By Sh33p, CultofSh33p@aol.com
The great sequel 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
Seconds ticked by in what felt like completely abstract silence. Sonic booms loud enough to shatter ordinary glass like a sledge hammer rattled through the lower atmosphere, and yet it all fell upon deaf ears as a hundred missiles dropped from a hundred different aerial Zoids, pausing for what felt like a million eternities rolled into one that only lasted for the amount of time it took for each thruster of each weapon to flare to life.
I can taste your innocence
In the cockpit of the lone, suicidal attacker, the smile from before only seemed to grow a bit wider. Expression changed, a look of impending satisfaction so often associated with happiness and joy became something that could terrify anything short of a certain genocidal maniac still located dozens, perhaps a hundred or more miles away by now, and possibly even him. It was that same twisted smile that had been worn by Hiltz as the Great Ring rose up from the ground around the Death Saurer to split a single charged particle beam into attempted genocide, but there were differences.
Young and sweet like mother made ya
The smile of Hiltz had been arrogant. There was no ego here.
The smile of Hiltz had been filled with malice. There was no malice here.
The smile of Hiltz had been pale and distorted by Core cells.
The smile of Jamie Hameros looked even more menacing because of his naturally tanned skin, making him appear as if he was living in a shadow, but the lack of Core cells meant that there was no visible distortion.
If any of the enemy pilots had been able to see this smile, they would have saved themselves the hassle and just committed suicide.
Everything froze into ice
Time stopped, everything held in place for another eternity as the missiles seemed to go nowhere fast because of the relative speed at which they had been dropped, and then their engines truly lit up and time resumed it`s terrible pace, sending every single munition careening on a suicide dive for the crazed Raynos that was still continuing straight for them.
These mother fuckers
And not only was it continuing straight for them without even bothering to try and dodge away from impending death...
Just -
It was gaining speed while doing so.
- got -
The fourth limit of the sound barrier shattered into a million sobbing pieces and the Raynos blasted forward even faster than it should have ever been capable of without some sort of modification, heading straight for the enclosing net of super sonic death -
- WICKED!!!
- and passing right through it, unscathed.
Well, I can't explain this little man
Fifty explosions sounded out as the missiles rammed into a mach four sonic boom head-on, atmosphere being raped aside like it wasn`t even there and in the process, every single one of the Rommel pilots woke up to the epiphany that they were in for the fight of their lives. They had gone from the acid-filled frying pan and into the napalm-fueled fire.
Takin' over, can't explain the way
And as they realized that, every last one of them could almost swear to hearing a screaming, howling laughter echoing alongside the incoming sonic boom as the Raynos blew through their ranks as if they didn`t even exist as more than vague holograms in a shoddily built combat simulator.
That I feel
And only after they realized that the Raynos had gone through them - only then, did a select few of them feel their Zoids popping apart from the delayed effects of the light green assassin`s wingblades gutting through them seconds before, and even if most of the survivors of the initial run had managed to escape the incoming sonic boom to follow, another twelve of them were promptly pulled back down by a vacuum effect and blown out of existence by their own missiles in a violent fireworks display that left debris to fall towards the surface of the planet, miles below.
Those remaining quickly recovered from the initial shock, whether as a result of pure adrenaline or raw, drilled-in training, each of them managed to stabilize by the time that the Raynos began to slow down, banking into a wide, almost methodically avoidant turn away from the Whale King. Seventeen Foxbats had just been sliced and blown out of the sky. Seventy-three Foxbats and twelve Nightwise Zoids were left in the air.
It had taken five seconds.
Well, I can't explain this little man
"What in the fuck are we dealing with?!" One of the remaining pilots shouted out, voicing the fearful emotions of them all in a single sentence. It was almost morbidly and ironically coincidental that the temporary voice of the group was next to go, his Foxbat going down from four rapid bolts of hot plasma, all of which struck in the exact same point since the Raynos had intentionally wobbled with every shot fired.
The cockpit exploded, the pilot died and a hot red fireball tumbled from the skies.
Takin' over, can't explain the way
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
The laugh was completely over the edge. There wasn`t a single sane, good string tied to it, and it only precursed more death as the Raynos plunged into the mass of Rommel fighters, forcing the creation of a single, enormous furball of combat, rolling through the air towards the air king as eighty-four Zoids went after one attacker with every intent to kill and not be killed, but as history goes to show in so many cases...
That I feel
Certain intentions can never be met.
Ten more Foxbats dropped like flies. The first two were diced by the Raynos` wings, the third was hit with a raptor-like drop-and-claw manuever that forced the light green Zoid`s heavy feet right into the topside of it`s victim before springing back off, first crushing and then shredding away the entire upper half of the doomed Foxbat and forcing it to explode in a vicious flash. Victims four and five were dealt with even more swiftly, each blazing up through the fireball of their former comrade and promptly being shot down by the tail-mounted pulse guns at the base of the Raynos` rear-end.
The remaining six had the extreme misfortune of being caught in the supersonic backwash of a snap-corkscrew motion that lead the Raynos to dive down, all six of the Foxbats crumpling like tin cans under the force of the attack.
Everyone got twisted up
The first downed Nightwise followed, the pilot foolishly trying to copy the Raynos` earlier drop-and-claw strike only for the other Zoid to pre-emptively shift into a half-barrel roll and slice through it`s would-be attacker like a hot knife through butter, a wingblade gutting between the legs and straight to the base of the stumpy neck of the dark green night owl, leaving the remains of another sonic boom to do the rest.
All your friends got behind my back
The pulverized remains of the Nightwise fell earthward and exploded, the Raynos slowed down and more missiles flashed through the air, this time fired from a short distance by another Nightwise. It was almost through a precognitive reflex that the pilot of the Raynos dodged out of the way at the last possible second, shifting to the side and folding his wings in before slinging through the air like an acrobat.
The missiles continued on into an attacking Foxbat at near point blank, the Raynos passed through the flames and emerged, ripping whisps of fire along with it in an epic cry of war, mirrored by the insane pilot who flew it with a skill more expected of his alter-ego than he himself. Smoke-shrouded wingblades beheaded another Foxbat, the Raynos promptly corkscrewed around again and dropped, temporarily without power and temporarily without a care in the world.
And broke it
And then it seemed to stop in mid-air, wings flapping back out, engine blazing back to life as another Nightwise whipped around the newly destroyed Foxbat with uncanny skill and precision, but not uncanny enough. A hail of gunfire and the remains of the Nightwise dropped like a ton of bricks, the Raynos streaking by with what almost sounded like a maniacal laugh.
Cuz it's my world
"I suppose it was a bit too much to hope for a clean getaway," Vilhelm commented, watching the carnage with disinterest thanks to viewscreen in the commanding officer`s lounge he and Spectacle had materialized in. The Organoid only let out a disdainful growl, able to sense every single Zoid death as if it were a nonexistent hair being plucked from his nonexistent scalp by a pair of tweezers. It was annoying more than anything else.
I`d hazard a guess that Hameros escaped while Kale was busy taking his sweet time dismantling Clusterpoint 6A.
"Then we gambled a bit too much on him."
And Shadow. Chances are, they`ve probably already figured out that we played them like fools.
"Doesn`t matter. Hameros will gun down this Whale King and we can lay low without having to worry about any potential assassination attempts for a while."
Eh...
Vilhelm spared a sideways glance to his old partner, one brow quirked up questioningly as those villainously green eyes stared into a set of insidiously red optics.
I suppose so, but what about factional in-fighting?
"Merely serves to eliminate future resistance to our long term goals. In the mad grabs for power after my supposed death, commanders will form groups and those groups will take each other out while trying to establish their own miniature dominions. The sudden lack of globally coordinated strategy will give surviving military groups the chance to get their wits together and try to mount a counter-offensive and the ensuing brushfire campaign will wipe out one or the other and leave the survivors too weak to pose any real threat," the thirty-three year old explained, having practically figured things out as if it were overly simplified child`s play.
And to him, it really was.
And where do you propose we stay, during this time?
"The Dome, of course. We`ll be within a constant arms reach of our eventual success, and if communications to the outside world just... Happen to go down shortly afterward, it`ll just play into our hands to cause further panic among the warlords that`ll spring up in the aftermath. Not only that, but we`ll be located in the safest place on Zi and surrounded by the most intelligent, loyal underlings that bribery can buy."
You really do cover all the bases, don`t you? Spectacle asked with a thin layer of amusement, watching another Nightwise get shot to pieces and cut to ribbons in the same pass. Rommel only let out an extremely stifled chuckle before glancing back at the monitor as well, arms crossed over his chest with that perpetually scheming look on his face. Though, I would love to see how events play out with the two big fish we`ve sent off to fry...
"Turpscavey will strike out on her own for a short while, then curiosity will get the better of her and she`ll attempt to bring the Black Ultra to Nyx. Henry will continue being his usual maniacal self until he either dies from running out of stimulants and going through withdrawls or commits suicide. Or someone will end up destroying him - probably one of the Obscuras or a survivor from his sloppy work at destroying things - or he`ll just keep going until we have to strike him down ourselves."
With that, Vilhelm and Spectacle exchanged another glance, the human issuing out a knowing smirk and the Organoid replying with a telepathic snicker.
Well, I`d say we`ve kept things to the realm of believability.
"Take us straight out from the nose, my good fellow. The less likely that the Wild Eagle sees us, the more likely he`s going to continue on his rampage and destroy everything in sight."
Indeed, bar one little catch.
"Oh?" Vilhelm asked, genuinely surprised for the first time in over a decade.
That`s not the Wild Eagle. That`s Hameros himself.
"... Interesting," Rommel commented curiously, taking one final look into the monitor before he and Spectacle made good to leave.
1...
A scream.
2...
Explosions.
3...
Death.
Here I come with the wicked...
"IS THIS THE BEST YOU`VE GOT?!" Came the uncharacteristically loud challenge from the uncharacteristically insane Jamie Hameros, just as two more Foxbats split in half against the razorblade wings of the Raynos, which finally slowed back down just long enough to snap into a J-turn and reverse back, flying upside down and tagging another Nightwise across the left flank with a volley of gunfire, which also served to detonate it`s remaining missiles.
Well, I can't explain this little man
As a bolt of green light shot out of the Whale King and out of sight, the Raynos corkscrewed around at an impossible angle, dragging along all three of the remaining Nightwise Zoids into a downward spiral. Of a force once numbering at a hundred and two, only twenty-five remained, and while all of the remaining Rommel pilots had found that their Zoids were rapidly sustaining damage from attacks that came as if their assassin was practically toying with them, the Raynos itself had yet to be touched in even the slightest way by their own counter-attacks.
Takin' over, can't explain the way
A breakneck slowing, the Nightwise pilots realized too late that they had been lured into a trap, even as the tail guns of the Raynos swiveled up and shot down a pair of Foxbats overhead. All three seemed to move in slow motion between the shots, passing by their target without ever actually touching it and then coming to try and stop as well, each hitting their air brakes at the same time and each trying to pull away as well.
A shortlived stream of gunfire, the Nightwise at the rear of the group promptly broke apart into a mid-air fireball, hurling debris and flaming ghosts into the atmosphere as the remaining pair swiftly shifted into a new formation, one tailing just behind the other and both flying paralell, streaking into a tight turn upwards as their attacker burst through the flames above, coming down in a sharp barrel roll with all the relative speed and grace of a screaming samurai warrior, razor blade wings passing through cockpit glass, metal and flesh with the same efficiency in each material, leaving pilots to sit there in dumbfounded shock for seconds before their bodies exploded into split sections, blood spraying across rapidly seperating controls.
The pass had been made, both Nightwise continued up for several more moments before their engines cut out and their bodies split into two perfectly cut sections each, both of which promptly exploded.
There were twenty-one Foxbats left. One Raynos had single-handedly slaughtered everything else in the sky but a single, fleeing Whale King and an Organoidian blur that had already departed, unseen by the merciless attacker.
That I feel
"You`re pathetic," he muttered out, one eyelid twitching dangerous as the lunatic smile that had been plastered onto his face for the past minutes faded to a displeased grimace that would`ve made the devil himself cringe in fearful horror, which promptly drained to a completely neutral expression that seemed eerily similar to that of a computer.
Gunshots. The entire world blurred at the sound of them, the skies became a distorted mess of blue and white, highlighted by a rising golden disk and shadowed by the tremendous mass of a fleeing, terrified carrier Zoid, even as more explosions filltered through the vast emptiness above the planet that sat obliviously below.
Well, I can't explain this little man
Four Foxbats. The first had it`s main body vaped by gunfire, the second was raked by talon-bearing feet and the third was surgically lobotomized with a mid-air katana, the razor edge of the Raynos` wingtip perfectly splitting through shattering cockpit glass and slicing through the helmet and face of the unlucky pilot before drawing back out, the light green Zoid breaking into a barrel roll and stabbing it`s other wing straight up in the process.
The already-doomed Foxbat had it`s stomach split open, then promptly blew itself into oblivion while the Raynos - formerly seeming frozen in mid-air - regained speed, slipping over the fourth by inches and then tearing over it`s back with a reverse firing of the secondary cannons on the tail.
Sixteen Foxbats remained.
Takin' over, can't explain the way
Fifteen Foxbats remained. The next to go down had been unlucky enough to try and loop S-turn over the Raynos and catch it within a pair of sonic shockwaves moving in opposite directions.
The pilot had been skilled enough that he pulled the manuever off, but he hadn`t been skilled enough to foresee the way that the Raynos simply dropped into his own jet stream and used it like a slingshot to gain even more speed, coming up from behind and slicing the unlucky Zoid right in half from between the legs to between the eyes, breaking away in a single fluid motion as Jamie wildly pulled the trigger, gunning down another of the Foxbats at the same time that the first had fallen apart.
Thirteen Foxbats remained.
Thirteen lives standing between those on the Whale King and absolute death.
Thirteen speed bumps in a parking lot, caught in the path of a tank driven by a homicidal maniac.
That I feel
Thirteen people who were never going to live to see another mid-day sun.
*BANG!*
Twelve people who were never going to live to see another mid-day sun.
You are the love I never had
The seconds ticked by in abstract, deafening silence as a certain mishmashed Organoid by the name of Borealis streaked through low orbit, visible as little more than a bolt of raw, corkscrewing and conflicting energies that matched the turmoil that was boiling within both he and his thoughtfully speechless bondmate. Soon-to-be-former bondmate, to be specific, but still one of the only two people that the crazed Organoid genuinely even knew existed.
It was one thing to be absent minded, it was another to live one`s life in a constant, denial-laced nervous breakdown filled with moments of seriousness so intense that you forgot everything but the people who had kept you alive in the first place. It was another, still, to be forsaken by both of them for apparently betraying them in favor of one another.
If Borealis had been human, he`d`ve probably given out to heart failure by now.
As it stood though, he and Leyla were giving one another the silent treatment. 'Boris' didn`t know what to say, Leyla didn`t know what to think and as it stood, that wasn`t changing any time soon.
Through the energy signature that they had become, both of the two passengers in each other`s mutual dislike were able to detect the feel of the airless void beginning to give way to Zi`s upper atmosphere, the gradual, apparent pull of gravity from the other planets in the system, and from the moons faintly visible in the distance, beginning to fade away in favor of the dulled warmth of re-entry.
Ozone split into a wake-like trail around them, and after a few more seconds, the two vanished out of space and back into the atmosphere, bylining for a cluster of mental signatures located in the city of Champton.
You are the love I never had
More explosions.
Well, I can't explain this little man
At last though, the final pilot amongst the formerly one-hundred-strong escort wing of the Whale King opened his eyes from a single blink, and for him, time itself slowed down. The cockpit flared with a dozen warning alarms, an eject warning popped up onto a console`s monitor, he felt his grip automatically tighten and relax as stress lifted into an eerie sensation of perfect calm, terror fading away to be replaced by ironic annoyance and every single, labored breath that would`ve taken halves of seconds to get in and out seeming to stretch out to hours in length.
His life flashed before his eyes in an instant, and then time sped back up and the razor blade wing of the Raynos cut a lethal swath of automatic death through the cockpit, splitting the unfortunate pilot into diagonal halves before the larger Zoid whipped away with the fluid, impossible grace of something right out of myth and legend, leaving the Foxbat to continue on for several seconds before splitting in two and exploding.
Takin' over, can't explain the way
The Whale King banked hard to the right, trying in futility to ascend in the process, but by then, it was already too late.
That I feel
So many different things happened over the course of the following number of seconds that it defied comprehension. Men and women screamed in horrified awe, a commander realized he had been left to die and suddenly found himself wishing for a last cigarette, some among the number of crew on the former-Fatalistic Renegade sought escape by parachutes and escape pods, but it was a moot point to try and get out by the time that an avian, saurian shriek screeched through the ears of those who could actually hear it, rattling them all to the core while the small green Zoid slowed down to an almost perverse speed.
A mind-numbed pilot lined up his sights, a secondary personality mentally shook his head with passing regret and in a matter of moments, Jamie Hameros felt his entire world shake and rattle, and he saw as it all blurred into vague lines of cracking, burning metal and splattering blood, terrified faces and damnation-filled eyes. He saw it, he felt it and he slipped through it all in a daze.
Realization struck, tension built up through years of percieved uselessness faded away, replaced by horror as the sounds of his own gunshots caught up with him, only to be shut out instantly as a thunderous explosion filled his ears in the process, coming from behind and leaving him temporarily blinded thanks to the sun.
By the time the automatic dimmer system kicked in, the storm had passed and rational sanity had returned, bringing with it a shell shocked sense of guilt that was intense enough for a snapping change to occur.
Well I can't explain the way that I...
The Wild Eagle, now in control, spared a glance towards the burning, falling remains of what had once been a mighty Whale King, giving only a mute shake of the head and then keying in the global positioning system that allowed the Raynos the majority of it`s long term navigation. The system was still intact, he noticed, though he didn`t bother to say anything pleasant about it.
Instead, he just did the only things he could.
He did the things he was made to do.
Well I can't explain the way that I...
He took over when Jamie was too helpless to do anything, and when no one else would, he provided a silent ear, a neutral witness who couldn`t claim any possible moral highground and who wouldn`t try to impose any thoughts or feelings.
And as the Raynos eased back out of mach four and slowed towards the sub-sonic speed limit, Will waited. He waited because there was nothing better to do but point the Raynos for a specific point in the distance and he waited because, even though there really was nothing better to do, there was also nothing else he could do.
Jamie Hameros had gone from being a hapless sidekick with issues of his own to being a mass murderer. It had taken under thirty minutes and it had required only a single sight to trigger it.
"... Oh, God..."
If Jamie had been in control, Will knew that the face they shared would`ve been tear soaked in a matter of seconds.
Well I can't explain the way that I feel...
"What have I done?"
"What you had to," came the reply, and then nothing else. Will was the only being alive who could hear the telepathic equivelent of sobbing that followed the Raynos in it`s high flight towards whatever destination the alternate personality had decided upon, and when put into perspective...
That was probably about the only good thing that had happened in the
past hours.
Author`s Note: If ya needed a Foreword to figure out what song you were supposed to listen to during this one, something is wrong with you :P
And folks: Rest assured that I`m not through mind fucking you all when it comes to Will and Jamie. I still have quite a bit planned for them...
The Big Fisch: Well put, my good man, well put >_>
That`s all for now, enjoy, leave a review, Sh33p out and see ya next
time!
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