" Leon asked, voicing the thoughts of all three at once, his restrained doubt speaking volumes.
"Preach on, brother," Naomi shrugged, sipping a small bit off of what was left of her cup. Leena just groaned and nodded in agreement with her - former? - rival. It was unclear as to whether or not either of the two really saw each other as foes anymore, the end of civilization as everyone knew it was something that could blur a hostile relationship very fast.
The low rumble of the engines shifted, smoothing out as the Empress
Heart began to accelerate, picking up speed and ascending away from Romeo
City on a straight line for what everyone still believed to be Garnhelm
Base, though it was now nothing more than blood stained rubble, at best.
None of those onboard could really know just how lucky they were that Leena
had insisted on making with the evacuation, but they would all find out
soon enough that the delays had saved their lives.
As for Kale and Shadow?
A fell streak of death warmed over lit through the night sky over a mountainside far from the reaches of normal civilization. The mountain in question was known as Horus, it bore only a single, timid looking log cabin that had been around for close to a hundred years in the possession of three or four families, most recently coming into the care of the Obscura family. It was a bitter irony on both sides that one brother flew through low orbit laughing maniacally while the other lay, unconscious in his bed.
His injuries were still healing, he was hidden partially beneath the covers and the only thing that had kept him from awaking in the need to use the bathroom, eat or drink something was the Organoid that had constantly kept an eye on him even now, days after the bloodshed that had almost killed him. It was beyond maternal, a bond between the boy and the Organoid that so diligently tended to him, 'feeding' him energy, mending his wounds with it and keeping his body alive, allowing his mind to recover from the trauma he`d endured.
Outside was another brutally injured victim of battle, but this one was different. It was the Razorwind Fury, no longer charred black and no longer on the verge of 'stoning over,' yet it still looked like Hell. It`s lasersaws were missing still, though they were slowly growing back, and a hole remained in it`s chest armor, though beneath the Razorwind armor itself, the actual Fury was almost completely 'healed,' bar a few small bits of damage here and there, mostly involving burn marks and the like. Despite their seeming animosity for one another, Zeke had obviously done more than keep the Fury alive, it wouldn`t have been as repaired by now otherwise.
Softly, Vega attempted to stir, unknowing that it was the exact moment
that Kale and Shadow vanished over the horizon, unknowing of where he was
and unknowing of virtually everything in general in his present state.
Even softer though, Specular nudged him back down mentally, easing his
dreamscape back to a more pleasant condition and continuing to watch over
him like a hawk in the dull light of the evening.
"Well, what do we do now?" Lars asked as the Foe Hammer drifted back up from the road that ran through the fairly suburban neighborhood that Dana Masterson`s family called home, thankfully finding that her house had still been occupied - by the people she was looking for no less. That still left the two remaining members of Vega`s crew without a goal though, and with nothing for them to do, all that was really left was to fly around aimlessly.
At least that was what Lars figured.
"I`m going to Farentown," Katherine stated bluntly, even as Lars turned the Hammerhead II up to full speed and blazed off at a very unhealthy altitude of only a few hundred feet - which was a suitably bad thing in a city that was filled with high rise buildings like Romeo City, especially not when everone was as on-edge as they were. Regardless though, he managed to get them clear without causing local defenders to open fire or anything.
"What about you?" She asked after a few seconds, sparing a glance towards the geek with an eyebrow raised, only to watch him shrug. "I haven`t got any family left since Al died, so... Guess I`ll just go to Mount Horus and check to see if Vega`s there or something," he said without putting much thought into it, or looking at Katherine for that matter. Lars was one of those weirdoes who preferred hanging around Zoids rather than people, if only because he was also a staunch computer addict as well and often found his talents especially useful in that area.
"Why ya headed to Farentown?"
"Kyle," she answered automatically, lighting up a smoke with a bit of a whistful look on her face.
"I got a bad feeling you might regret that," Lars mumbled, more to himself
than to Katherine, knowing that she was too engrossed in her own thoughts
to even pay attention to him anymore.
A loud, almost colossal explosion roared through what had been an area already devoid of calm and peace. Silence was a foriegn term here, replaced by the constant rumblings of as many volcanic mountains as could possibly be crammed onto one continent. Crystals the size of city blocks stretched into his view, ranging from clean, pristine blue to tainted off-white, each shimmering dimly in the eternal sunset that seemed to dominate the area. The very air was choked and hard to breathe, leaving him to cough several times upon realization that he was no longer in the Liger Zero, which happened to boast an air filtration system.
It also had climate control.
Bit Cloud would`ve liked climate control right about now.
That was because ice sickles were now starting to dangle off of his nose and bangs, leaving him to cringe inwardly and shiver to try and warm himself, while at the same time, the air was so hot and muggy that it probably could`ve been compared to a rain forest on the equator. Snow covered the ground, inches deep and yet it was covered at various points by ash, and the sky itself was black and cloudy, leaving only the horizon visible in either direction and placing the entire continent into a near perpetual twilight - permanent afternoon followed by permanent morning.
"Where the Hell am I?!" He demanded, flinging his arms up around himself in a vain attempt to get warm while at the same time time trying to avoid a heat stroke. The climate probably would`ve shocked most people into dying in a matter of seconds, he had been here for at least an hour.
"Welcome to Nyx, Three. Or should I start calling you Bit Cloud now?" A voice asked from behind, and he whipped around to view it. What he saw was discomforting to say the least.
A woman his own height stood before him now, and though she didn`t hold the appearance of a bodybuilder, she still looked like she was muscular enough to level him with one arm - nevermind the huge club that was haphazardly swung over one shoulder like a baseball bat. A leather tunic shirt over a black bodysuit, somewhat grimy but that was to be expected with the climate they were in, long, spikey black hair and eerily familiar pinkish-red eyes, weathered by experience and skill if not by age.
"You`re not human," he pointed out almost instantly, making the connection due to the woman`s eyes. Behind her towered a gigantic Zoid of some kind, it looked like a cross between an eagle or a falcon and a lion, and sat almost mockingly like a housecat, with the Liger Zero standing next to it. Even when sitting down though, it dwarfed the nearby Ultimate X, which was standing at it`s full height and only managed to come up to the other Zoid`s shoulder, at best.
"Neither are you," she replied calmly, unmoving, unblinking and unyielding.
"What do you want?" Bit asked, knowing that there had to be a reason for him to be dragged out to a continent he had only heard of in sparse geology and mythology classes, or the few words Fiona had given to him about it. At that thought, she motioned, with her club, to the enormous hill that rose up like the outside of a tunnel not too far below them, causing Bit to realize - finally - that he stood atop an elevated, isolated plateau of land, looking down at a sprawling city of some kind, ancient and lifeless, only scant details and a faint glow at it`s epicenter seeming to stand out. Not too far away though, was an even larger base, contained within what looked like an oversized dome of metal that had been scolded black through countless impacts from burning debris and lava flows.
The tunnel drew his attention the most though, it must have been some sort of transit system but the size of it was unbelievable for him - who needed a subway train that was as wide and tall as a Whale King was long?
The woman snapped him back out of his jumbled thoughts though, speaking up with authority.
"It`s not what I want, Bit Cloud, it`s what you have to do," she said, pointing her club right at him and literally flash-burning a mental replay into his thoughts.
["Do you know... How I`m going to kill you? First... I`m going to teach you fear. The kind of fear that you can`t escape from. Then, I`m going to finish teaching you pain. The kind that you can`t think through. Then, I`m going to slowly kill everyone you hold dear. And then, finally, I`m going to kill you."]
"You have a decision to make," she grittily spoke out, even as the vision of the Geno Maxis all but annihilating he and the Liger in the previous battle brought him to his knees in a mix of emotions so complex that it would`ve taken hours to sort them out, one by one.
"Get... Outta my head," he growled out in reply, finding only a passive decrease in the intensity of the vision, just so that he was able to think, not that he really wanted to think, but still.
"You stand at a fork in the road, Bit. You will know fear, you will know pain, you will know suffering and you will die, or you will know it all, still, and find victory and life."
"I have people to save, you bitch!" He shouted, still unable to even try to move as his reality distorted itself, his eyes going blind and the vision in his mind intensifying again, bringing with it fear, fear of what he didn`t understand and with that fear, the pain of both inadequacy and the pain of his mind wracking itself to try and make up for it.
"Yes," she responded. "You do have people to save. But not yet. The decision you must make will determine your own fate, Bit Cloud, we are putting this into your hands now," she added, and with her words, the vision changed, from infinite repeats of Kale and Shadow beating he and Zeke to a visual of the entire planet. It hurt his head just to try and think, and he didn`t want to think in the first place but he really had no choice in the matter.
"What the fuck kinda decision is this?!" He demanded, temporarily-blind eyes narrowed angrily at a seeming foe he could no longer see. Zi continued to rotate though, in the vision he was having, even as an unearthly echo filtered into the 'ears' of his thoughts, jabbing down into every single fiber of his being with infinitely more force than even that of the Geno Maxis, sounding like the twisted combination of a Whale King, a lion, the Fury, the Liger Zero and many more loud predators that he didn`t even know existed, joined together in wicked harmony as a pair of red shifts began to fade into view, slowly but surely, to either side of the planet.
"The kind where the fates of worlds hang in the balance," she answered, voice calm and steady as the flow of a river, yet underlined with an intensity that made his entire body tremble even more than the cold was causing. "Will you take the burden we present you? The burden of the Guardians? Or will you foolishly run off to get yourself slaughtered in a vain attempt to protect those you care for, only to find that you can`t do anything?"
"GET OUTTA MY FUCKING HEAD, WOMAN! I HAVE TO HELP THEM NOW OR THEY`LL ALL DIE!"
The shifts took shape. They were slanted, like tilted diamonds, glowing eerily with a red tint that matched the color of blood even more so than those of the Maxis, regarding the planet like a dying calf in the eyes of a starved wolf.
"And if you run off to try and save them without being prepared, they will die, regardless. Now, ANSWER ME!" She demanded in kind, her voice seeming to thunder over his own, doubling and tripling with the same kind of choir-effect that permeated the true Voices of Organoids. The eyes glowed brighter though, the sound rumbled and screeched out again, rattling him further.
"You will know pain, you will know fear, you will know suffering in either choice, but will you choose death and defeat or life and victory? Choose now!"
The vision ended on a sickening note, his site returned and he was left to scream out in shock at what little he managed to see of the oceans turning red, the continents vanishing into explosions and the thin line of blackness that trailed around the world like a malevolent, plaguing laughter, echoing into his core and embedding itself there.
And then he was able to see again. His eyes stung with something - moisture or just the local atmosphere, he wasn`t sure - and the ice that hung from his face was also hanging from other parts of his body, only to periodically melt with gusts of hot air, while his knees and hands had sunken into the black-choked snow, leaving him to slowly look up to meet those pinkish-red eyes and cringe like an animal.
"Well?" She asked, calm again as if it hadn`t even been her who had ordered him to give his answer, though her eyes were still narrowed. His answer wasn`t his own, and he spoke with a Voice that he didn`t truly possess, because he wasn`t the only one speaking, nor had he been the only one facing a vision of some nightmare while being given a question with the fate of the world hanging on it`s answer.
"Yes," he said, his voice coming out with the same choir effect of an Organoid as Zeke replied with the same answer at the same moment, leaving the woman and the colossal creature behind her to exchange a glance with each other. Only then, did Bit realize that the Liger was getting to it`s feet unsteadily from something, rumbling out with confusion at what had just happened.
Impassively, she turned back toward him, finally making the motions of introducing herself, the Organoid and giving an explanation - however vague it was.
"My name is Madison Rose. I am a Guardian. The Organoid behind me is Roc. He is the First One. We are also your new teachers."
He would have asked what she`d meant by that, just as Zeke would have
asked what the question had meant, but both were pre-emptively silenced
in a blaze of plasma and a single swift strike of a club, causing even
more explosions to ring through the already chaotic Hell of their exclusive
retreat...
Author`s Note: Hope the chapter didn`t suck. I had major writer`s block with it, and I was half-asleep while writing this last part, so it didn`t turn out as I`d wanted it. I`ll probably rewrite the last scene when I put ROC up on my site, but... Bleh. And as an aside: Do not expect me to churn out chapters every two to three days like I usually do, I`ve got an influx of work(both schoolwork and writing) that I have to complete, but I will finish this story. Do NOT pester me about when the next chapter is up. That doesn`t exactly help someone who naturally hauls ass through working on something.
Illidan: Think the Maxis is bad? I haven`t even gotten started yet.
Arcane: Glad you enjoy it. Anything ya like in particular?
EndlessAdventure: Kale and Shadow may have made a mistake but... Somehow, I highly doubt it`ll ever really haunt them. Glad you enjoyed the Maxis, by the way.
Engar: Kale may not attack anyone for a while, actually. He`s more or less playing a slow game of cat and mouse and laughing his head off the entire time, Shadow is just out to kill everything and the Maxis... Well... You get the idea.
DJ Wolfwood: *Sweatdrop.* >_>; Yeah, well, if you do - I`ll personally send you a review as a disclaimer saying you created Jesse, in case some twit tries flaming you for it or anything.
The Big Fisch: Yes, lighthearted is virtually impossible right now, but I do try from time to time. Mark and Kyle are odd characters, you`ll see some of their mutual serious side eventually, though probably sooner than I think... *Trying like hell to slow things down a bit.*
That`s all for now folks, Sh33p out. Leave a review, enjoy and see ya
next time!
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