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: Only song I`m advocating is Adam Sandler`s 'Ode to
my car.' You`ll know when to play it, trust me.
Two days ago, Bit Cloud had arrived to a part of Zi that essentially represented every single natural disaster that could possibly happen anywhere on the face of the planet. The place was known as Nyx, it could`ve been called Hell but instead it was called Nyx. It`s name was a death threat in the tongue of the Ancient Zoidians and if he had known that fact, he would`ve easily seen why it was a death threat. Nyx suffered from a combination of constant, icy floods happened at least twice daily, while massive glaciers running rampant over disgustingly hot lava flows produced steam clouds hot enough to burn one`s skin right off, and smog blotted out the sky, while the position of Nyx on the globe meant that it was a constant winter that required heavy, arctic-style clothing, while at the same time, all of the lava and the energy released by countless tons of anomolous crystals meant that the temperature was also sweltering.
The very atmosphere of the place could kill a full grown human male in a matter of minutes. How he had survived this long - let alone come to adapt to it as he was doing, without food or water - was beyond him. His body ached, his mind raced and his heart was pounding, while the Handleblade`s grip gouged lightly into the small of his back from where it was holstered. It had been like this every hour of the past two days, he would get a few minutes to rest, sleep or climb into the cockpit of the Liger for some filtered, easily breathed oxygen, and then he would get dragged back out.
Even Zeke was having trouble keeping up, because while Bit had been getting repeatedly beaten in by this 'Madison Rose' woman, Zeke had been going through round after round of combat with Roc. Both of them constantly wound up humiliated.
Simply put: Against a foe such as Leon Tauros, who had virtually matched off with him on a relatively level playing field, Bit could win. Not easily, but he could, with or without luck, with or without help and with or without an armor conversion. Against a foe like Vega Obscura, whom Bit had been reasonably outclassed by, he could win. Not easily, not without a massive amount of luck on his side, but Bit could still win if he fought hard enough. Against a foe like Kale Obscura, Bit was effectively screwed. Against Kale in the Geno Saurer, with his current skills, he felt he might have had a good chance if he switched to Jaeger or Schneider. Against Kale in the Maxis? No way in Hell would he have won.
Madison Rose, thus far, had completely humiliated him with every attack he had made. The two times that he had managed to slip by her defenses and hit her, his fist actually hurt from the impact and he wound up getting knocked at least twenty or more feet into the air, the first time by her club, the second time by a solid uppercut.
Both times had left him with a broken jaw and a cracked skull, which mysteriously ended up healing in under two minutes. How this kept happening without error was completely past his ability to comprehend, but everytime, she would only motion at Roc and then tell him to get up.
Ironically during this bout of carnage, and this occured to the weezing young man currently sitting haphazardly against an oversized rock, he had no time to think. Bit Cloud didn`t like thinking. Bit Cloud wanted to think. He hated thinking when he had time for it, he wanted to when he didn`t. It was an annoying fact that dawned upon him with what few minutes he had as the Liger wandered close by, growling in what sounded like exhaustion.
"You and me both..."
If he wasn`t Roc, I`d be cussing him out right now...
"Who the hell are these two, anyway?" Bit asked with a wheeze, waving away a gust of ash-carrying air, the stench of brimstone rotting it`s way into his nostrils.
Madison is the Guardian. The Zoidian woman selected every first generation in a two-part cycle by the First Born to try and guard against the very ideological shifts that caused their eventual extinction, Zeke answered, essentially summarizing everything in the least detailed manner he could think of.
"First Born?"
Bit, if I tried to explain all of this to you in detail, you would die an old man by the time I finished. Given that you`re hopefully going to live to the ripe old of a hundred or more, that should tell you something, don`t you think?
"... Point taken. One question though..."
Yes, Roc is the First Born, yes he is an Organoid and yes he is a Zoid. Think of him as an Ultimate X on crack, satisfied?
"... It`ll do," he sighed, not understanding half of it but knowing what was about to happen when everything got a little louder and when his vision got a little quicker. "Here we go again," he muttered to himself, bracing a gloved hand against the rock and then pushing himself off the ground with the look of a slinky toy bouncing down the stairs. Uneasily, that same hand inched down towards the Handleblade, but Madison, impassive as ever, stopped several feet in front of him, having somehow appeared out of nowhere - at least to Bit. In truth, she`d been in front of him the entire time, he was just too distracted to notice.
"Don`t bother, I`m not here to continue teaching you how to focus in a battle," she stated, her voice setting him on edge even as he gripped the weapon anyway, eyes narrowed. "I`m here to give you an assignment," she said with the neutral tone of voice that could be expected of a teacher unenthusiastically delivering a pop quiz in the middle of their own lunch.
"An assignment?"
"Take a look off the edge of the plateau, you`ll spot a domed facility in the distance," she began, continuing before he could try and interrupt with a question. "The place is named Iron Eye, it`s a combination of a full fledged military base, a science facility, Zoid factory and a prototype testing grounds for the Rommel Corporation`s... Experiments."
"Experiments?" Bit was finally allowed to ask, glancing at what little he could see of the huge dome that was only barely visible from where he was standing. Madison was as neutral, apathetic and blunt as ever.
"Geno Saurer variations, mainly, but also other Zoids," she stated, causing his heart to skip a beat.
"How the hell did they get Geno Saurers? The only ones that`ve ever been confirmed are-" "Kale`s Geno Maxis, Vega`s Berserk Fury and three Zoids which you`ve conveniently forgotten the fates of."
"Kale destroyed them though..."
"He killed the pilots, but enough of the Zoids remained for repairs after scavengers found them," she explained. "Rommel tracked down the scavengers, had them killed and took what was left of the half-salvaged Geno Saurers for his own organization-" "- and then repaired them and started modifying and copying the design for his own..." Bit finished with a visible twitch and a slap across his own face.
"They haven`t managed to truly copy the design, but they have managed to modify the ones that are in their possession," Madison clarified plainly before another Voice joined in, loud to the thoughts but inaudible to the ears. It boomed and shattered Bit`s concentration so utterly that for a moment, he couldn`t even think to realize that something was speaking.
Today is the day that they begin testing one of the mutations,
Roc`s loud Voice quieted considerably after the first word, but it remained
utterly inescapable, leaving Bit`s eyes to roll around briefly before he
shook away the dizziness it caused. The Proto Breaker.
Marshall Davis. Age thirty-one, Guylos-born, Republican immigrant. Black hair, lanky build, somewhat short and green eyed, he wasn`t much to look at but he was an ace mercenary, having been on the Rommel payroll for close to three years. The man had no morals, his only concerns were himself and his job, his Zoid came after that and everything else was utterly expendable. Known for being a bit of a sarcastic punk, Davis had a reputation of infamy for going into combat while blaring his own choice of hard rock/rap music, disregarding direct orders and even shooting his own team mates if they got in the way. Considered by far to be one of the least professional pilots in living memory, his skills were only rivaled by his ability to verbally assault people to the extent of personal ruin and get away with it scott-free.
Today, Marshall Davis was absently switching the batteries of his headphones while sitting awkwardly in the cockpit of his new Zoid. Yes, his new Zoid. No one else. This Zoid was his current paycheck, allowing him to sell off his old Gunsniper to anyone who wanted it. Eerily enough, the controls of his new Zoid almost mirrored the custom setup of the Gunsniper he had formerly piloted, right down to having guns in almost all of the same places, though it would take a bit of getting used to for all of the visual setups and the fact that the cockpit was in the chest.
One leg draped out lazily over the forward panel, the cockpit itself - or the 'guts' of it, anyway - had been slid down along the elevator rail to sit a few inches off of the polished metal floor, leaving him to lazily regard the rest of the enormous hangar. Prototype Ligers, Foxes, Wolves, Kongs, aerial Zoids, at least two Lions and three Geno Saurers littered the huge, well lit area. Any normal mercenary would`ve been looking for something to steal, but Davis?
Davis had what he wanted. No point in bothering with anything else.
"Lounging around, as always?" A decidedly less lazy voice asked from the right. Davis responded in kind, flipping the headphones up and behind his head before sliding them down to rest around his neck for the time being, the cord running down to the small CD player that was being tucked into the front right pocket of his flight suit. "Fuck off."
Obviously, Marshall wasn`t well known for having a lot of patience with people, or having very controlled language.
"Aren`t you pleasant?" The visitor asked, glancing up at the Proto Breaker with only passing interest. At twenty-seven, Mary Sandler was the 'middle-pilot' in the trio of the Geno Test Pilots. Not the oldest, not the youngest and obviously the only woman. She was also the most precise, able to hollow out a dime at a quarter of a mile with nothing but her own eyes and a revolver. Dubbed 'Sureshot' by more than a few of her previous employers, the tall, figure-lacking brunette didn`t have the kind of the reputations carried by greats like Eric Johnson or the Red Comet, Naomi Fluegel, but then again, neither of them were underworld assassins who`d worked for the likes of the Backdraft Group to silence potentially dangerous critics or off suspicious personnel who seemed a bit too adept at avoiding legitimate search efforts and were too good when it came to piloting a Zoid to be left alive.
Sandler had even less morals than Davis, she would`ve shot her own mother if paid highly enough. Like Davis, her price was high, but unlike her foul mouthed colleague, her price wasn`t a Zoid, it was the whereabouts to several of her former employers who`d failed to pay their debts properly. That and more credits(the standard international currency) than the average Class S Zoid Team would ever see in it`s entire career.
"Get some tits and maybe I would be," Marshall finally muttered out, only to realize all of a quarter of a second too late that his words had been a very bad mistake. Mary Sandler always carried at least one handgun on her at all times, easily accessable no matter what she was wearing. At present, the casual look of her sloppy looking leather jacket, white t-shirt and jeans did good to conceal the polished, silver magnum handgun that she carried in an inside holster on the right side of her jacket, the barrel of which was promptly driven into the slacker`s right temple.
"Apologize or your brain becomes abstract art smeared on the floor," she ordered bluntly, possessing all of the sophistication of a pit bull. With rabies.
"Kill me and ya prob`ly won`t make it outta here alive," Marshall replied quite calmly, reaching into his flight suit`s other front pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
A second passed and a gunshot rang out.
Sureshot wandered off into the hangar, idly flipping her handgun around on her middle finger, which was conveniently pointed in the direction of one freaked out-looking Marshall Davis, whose thin mustache was now gone from how close the bullet had been. She had literally shaved him. With a handgun.
"Fucking psycho..." He mumbled to himself under his breath, looking
as though someone had just smacked him in the groin with a baseball bat.
"I still... Just... Cannot believe this..." Leena Tauros said to herself for the umpteenth time in seven hours. The Empress Heart had arrived almost fifteen hours ago, but she had been asleep or trying to for the majority of the first eight hours, and had only bothered looking outside in the past seven hours. A month or two ago, Leena had thought she`d seen the worst that she`d ever behold in her lifetime, because a month or two ago, she`d been permanently scarred in more ways than one by an effortless assassin.
That same assassin was responsible, for the most part, for the majority of the utter wasteland that lay below the huge, hovering airship. Even at an altitude of close to a mile, the sheer devestation that the massacre had caused was visible with no visual aid required, she wouldn`t have even needed her glasses to tell that something horrible had happened. The smoke at the main portion of the 'battlefield' had died down to mere whisps compared to the choking black cloud that had been belched up previously, a glassed-over, bowl-shaped crater sat not too far from the main killing field and the still-burning ruins of what had once been Garnhelm Base lay on the mass grave`s other side.
Blood still stained the ground, it had practically been burnt into the sands by the blistering sun over the past two days, burnt Zoid parts lay strewn about all over the place, some still dying Zoids were still gnashing their tarnished fangs at the air as if striking at a foe that had been gone for eons, their cockpits hauntingly shattered, some literally ripped in two where they`d been standing. Framework for at least one Whale King, and a tail piece of another, lay in a shattered, collapsed pair of heaps, the insides having been blown out and ripped away in the ensuing chaos that had claimed it.
Almost invisible, but not quite, a black speck raced - almost flew - across Leena`s vision as she repeated her own words to herself once again, this time a different sentence than before: "Who the Hell could do something like this?"
"Kale," came a one-worded answer from an older woman`s voice, the same older woman who came to stand next to her younger counterpart. Seperated by roughly thirty years and several severe differences in appearance, Sarah Obscura and Leena Tauros stood side by side, their postures and expressions almost mirroring one another, bar that Leena`s was a bit livelier and Sarah`s had more of a sophistication to it, while their eyes were also different. Leena`s looked, more or less, utterly shocked and upset.
Sarah`s eyes were hauntingly reminiscent of her younger son`s eyes, at one time. Empty. Broken, to an extent, but still holding her head up. Above all though, a cold realization had settled into her over the past hours.
Kale was beyond 'bringing back' now. Even his own mother knew that now.
"Only Kale could do something like this... I don`t know how he did it, but I know it was him," she affirmed.
"Do you think Bit and Vega made it out?" Leena asked somberly, not holding too much concern for Vega, but still worrying for him, and also not holding too much hope for Bit. Vega had basically redeemed himself, in her eyes, when he`d first arrived on the scene to do battle with his own older brother, and again when he`d literally thrown away his best advantage to ensure the Blitz Team`s mutual survival. Bit? Bit was a friend, but Leena didn`t think the guy was superman.
As far as either of them knew, both were dead. Neither said it though, neither wanted to state the obvious in this one case, so neither spoke.
A heavy silence fell over the room for a number of seconds before the older woman wearily spoke, her voice seeming well beyond her forty-or-so years. "What do we do now?" She wondered aloud. Sarah had, by vote, become something of an official 'captain' of the ship, though the crew more or less took up votes on almost everything and it was an arbitrary title at best. Steven had put his faith in for her, Leyon had tossed in a vote for her out of knowledge of her ruthless ability to succeed and do it with the least damage to her own interests, Leena had followed her father`s vote, Leon had just voted for anyone who would take the job without consulting him for advice - he didn`t run from duty, but it was obvious that the man needed a breather after the massive amount of stress he and so many others had gone through - and Naomi had voted for Leon.
Sarah had voted for Leena, almost as a joke but not quite. She didn`t want the job either, but when the results came to three(or four, depending on how one calculated Leon`s vote) for her and one for either Tauros sibling...
"Champton," Leena commented off the top of her head. "We should head to Champton. If Harry`s directions were right, it should be a few dozen miles northwest of Juliet City, which puts it close to the course we took to get here."
"What`s in Champton?" Sarah asked, weighing it against any other options she could think of.
"The Champ Corporation. Possibly protection, with it. Harry`s family business is run from there, the families of the workers live in a privately operated city with a pretty major fort and a powerful shield generator built around it."
"What makes you think Champton is even still standing?" The older woman questioned again. "Because," Leena began with a smirk running across her lips, which were just a bit less scarred than the rest of her for some reason.
"It`d be bad for business if they bought from a competitor."
He`e we go...
An unhinged tune played in the background, sounding vaguely like a slow reggae beat, complete with a dulled drumbeat in the background and something similar to a guitar. The music started inexplicably as a certain blue-red-and-black Organoid came tumbling out of the bushes around Wind City, thoroughly covered in mud and drenched from the light rain that had blown through the area an hour or so earlier.
Piece of shit life... I got a piece of shit life... This fuckin` pile of shit, I never get very far...
Dramatic pause as the unhinged looking, mildly insane Organoid started slowly performing a one piece congo line towards the city limits, now within twenty feet of it`s goal, though every tap of the foot and motion of the hand slowed it down a bit.
My life`s a big piece of shit, `cause my friends are fucking shot... And my wiring`s fucking broken, I got to tie `em in a knot(it`s a piece of shit!)...
Another pause, the music halted and the Organoid growled irately and contorted it`s neck at an impossible angle until an audible *CRACK* echoed around in the no-longer silent area of the outskirts of the newly burning Wind City. People ran around in terror, explosions wracked several buildings and a Helcat flashed overhead at full speed, followed by another Helcat a second later. The tune then restarted. Don`t ask how this music was playing, Borealis tended to ignore the laws of physics at every chance he got. Not to mention the laws of relative sanity...
I can`t see through my reality, `cause it`s got a fucking crack... And my interior smells real bad, `cause my friend puked in my back(it`s a piece of shit!)...
A screaming little girl ran up, stopped, stared blankly and then screamed again as Borealis continued doing his dance, somehow mimicking six back-up voices at once while whipping around and moonwalking dramatically into the city.
Piece of shit life... I got a piece of shit life(it`s a piece of shit!)... It sucks royal dick(that fuckin` pile of shit!)! 100% crap!(He never gets very far...) Oh fuck you, life...
Again, he whipped around, idly ignorant to the amount of rampant death and destruction, his tune now ringing in the ears of the attacking pilots and the three or four defenders, not to mention anyone who had the misfortune of having a line of sight directly to him.
I got no CD player... I don`t even have an 8-track... Whoever designed my ass, can lick my sweaty nut-sack(they can bite his ass too!)... And I got no fuckin` brains, I`m always way out of control, eleven times a day I hear...
Everything stopped and the entire city - against their will, mind you - cried out in unison as the church exploded: "HEY! WATCH IT ASSHOLE!!!"
You fuckin` piece of shit...
Pause. Borealis struck a random kung-fu-styled pose before hobbling along towards the center of town on one foot and his tail, random bystanders running by and exploding from ordnance or being crushed to death by debris. The Organoid himself was completely unscathed by this.
Piece of shit life... I got a piece of shit life(he got a piece of shit life)... Diesel gas burns my ass(this fuckin` pile of shit)! I`m a pile of metal shit(he never gets very far)!
Another Helcat tumbled overhead and exploded from a dozen or so plasma beams. Borealis was utterly oblivious.
Oh, what the fuck did I do? What the fuck did I do? What the fuck did I do, to get stuck with you, I`m too small for drive-through, and I smell like de shoe but I can`t fuckin` buy somethin` new...
A pause. For emphasis, a Shield Liger exploded in the background.
Ohhhhh, fuck me!
The singing came to a brief end as something that sounded like a guitar solo backed by several whistling sounds echoed through the area, several more people flying into the Organoid`s path - all of them on fire - as a clothing store exploded from an unguided missile.
Well, my Core likes to flood... My brain always fuckin` stalls... And my inside`s got a big rip, so a shard always pokes de balls(ouch ouch ouch!)...
No longer hobbling, Borealis idly resumed his one-Organoid conga line, still utterly freaking oblivious to the fact that an entire town was being massacred around him.
Plus my chest locks are busted, Bill had to use a fucking coat hangar... And if a `Noid-girly sees my ass, there`s no chance I`ll ever bang `er(he never, ever gets da pussy) - Hey, shut up, Borealis interrupted his own twisted voices and smacked himself on the back of his head with his own tail, continuing a second later.
My piece o` shit life...
And then he continued walking on towards the center of town, where a lone clock store was conveniently left undamaged for whatever reason.
You piece of shit life... Baaaald fucking legs... No rearview fucking monitor... Three different colors, fucking RAG in my knee cap! At that, Borealis reached down with his head and ripped out what remained of the rag that had been lodged in his right knee for the past two hours. Tailtip making sparks fly everywhere...
Oh the whole world thinks I`m a loser...
A pause as a street cab swerved out into view, promptly heading on a byline for the rear of the Organoid at close to 80 miles per hour.
Hey cabby, gimme a push!
Swerve, *CRASH* and Borealis` newly dented body went flying through the air, crashing through the front glass window of the clock store he had been heading for and landing with a sickening roll only to spring right back up, the dent now mysteriously gone, both different colored eyes focusing in on the first clock that came into sight, which listed the date and time, along with a few dozen other unessentially useful things, like the temperature, which promptly cranked up to the high 100s as the store exploded in flames. Mysteriously as ever, Borealis was untouched by the flames and utterly oblivious to the fact that the heat had melted away all of the dirt, mud, slime and evaporated the water that had formerly covered his body.
Hrrr... Now what? No fluffy egg-muffins, no Bill, no Geno, no Leyla, no... Fuck, no ONE... WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW, GOD DA-errrrreeeeeheheh, I KNOW!!!
At that, the Organoid vanished in a dual colored aura of red and blue,
outlined with black, then promptly blew out of what was left of the ceiling
and went off in a seemingly random direction into the skies, seemingly
ignorant of the chaos it had left behind.
Two people were sharing a cell. On one side, a former champion, on the other, a former fugitive. On one side, an unkempt, dirty, disturbed looking young man whose right arm was flexing and twitching around involuntarily, whose eyes had clenched shut and whose teeth were grinding together as what was almost the only sound permeating the entire room.
A day ago, Brad had been unintentionally sloppy, he`d been caught by three crewmen trying to jury-rig a stolen detonation charge to the side of one of the primary connections to the Fatalistic Renegade`s Zoid Core. The charge would`ve probably lead to the entire Whale King going sky high in a very bad sort of way and that would`ve probably killed Brad as well, but for some reason, the former rogue didn`t seem to care much about the prospect of dying.
Freedom to die on his feet or live a life hiding.
Brad Hunter was many things, and though few people would`ve pegged him for it, he was a potential martyr for lost or desperate causes.
Now though, he had been moved to the Emerald Nightmare, at roughly the same time that Bill Chapman had finally changed cells. The black haired youth looked like an escapee from Hell, he was a bit on the thin side, his hair had gotten long enough that it obscured his neck and had been put into a starter ponytail of some kind, his bangs hung out in front of his face but oddly, didn`t fall into it. His eyes looked like those of a war veteran, but they held focus. A dangerous focus.
That focus had been why Brad had kept as far away as possible from his cellmate, going so far as to take the too-thin pillow off the bottom bed and use it to sit down in the corner. The lighting wasn`t as unbearable as in either of their former cells - they could both actually see clearly - if they bothered to open their eyes. For as much as Brad was keeping his distance, Bill was keeping his own as well, looking a little more deranged and determined with every passing second, though Hunter didn`t look to see this fact. He`d been sitting in the same corner on the same pillow for close to...
How long had it been, exactly? Ten hours? Twelve? Longer?
"Gsshfff," sounded in strain from Bill`s side of the reasonably large room. Twelve feet in any direction, cramped - yes, but still bearable. To an extent. "Fffshnngh... Fffhhh..."
"What the hell are you doing?" The former mercenary finally droned out, more than a little annoyed at the sounds now coming from his cellmate. The reply was harsh and instant, so instant that he hadn`t even been finished speaking by the time Bill said it.
"Shut up and lemme concentrate..."
Silence, aside from the former Thunder Team leader`s gritty, determined sounds, and Brad finally opened his eyes, let out a long, quasi-defeated sigh and glanced towards the cell door with little, if any, emotion.
"I hope Jamie and Leyla got off better than I did. Be a real waste if they didn`t..."
Another sigh and the no-longer-lone wolf hung his head onto one hand, staring blankly at his cellmate with even less care than he`d shown for the door. "Whatever you`re doing, it`s probably hopeless," he exclaimed bluntly, his own thoughts of escape having been bored out of him by the time in all of the cells he had been doing lately, not to mention the hiding.
"There are no unwinnable wars," Bill groaned out in reply, finally opening his eyes and almost knocking Brad even further into the corner of the wall with just a single look. If not for the unusual nature of that look, Hunter would`ve been so unphased and so routinely cynical that most people would`ve wanted to punch his lights out. As it stood though, he wasn`t unphased and he couldn`t find the words for cynicism.
Two strikes left on the collar, Bill`s eyes glowed at the edges of each brown iris, a faint neon blue in one eye and a neon red in the other, both only barely made visible on the outer lines of each oak-colored ring, as well as along the pupil. "There are no unbreakable chains and there are no inescapable prisons."
"What... The hell..."
"I`m getting out of here. Soon."
Brad was so stunned by the course of the precursing seconds that he couldn`t even find the words to ask what was happening, nor could he find the will to do anything other than shut his mouth and keep quiet, deciding that - if it was possible - Bill would open the way to his own escape, or the way to destroy this entire Zoid and end the fighting now.
"Very. Fucking. Soon."
A blaze lit through the otherwise uniform coloring of the blackened snow and ash that covered the majority of Nyx, and unlike the frequent blasts from volcanos or exploding energy crystals, this blaze was colored a solid white, outlined with a fading purple inherent to most plasma-based thruster systems, which in turn rendered the backside and tail of a saurian shape visible, despite the dark coloration of the creature itself.
It was alone. A murderous hunter burning through a desolate, hellish wasteland at around two hundred miles per hour with infrequent bursts of greater speed, sometimes taking short spurts of low level flight and gliding through the air despite having all the aerodynamic properties of a worn down brick, diving into a canyon with all the agility and speed of a peregrine making a kill only to touch down on both feet perfectly and launch forward through the virtual obstacle course within.
In every way, it was little more than a Geno Saurer, at least as far as outward appearances went. Remove it`s guns and it would`ve been indistinguishable from an ordinary Geno, whereas a true Geno Breaker bore a slanted crest along the top of it`s head and was all of a few feet longer in the tail than an ordinary Geno Saurer. The true differences between the former and the latter was that Breakers were drastically more powerful, boasting far greater durability and performance, as well as additional mounts on the legs for weaponry - be it machine guns, missile launchers or just about anything else that would fit.
There were other differences, but few were obvious at a passing glance.
This Geno Saurer looked - and was named - as if it was trying to be a Geno Breaker. It lacked the crest on it`s head, it`s tail wasn`t the few feet longer and it`s paint scheme hadn`t been changed like with the two original Breakers, and it wasn`t anywhere near as powerful as it`s more notorious counterparts. This was the Proto Breaker, it was piloted by Marshall Davis, and it was armed to match it`s namesake.
The armor hadn`t been changed but leg mounts had been added to it`s design, now boasting a pair of missile boxes like those seen on the 'Psycho Breaker' used by Riese, and it`s back no longer sported a heavy duty double cannon setup, instead featuring an Iron Kong II-like jet pack unit, which in turn mounted a pair of heavy dual laser cannons which stuck out prominently to either side of the neck and head, mounted on semi-rails so that they could slide forward or back and out of the way. The conventional nose-mounted pulse cannons were still in place, and the claws hadn`t changed either, but this new, improved Geno Saurer looked as though it could fill all the functions of the true Geno Breaker at far less of a cost in time and effort.
In short, it was the cheap way around Zoid evolution. Corner cutting at it`s best.
"Controls`re still a bit sluggish," Marshall reported blithely, pulling his headphones up and idly rubbing where the bullet had earlier shaved his mustache off. He liked his little wannabe mustache, and it took him so long to grow it...
"Need to kill that bitch if I ever get the chance," he thought in vain, noticing all too late that there was a new blip on his scanners.
The unstable canyon wall to the right and front of the Proto Breaker blew open almost without warning, flames and lava bringing Marshall out of his musings and almost making him pause the song he was listening to for fear that he would actually need to hear what was going on around him in addition to seeing it. The explosion continued for several seconds, looking like a sideways geyser during that time before finally finishing it`s brief-but-violent seeming spew-fest, black smoke pooling off of the already cooling flow of molten rock, which solidified in a matter of seconds.
Nyx was colder than it appeared, and darker as well.
That same darkness was why the small, dual glow of golden light behind the smoke became more visible with each passing second, jolting Davis once more before a voice sounded over the broadband, almost muted by the roar of his headphones. The song he was listening to hit it`s course and then came to a blank stop, leaving him able to hear for all of a few seconds as someone spoke.
"Hello there. You don`t know me, but I`m here to kill you. Good-bye."
And with that, the song blazed back up as loudly as ever, leaving Marshall stunned as an even louder roar blew into his ears from nowhere and everywhere at once, sounding out in tune with the very song that he was listening to. Combat instincts honed through over a decade of working as a hard fighting mercenary kicked in before he could even register that he was under attack, and with a blaze of gold, white lined with purple and orange, the battle began - the Liger Zero making the first move.
"STRIKE LASER CLAW!!!"
It has begun, Roc stated, the ancient Organoid`s Voice sounding a bit more grave than usual. Explosions flashed in the distance, along with streaks of neon-tinted colors moving at hundreds of miles an hour within the canyon, looking like little more than a blurred pattern of flames, streaks, infrequent bursts of lava and loud blasts that lit up the entire enclosed battlefield.
"What do you think the outcome will be?" Madison asked with only passing interest at best. Her club was swung up over her shoulder as usual, pink-red eyes focused only slightly on the carnage breaking out in the canyon. Unlike Roc, she couldn`t see through the terrain very well, settled instead on tracking the minds of each combatant, and both Bit and Marshall tended -
"Who the fuck is this asshole?!" "-now, if I can just back him into a corner and blow up the wall behind him..."
- to think very loudly. When they actually bothered thinking at all, that is. It made it a bit of a task to track their thoughts, and if she wasn`t naturally gifted for such a thing, she probably would have had trouble, but thankfully, as loud as their thoughts were, their emotions were even louder.
I believe that Three will be victorious, if that is what you mean. He had the element of surprise this time-"- but he won`t during the next," Madison finished the sentence for Roc, not actually cutting the huge creature off. The two knew one another so closely that they were literally able to think the same thoughts pre-emptively and finish one another`s sentences as if it was nothing.
Agreed. If he wins this time, I will not be surprised. The next battle will be a true test.
Madison merely gave a slow nod and continued watching the two Zoids
carrying out their duel to the death as if it were some twisted dance.
Author`s Note: Borealis continues being insane with a (hopefully funny) parody of Adam Sandler, Bit begins his apparently cryptic training, Sarah comes to terms with the fact that her first son has completely gone over the edge and we meet the first two of the three prototype Geno pilots... All in all, productive, huh? >_>
EndlessAdventure: That scene is only a possibility, I`m not sure if it`ll happen and I`m not particularly sure if it can happen. And no, Susan isn`t Hardin`s replacement, she lacks the horrid hairstyle and happens to be even more of a hardass, not to mention more dangerous >_>
The Big Fisch: Glad you enjoy it.
Illidan: Confusion is the name of the game :P
So long and see ya next time(in a bit of a rush here)! Sh33p out.
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