Reign of Chaos

By Sh33p, CultofSh33p@aol.com

Chapter 22

Foreshocks

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 

Foreword: Can`t really pick any for this. Go with your own.

The grass was wet beneath him, but the air was soft and warm, gentle breezes that smoothed over his injured carcass infinitely better than the brutal carelessness of the rock-strewn rapids that had knocked him unconscious however long ago. His head was still throbbing, his vision in one eye was almost completely red-shifted and the other was merely blurred, but he was still alive. His ribs felt like he`d been through a gangland initiation ceremony and it hurt to breathe, but he was alive.

He was alone in nature, an unknown distance from civilization, injured from head to toe, but he was alive.

Raggedly, Brad Hunter let out an exhausted smile, limply dragging himself further away from the slower moving waters of the shallow part of the river he had just escaped from, trailing along bits of blood and a shred or two of his clothing in the process. He didn`t bother assessing any of his injuries, not yet anyway. No point in bothering when he already knew he was probably in the worst shape he`d been in for five or six years, maybe longer.

"So much for bein` a nice guy," he chastised himself exhaustedly, continuing to pull along on his elbows and occasionally trying to work his hips and his limp legs into giving an extra push or two. It was an exhaustive process for an already exhausted man, a man who kept moving along for no apparent reason, one eye shut, face clenched into an expression of pained determination.

Determination that could only keep up for so long, giving out as Brad came to the base of a tree. It held an eerie familiarity for him, similar to one he had often run around during his youth, back in the forests around his home town. It had been when he was an ordinary street rat, spending some of his days running off from the orphanage that frequently tried to take him in, oftentimes with a kid or two his own age. They would play for a few hours, then the nuns or the priest who ran the orphanage would find them and drag them all back.

A defeated chuckle formed at the thought of those days, even if it hurt to try laughing.

A few more seconds followed and his bruised, uncovered arms reached out to the tree, pulling himself along some more until turning around and propping himself up against it. His back was numb, and not for the first time, he felt a small inkling of relief in that his former imprisoners had forced him to switch back to his original clothing when he`d been caught. Made him more recognizable to them, even if Brad himself felt that it was a poor choice to do when a prison uniform could`ve accomplished the same.

Not that he was complaining, but still.

The distant chugging sound of an engine was the only thing he could hear as his eyes started to slip shut, every ounce of energy having long since been siphoned out of his ragged, battered body as those bruised arms fell to his sides and his numbed legs stretched out, sopping wet still due to the fact that his pants were made of a water absorbant type of fiber. His head craned forward a bit and the sound of the engine came to a slow stop, replaced by the whistling songs of the native birds.

Exhaustion seemed an increasingly common thread on the planet of Zi, a world whose current population was all descended from over a half a million exiled prison inmates. Not that many people remembered or cared about this fact anymore. Bit Cloud was among those who didn`t remember and wouldn`t have cared even if he did. The only real interests that history had ever had for him were around the times of Van Fleiheit and the other heroes of the Guylos-Helic wars, and even that had recently lost its appeal with the death of his ancestral grandmother, Fiona.

At present, the nineteen year old was trying to relax, as he had been for several hours. He was still partially covered in a mixture of dirt, melting snow, ash and chips of dried, cold rock - how he was even alive was so far past his own ability to comprehend that his mind automatically threatened to shut down everytime he even tried to think about it. All that he could really remember was the lava pooling up around his legs and then everything went pitch black until the moment where he finished literally clawing his way out from his suffocating, darkened prison.

His hands were still bleeding from the palms, knuckles and fingertips. They would probably have been bruised for a month if not for the efforts of Zeke, who was slowly, and impossibly beginning to heal them. How? That was also beyond Bit`s comprehension, but by that same token, it didn`t interest him enough to think about in the first place. His gloves lay in his lap, as did the Handleblade - still held in its holster. His legs were crossed below the knees and his head was sagging back, practically sinking into the currently-pulled back cockpit seat of the Liger Zero, as if it was in the Jaeger setup.

Feeling any better?

"Not really," he half-mumbled, half-choked out. His voice was hoarse, apparently from screaming during his black out. "Could use a bite to eat right now... Or maybe a fucking bath," he added in a blithe afterthought, turning to look forward. Madison and Roc were still standing in front of the Liger, the larger of the two literally towering over the woman in front of it, not to mention the Liger and virtually all of the immediate, surrounding landscape.

"What the hell are those two, anyway?" Bit asked in another half-mumble, shifting a bit and getting comfortable.

Guardians. Just like we`ll be, at some point.

"No, I meant... What the hell are they?"

Clinically insane?

I heard that.

The cockpit jerked slightly, Bit supressed the urge to snicker and Zeke quickly saved face by muttering an apology in Organoidian. Madison remained impassive though, standing out in the frigidly hot, ashen snow of Hell on the mortal plane, virtually uneffected in any way other than having to squint slightly, not to mention the way the ash and snow were starting to cover her even more than it usually did. Ice sickles were hanging out of the woman`s hair.

Leena would`ve probably had a heart attack from the damage the environment could do to her appearance, at least she would have before Kale had scarred the snot out of her.

Madison didn`t even care. She just stood there, staring off into nowhere.

Nowhere was that city in the distance, the one that the out-of-place transit tunnel lead to. There was still an almost vampiric, crimson glow coming from the center of it, but Bit had given up on trying to get much of a look at the place. Roc seemed possessed against the idea of any of them even going within a mile of it.

And speaking of Roc...

Get as an hour of sleep and then take the long way towards the Dome, the Ancient ordered with the stern tone of a teacher. It is almost time for your next test.

"... For fuck`s sake, you people are worse than my Science teacher in High School! How many god damned pop quizzes do you assholes have?!"

Show respect or else I`ll eject you.

"... Oh like you aren`t annoyed too?!" Bit demanded, promptly causing Zeke to shut up. Roc was unmoved, though he did provide a relatively fair answer in reply.

As many as it takes. That is all that you need to know. For now.

"... Why me?" The blonde grumbled out, hanging his head in a mixture of exhaustion, annoyance and flat-out contempt for the other two, a contempt that was slowly growing into full-blown hatred. Not hatred like what he had for Kale, but hatred like he had for his old Science teacher.

In a sense, Madison and Roc were teachers.

They were just the teachers from Hell.

Mary Sandler. Age twenty-seven, Helic born, neutral immigrant. Light brown hair, tall for a woman, somewhat underdeveloped at the hips and chest, cold blue eyes and a natural posture of self-assured confidence and independence that could make a typical feminist die in envy within a matter of seconds. She wasn`t exactly the prettiest girl on the block when she had been growing up, nor was she now, but by that same token, none of the other girls on the block had learned how to fire a hunting rifle by the age of six. They were all too busy playing with Barbie Dolls, Mary was busy beating the local boys over the head with a wiffle bat and shooting them with a BB gun.

She was as lacking in her figure as she was in her morals. This woman would kill anyone for the right price, even her own parents, and she wouldn`t blink once while doing it. Her talent for hitting impossible targets had been what had given her the nickname of Sureshot, and that was a nickname she strived to keep at every chance.

At present, Mary Sandler was clad in the garb of a pilot`s jumpsuit, the dark green outfit clinging to her lanky, man-sized body like a second skin as she sat in the retracting flight chair of the Geno Sniper. Her white, red-striped helmet sat as dead weight in her lap, the straps of the chair had been fastened into place and her expression was one of absolute relaxation, a half-empty styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, the other flittering around instinctively over the keyboard. Like the cockpit of the now-destroyed Proto Breaker, the cockpit of the quite-intact Geno Sniper had been tailored to her preferences, closely resembling the setup of her old Snipe Master, at least in how the controls had been laid out. There were a few additions, here and there, like the lack of a cupholder and the lack of a holographic generator like the type found on Helcats, but it was still essentially the same.

"All prepped for launch?" Asked a voice from the forward console, just as the chair finished its ascent into the actual cockpit and locked into place, the armored chest panel slamming shut with a clang of metal as the rail drew back up into the stomach. Mary identified it as one of the mechanics, a relatively nice guy by the name of Ed.

"Yeah, and I`m holding you to your word about paying for dinner when I get back," she stated with an unusually out-of-place smirk, reaching up and popping open a miniature console before adjusting the surround sound volume, fixing the brightness and adjusting her targeting systems through it, only to slap it shut again before gulping down what remained of her coffee and dropping the cup carelessly into the floor.

Hey, even amoral, mercenary super bitches had to have something fun going on in their lives, right?

"Understood. Shall I bering ze chompaign?" He asked with a false French accent.

"Just bring a bullet so I can shoot you if you talk like that," she replied with an actual smile. "Entering radio silence once I exit the Dome," she added, flipping her communications over to recieve-only, then picking her helmet out of her lap and putting it on, though she chose to leave the visor up.

The howl of the winds outside was diminished, but not entirely, once the floor began to lower down, revealing the section that the Geno Sniper was placed on to be an elevator of sorts, gently extending to the snow and ash choked volcanic dirt beneath the immense structure of the Dome, which itself was held up on eight massive leg-like superstructures, each of which could easily move around in case of geological upheaval, and each of which had a built in shield generator to deal with errant lava flows. All eight tended to glow pink due to this fact.

The Dome itself was probably one of the largest Zoid-type things ever created, closely resembling the body of a giant snapping turtle with the head drawn in or removed, while the legs bore more of a resemblance to those of a sauropod dinosaur in positioning and shape, and it lacked any sort of tail, though if not for the tons of ash and snow clinging in futility to it`s topside, it would also maintain a stronger resemblance to a turtle shell thanks to the massive panels in place there.

"All systems green," she read from the small monitor on the right side of the cockpit, just beneath the main viewscreen to that direction, placing her hands to the Liger-like dual joystick controls and her feet onto the pedals. "Open season on blondes, ugly mechanical cats and my next paycheck."

With that, the enormous, white-and-gray camouflaged Zoid soundlessly padded its way off the exit strip and onto the snow, its boosters igniting a few seconds later.

A groan and a somewhat painful breath sounded the alarm to someone or something, the world at large was a blur that mixed familiarity with things that were new, or at least seemed that way thinks to the number that had been done on his vision. Certain colors couldn`t be fully processed, shades of gray dominated his sight for a number of moments before he tiredly reached a hand up and rubbed it over his eyes, realizing that he had suddenly gained a few new items of clothing and was currently laying on a sheet spread out on the ground, with his head on a pillow.

"`Bout time you woke up," came the cryptic comment from a husky, familiar voice. It had been the same voice that Brad Hunter had hoped he probably wouldn`t have to hear in these conditions ever again. "Am I the only one getting a sense of deja vu here?" The voice asked, and Brad slowly fought his way up from where he`d been sprawled out on the sheet, looking over to his right to find an unfamiliar green-and-gray Gustav, the cockpit shut. It was situated in an eerily familiar clearing, one that the former mercenary recognized from years earlier, instinctively knowing that this clearing couldn`t be reached without a trip down a dirt road and over a shallow ditch used by an old farmer to help divert water from a specific river and use it to help irrigate part of his fields.

"Fuck," the shaggy haired pilot muttered out in recognition, holding a hand up to his bandaged-over stomach and wincing at the sight of another familiar object that only furthered to convince him that his supicions were correct.

Said-object was the green eyed, black-and-red Lightning Saix that was the trademark of a man that Brad Hunter hadn`t been on close terms with in years.

"Finally recognize home, huh? Bart," Jack Sisco commented from the camp fire settled to Brad`s other side, just ten or so feet away. It was early in the afternoon, the former mercenary reasoned, so Jack must have stopped for lunch or something, as evidenced by the skillet currently suspended over the fire. The other roady wasn`t wearing his jacket, for whatever reason, instead favoring his more casual get-up for the time being. That ugly green t-shirt, brown slacks, boots and a black leather belt, not to mention his bandana.

That ugly, green-checkered bandana with the two weighted sticks hanging out of the back. Brad hated that bandana. With a passion.

"Still hidin` the stripes, huh?" He asked, supressing the urge to try and rip the band right off of Jack`s head and beat him with it. "John," he added as an afterthought while slowly hauling himself off of one sheet and from beneath the one that had been spread over him. He was relieved to find that even if the other roady hadn`t bothered putting his shirt back on while he was out, he was at least wearing his pants still.

"Johnathan Sebastian is dead," came the semi-numbed reply. "I`m Jack Sisco."

"Then you`ll be glad to know that Brad Hunter isn`t," the other former mercenary commented, stumbling over to the campfire and plopping down with an uneased feeling coursing through him. He and Jack Sisco went back a long way. "Least I`m still using my birth name."

"I don`t have a birth name, remember?" Jack replied, having long since forsaken the name he`d had a child. "And your shirt`s in the Gustav, had to get it outta the way to tape your ribs and back up," he tossed in as an afterthought. Brad nodded without another word spoken, causing an unnatural quiet that stayed in place for a few minutes before being broken again.

"Talk about the mother of all coincidences... Where are your partners?" Hunter asked calmly, not exactly sure where to begin catching up. It had been years since the two had last had a private conversation after all, even the ties of a gang could wear away pretty quickly.

"Chris went to check on their dad, Kel went to check on their mom. They`re in different cities. How about you?" Jack asked smoothly in response, staring at the fire in that way he always did when he was relaxed.

"Bit`s M.I.A., possibly dead, Leena`s with her dad and I don`t have a freakin` clue where the hell Jamie is," Brad answered without missing a beat, cutting the small talk a few seconds later. "Odd that we`d both end up near our home town, eh?"

"`Bout damn time you cracked," Jack asked with a friendly smile that only three other people had been privy to in the past few years. After that, he reached over to his right arm and pulled the sleeve up, revealing the same stripes on it as there were on Brad`s arms. "Once a roady, always a roady," he added.

"Heh... Last time I went by that, I lost the Shadow Fox," the other replied, no longer really regretting the loss of his old Zoid. "Guy wasn`t even a real roady, either."

"So I heard. Some `Staver punk who must`ve picked up the code by ear," Sisco commented, obviously referencing one Marcus Harlock in the process. "So... What`re you doing out here?"

"Don`t believe I could say I was takin` a swim, could I?" Brad asked, still holding a hand to his stomach before leaning forward with his other elbow in his lap, both legs curled indian style beneath him. Jack shook his head with a rarely sardonic expression, a bit awkward since his bandana covered all of his forehead, and for good reason. That ugly, diamond-checkered bandana hid the still-fading, oversized, cross-shaped scar that covered much of Jack Sisco`s forehead, the result of a gang dispute in his early teens.

"Jamie went after his girlfriend, I went after Jamie to keep an eye on `im, we got captured, spent I don`t know how long as prisoners, then all Hell broke loose and I managed to get out," Brad explained, his own forehead partially covered by the bandaging wrapped around it. "You?"

"I was heading back here to make sure the old dump was still intact in the first place, but..."

"This is the part where I`m supposed to feign disbelief, huh?"

Jack nodded before continuing. "Seems the town`s been taken over and booby trapped. Don`t know how many sleeper units they`ve set around it, but I do know that there are too many for me to take out without them managing to off everyone in town. They`ve got the kids packed like sardines in the second floor of the church, and the adults crammed into the basement catacombs where Danny and the rest of the boys used to hide out," he explained with obvious frustration, not even paying attention to the change that snapped across his old brother-in-arms` face.

If it had been any other church, there was a genuine likelihood that neither of the two would`ve even cared. Human life was expendable in more cases than either typically wanted to think about, but that church was their church. Both had grown up in the orphanage that the church provided, both had looked up to the local minister as if he were a father and both had practically adopted the local workers there as family, and even if that had all been over a decade ago, both still felt strongly about it.

Strong enough that both had been sending donations through the mail for years.

"I may not be up to par right now b-" "My gun`s in the `Stav, think you can get in on foot and knock out the guys in and around the church?" Jack asked, having been anticipating what Brad was going to say for a while now.

"Can you deal with the Sleepers?" Brad asked in reply, not even needing to answer the question that had been thrown at him. Jack was more or less similar in attitude.

"When`s the right time to start the attack?" He asked his once-again comrade, the fire that burned before them now reflecting dangerously in both of their eyes.

An ancient machine, conveniently unnoticed by the likes of the most modern defense systems that money could buy, stirred for the first time in almost two days, the warrior`s spirit that had been programmed into it so long ago clashing briefly with the surge of logic, rational thought to follow. Planning formed from there, and as the basis of that plan came numerical prophecy. Things were easy to predict, the larger the group, the more predictable it became, and Champton had just taken in a well-predicted influx into its population.

It had become even more predictable as a result. Numerical prophecy lead further on, perfectly and accurately gauging and anticipating defenses that hadn`t even been seen in action yet, and numerical prophecy had even taken a perfect role in allowing the old beast to sneak in so perfectly undetected that passing aerial patrols hadn`t even noticed it at least than a hundred feet overhead.

Numerical prophecy had aided it so much thus far, but playing in with that prophecy were countless other abilities, both mental - it was beyond regular sentience - and physical - it bore an arsenal of weapons and tricks that were hard to match even after over two hundred years of technological development.

Defense scanners were analyzed through mental simulations, thoughts of the defenders themselves were anticipated so perfectly that it was almost like a telepathic instinct guiding the creature as it began to bend down and gain leverage for a precisely calculated jump, one that would carry it right into a gap between the ground and air radars of the fortress. A course had been plotted through the city at large, the target and the back-up were both anticipated and without even a nanosecond to spare, the old Zoid shot from the ground, revealing itself to plain sight without so much as a single roar or growl, heaving through the air with more agility than anything of comparable size could ever even dream of.

Even now, the grandest work of Thomas Richard Schubaltz was undeniably still ahead of its time.

An annoying beep summoned Leena Tauros out of an incredibly light nap, her fingers unraveling from the bird-like hair of the snoring Harry Champ and her closest hand swiping the communicator off the floor with an annoyed expression on her face. It took her all of a fraction of a second to switch form the eerily nurturing expression she had been wearing in her sleep to the maniacally homicidal expression that haunted Bit Cloud`s nightmares every few weeks, made all the more imposing by the scars that were probably going to permanently mar her face since most plastic surgeons had conveniently gone out of business when the world ended.

One tap of the button on the side, Harry`s sleeping form shifted slightly, his head still situated heavily on the pillow placed into the bubblegum pink haired girl`s lap and his arm slipping beneath one of her legs as if to hold the pillow itself in place. If she had been in any sane state of mind, she probably would`ve instantly gotten goosebumps as a result - Harry Champ was actually quite handsome when he was asleep. And not talking. And not wearing platform shoes and a brown duster with dangly ribbons on the sleeves...

"Harry?! You there?!" Came the equally annoying, familiar and somewhat loud voice of the S-5A Bot known as Sebastian, the shorter of the self-proclaimed Prince`s assistants.

"Harry. Is. Sleeping," Leena replied with the same murderous voice that had driven Brad Hunter to want to rip his ears off on more than one occasion. "Leave. A. Message."

"IwouldifIcouldbutIcan`trightnow! We`ve got trouble!" Sebastian almost yelped back, obviously frantic.

"... What kind of trouble?" She asked, sounding a bit less crazed and a bit more rational. A bit.

"The kind that begins with a capital T and gets followed with a-" The door practically blew open, revealing one frantic looking Benjamin, who skittered in with a loud series of the sounds that came whenever the two bots were moving around, causing Harry to snap awake with eyes that were only partially bloodshot by now.

"We`re screwed if we don`t get to a safer place! Now!" The robot screeched with the same frantic tone that was obvious in its stance, just as Harry Champ slowly started to sit up on his side, his expression fading from surprised unrest to outright discontent. He had been rather enjoying the prospect of uninterrupted sleep.

"What do you mean?" He asked, before Leena or Sebastian could say anything further.

"Some... Zoid is coming fast, headed right for the Westerson Cafe! Nothing we`re throwing at it can even touch the freaking thing!"

A Command Wolf screeched and toppled over, its right legs both knocked out at the elbow and knee stabilizers so perfectly that the joints popped loose without an inkling of damage to more than already expendable wiring. A Heldigunner followed suit moments later, also taken out with the precision of a high speed surgical knife, a blunted hand shooting out on a Genoesque cable and literally plowing through the hip of one leg, leaving the Zoid to drag to a stop. Thrusters activated again, a Gojulas` supercannons devestated the area that the assailant had been standing in, but the would-be savior was no match for the speed of its foe.

The Gojulas was knocked over with a single swipe of an elongated, thick tail, no longer used for balance, but combat. The blow had been so perfectly executed that there wasn`t so much as a dent outside of the impact point, even on the side of the huge Zoid that was now sprawled out on the ground. It was an eerie sight to behold, one made all the more so, in the eyes of one Leon Tauros, because the attacking Zoid was so similar to the one it had just knocked out.

"How the hell is a Gojulas moving like that?" He thought to himself, drowsily gripping the controls of the Red Blade Liger as if they were a lifeline. What made it all the more strange was how precisely and quickly this giant of a Zoid was literally punching straight through defensive lines that could`ve held back anything short of a modern day army without even being touched by gunfire or blades.

The Zoid itself was fast, impossibly so for an ordinary Gojulas, decked out with a desert camouflage paint scheme and frequently shifting from an upright stance to one that closely resembled a Geno Saurer, the latter revealing the thruster pack situated between the two massive, supercannon-like weapons on its back. The Blade Liger growled something out, the Gojulas took notice, springing upright and consequently dodging a stream of machine gunfire with perfect impunity.

For an instant, time seemed frozen, and then the larger Zoid burst forward, as if it had found exactly what it was looking for. Reflexively, Leon threw his blasters forward and opened fire, sending two three-shot pulses towards his attacker, only to watch it skid to the side on hot, fire-white hoverskate units, the cannons on its back shifting to point straight forward as it continued the approach at near-Shield Liger-like speeds.

["No... Not you..."]

The Liger growled again, and suddenly, the blasters stopped firing and the blades flipped back. At the same time, every single Zoid on the battlefield stopped firing, control systems shut down and the Zoids themselves took control, leveling their weaponry right onto the head of the assailant with more precision than their pilots could ever even dream of having, in most cases anyway.

The Gojulas slowed to a stop, barely the length of two Geno Saurers from the Red Blade, its cannons pointing upright and its admittedly short, blocky looking arms falling to some sort of neutral point. It stood upright, but still slouched forward somewhat, and the wear of age had faded its formerly perfect desert paint scheme, while its bulked up, lengthened tail straightened out almost rigidly as if to provide counterbalance.

["... Just... Just stay away!"]

The Gojulas bore a number of thick, heavy looking armor panels, no doubt added during its creation. Multiple stabilizer caps were visible on the outer side of each thigh, six in all, with two in similar alignments on the out side of each shin, and another three positioned on the outer side of each foot. Every single joint in the arms also possessed a larger-than-usual stabilizer cap, bar the fingers, which looked as if the Gojulas had been given multiple fingered boxing gloves, with thick armored panels on the exposed side of each finger, the hands themselves having been dramatically strengthened, enough that it could rip limbs off of most other Zoids with ease, or pulverize them.

Three stabilizer caps along each cheek, just behind the start of a sharply toothed jaw, with a pair of double, light pulse guns to either side. Vectoring, turreting triple thrusters were on the out side of each lower leg, and hoverstake thrusters were no doubt in position on the soles of either foot, while Geno Saurer-like ankle locks rested undeployed on the back of each ankle. The two cannons upon its back were noticably different from an ordinary Gojulas, they were longer, each one bearing for narrow fins extending in a cross, with each one situated just ahead of the base of the barrel and stretching out to a few feet ahead of its thickened tip, while the main part of the guns themselves were visibly bulkier and smoother than those of a supercannon.

Lastly, the tail was thickened considerably, and lengthened as well, the tip of it taken up by a thickly armored, narrowing club that could easily crush through armor with no trouble at all.

["... No. No!"]

This thing hadn`t been built as a mere improvement to the Gojulas design. Even at its basic appearance, it looked as though it could stand toe to toe with a Geno Saurer on better than even ground. It fought like it could take one on, too, if not a Breaker.

"What is that thing?" Leon asked, temporarily distracted from the fact that his Zoid wasn`t responding.

The Gojulas took a step forward, rattling the ground for a split second and leaving the Blade Liger to roar out something defiantly.

["GET AWAY FROM ME!!!"]

A growl echoed, even over the Liger`s roar, and a twin glow of gold echoed from the Gojulas` mouth, before it launched off again, almost looking as if it had been slapped in the face. In response, Leon tried to will the Liger to turn around, but the Zoid failed to respond at all, staring ahead as if it had just won some utterly pointless, hollow victory, even while the rest of the Zoids on the battlefield stood down, those in the air landing and those below ground revealing themselves, their pilots unable to even open the cockpits.

"CAN`T ANYONE STOP THAT THING?!"

Leon`s question went unanswered. The Gojulas touched down on a cushion of super pressurized flame, just past Champton city limits, before blazing down the street towards the fortress, completely unscathed by every attack from the defensive guns, all of which were the lighter machine guns, gattlings and pulse cannons. No one in the base was willing to risk more than that.

Concrete slagged beneath its ancient feet, the Gojulas slid onward, activating the thruster on its back and again launching through the air with impossible speed for something of its size, ascending over the outer wall of the fortress and then passing back down through the air, again landing on the cushion of super pressurized thrusterfire from its feet, the paved, steel-covered ground beneath suddenly turning hot, burning red as the Zoid practically blew through the ranks of deactivated defense Zoids like a harmless tornado, not opening fire, not bothering to dodge, not doing anything.

It was as if the local Zoids had completely relented and given up against an opponent that none of them wanted to fight. Why and how were questions that nobody could give an answer to.

Prediction set in again, likelihoods were calculated, options weighed and the choice made in a matter of nanoseconds, leaving the Gojulas to come skidding to a dead stop, footlocks briefly deployed in the process, before crashing into the wall of the single tallest building in the fortress, the head lunging forward at the last second.

Titanium-reinforced concrete cracked and shattered like an eggshell, and within an instant, the cockpit flew open, leaving the fear-paralyzed Harry Champ and Benjamin to both fly off of their feet in shock by the time they even finished screaming out, every single piece of debris completely flying clear of the two without even the slightest chance of hitting them.

And then the briefly visible cockpit chair`s arm panels flipped open to either side, revealing keyboards and monitors that promptly snapped open and shattered to pieces, Organoid-like cables streaking out through the air and snatching the target that the Gojulas had been after all along.

Leena Tauros gave off a surprised, horrified shriek, leaving her feet with no less than nine or ten cables wrapped around her like ropes and pulling her off of her feet in mid-step. By the time that Harry could finish sliding off of the wall that he had flown into, another cable had smacked him across the side of the head and sent him flying down the hall, only to land with a newly bleeding bruise from where it had nailed him.

"HARRY!!!" Leena screamed, instantly being yanked into the flight chair as the cockpit slammed shut, providing only the parting view of a plug-covered helmet snapping down over her head in the process.

The Gojulas pulled out, skating backwards before turning around and executing another thruster jump, leaving Naomi Fluegel to yell curses at her frozen command system and the newly-disembarking Steven Tauros, Leyon Martin and Sarah Obscura to watch in puzzled, uninformed awe at the sight of such a large Zoid literally blazing over the walls and back into the civilian area of the city, leaving as swiftly and forcefully as it had first come.

"How much longer?" Vega asked tiredly, walking onto the bridge of the Foe Hammer with an expression that echoed his voice. A cup of fresh coffee was in each hand, the larger of which was promptly offered up to the young man sitting idly at the helm, one leg curled up beneath him, the other hanging partially off the arm of the chair. Lars Torson wasn`t exactly known for his discipline, or for his attention span. He was the kind of guy who typically had himself buried in whatever held interest for him, his minute circle of friends was proof enough of that.

"I don`t know. Anywhere from one day to two, if we keep at the speed we`re going," he answered, his head propped up on one fist and his eyes sagging partially shut before he grabbed the cup and took a sip. "Especially if Nyx`s weather is as bad as you say it is..."

"It is. We`ll probably have to hold off on landing for more than a few minutes at most, especially with how bad the geology is there," Vega replied, his eyes suddenly taking that distant look to them that they kept gaining from time to time. Lars was unnoticing, he`d gotten used to the idea that he was hanging out with a child prodigy who could concievably look anywhere in the world and keep tabs on anyone he wanted with terrifying ease.

Suffice to say, he`d been more than a bit paranoid about taking a shower or using the bathroom.

Vega returned to normal all over again, plopping down in the captain`s chair for no other reason than it being empty and comfortable.

"Don`t suppose you could turn on the radio or something..."

"I tried that already," Torson replied drearily. "Every station`s been shot to nothing but chatter thanks to how many people are trying to relay messages on them. How`s Dana?" He asked with a bit of concern for the older woman, taking another sip of coffee and looking over at his datapad with want. The only reason he wasn`t playing a game or music right now was because Vega wanted to be sure he was paying attention to the controls.

"She and her family are together - out of the way of any attacks."

"And Kat?" He asked again, this time bearing a bit more emotion than he had for Dana. It was obvious, in Vega`s mind anyway, that the hapless nerd had a crush on her, which was made somewhat unfortunate because of Kat`s choice in lovers. Nerds couldn`t exactly compete with guys like Kyle Mazemia, especially not socially withdrawn nerds who didn`t have a record for bravery in Zoid battles.

"She`s finishing taking a shower," Vega replied smoothly, the distant look in his eyes in play this time. He had probably checked on her a few seconds earlier. "With her boyfriend," he tossed in idly, promptly crushing the temporarily perverted and slightly hopeful look on his partner`s face. "Might as well set your sights elsewhere," he added, taking another sip of his own coffee. Lars blinked.

"Yes. It`s that obvious," Vega cut him off. Again, Lars blinked before letting out a cough and changing the subject.

"How`s your friend?" He asked, no even bothering to pause to come up with something to call Specular. As far as Lars was concerned, if it was something that the kid honestly regarded as a family member or a dear friend, it was someone worth giving the dignities he typically gave to human beings. It wasn`t much, but it was the least he could do.

"Still resting. She probably won`t even wake up until we get to Nyx," the younger of the two replied. "Feels kinda weird though... I don`t hear her like I used to, but instead I`m hearing millions of voices at once, all of them operating specifically by how I want them to, all of them doing whatever I tell them to and only giving me the images and reports that I want or they think are important to me..." He added, those dark brown eyes seeming distant again, but not the way they had been before. It was more a distance of thought than anything else.

"... Don`t suppose you could peek into any girls` locker rooms, could you?" Lars asked dismissively.

"... Been there, done that, jacked the MP3, got sued for copyright infringement by the RIAA," Vega answered a bit hesitantly before taking another sip of his coffee, leaving the other to sound off in acknowledgement and look back at the console in front of him without another word.

Tremors.

On planet Zi, tremors were rare in every place but Nyx, mainly since the world was in the midst of a peaceful cycle of its geology. Earthquakes were even rarer than simple tremors, happening once every fifty years on average, if that. They were so rare, people weren`t even taught about getting under tables, or standing in doorways and other such things, buildings were only ever proofed to outlast an Earthquake if the builders knew the things were going to be around long enough for it. In five hundred years of human existence on Zi, there had been a total of twenty-three earthquakes, only one of which had ever been powerful enough to cause major damage to a city.

Today, there was a tremor rumbling through the city of Farentown, jolting Katherine Takahori a bit as she sat down on the couch of the living room in the upstairs apartment of the uncle of her boyfriend`s team mate, intent on having her usual after-shower smoke. The old cancer stick was already in hand, she was fumbling for her lighter and then everything started to rumble slightly. Normally, she would`ve just passed this off as an errant shockwave from an explosion, it certainly didn`t seem that out of place anymore, but the lack of a precursing blast placed doubt in her about that.

Kyle stood behind her with one hand on the back of the couch, the other holding onto the towel currently draped around his neck. His hair was still drying, and he was in a partial state of undress since he had yet to get his overalls back on. Unlike his clinically insane team mate, Kyle`s girlfriend hadn`t been around to do something as kindly as bringing in the sack he kept his clothing in when he wasn`t at home, whereas Abbie had done that for Mark at some point during he and Kyle`s time on 'guard duty.'

As a result, Kyle was standing there in a sleeveless white shirt and boxers. Unlike Mark, who tended to wear boxers that were black with white stripes down the side, Kyle tended to wear boxers that were white.

With heart patterns.

Pink. Heart patterns.

With cute arrows running through them.

Obviously, Kyle Mazemia wasn`t compensating for something, chin be damned.

"Don`t suppose you felt that too, did you?" He asked a bit blithely, his normally upbeat, easily excited attitude fading out to the sarcasm that had inexplicably been rubbed off on him by Mark and Harabec. "Or am I just going insane..."

"Again."

"Yeah. Again."

"Nope, I felt it," Kat answered idly, reaching around and then digging through the seat cushions before finally finding and removing her lighter, promptly using it to ignite the tip of her cigarette. Her hair was still hanging down, she was also wearing nothing but her underwear and a shirt that she had... Borrowed from Harabec`s closet, so to speak. Unlike Kyle, she didn`t really have any issues with borrowing other people`s clothes if she was going to be a house guest.

As a result, the brunette haired woman rarely got invited to stay over with too many people. She hadn`t even brought a change of clothes, and her jumpsuit was currently in the washing machine with Kyle`s clothing.

"Guessing I`m not the only one getting a bit weirded out by all that`s been happening lately, am I?" She asked, craning her head back to look up at her boyfriend, who was in the midst of stepping around the couch and making good to sit down next to her.

"... `Fraid so."

"... Why`s that?"

"... I hang out with two dangerous psychopaths and a living legend. Nothing weirds me out anymore," Kyle answered sardonically, leaning back and getting comfortable as the pair waited for their clothing to finish. "How`ve things been with you lately?" He asked, wanting to catch up on the time they had missed with each other. Sure, he could`ve done so in the shower but... Well...

They`d been a bit busy in the shower. Enough said.

"Same old, same old. Dana`s back at home, Lars is... Lars, and Vega`s... I don`t know what the hell happened to that kid," she explained with all of the reserve and elegance of a blind Orca. Katherine had never been a woman who drew explanations out, she was simple, straight to the point. It was a trait she usually shared with her younger brother, Rayth. "How about you?"

"... I already told you."

"They`re that simple to describe? For you?" She asked disbelievingly, her giving Kyle that sideways glance that could reduce him from valiant tournament warrior to groveling man-servant in an under a second. In this case though, it only served to make him shrug a bit before trying to explain with a bit more depth. Kyle Mazemia, after all, was almost the opposite of his girlfriend, at least when he got the chance for it. Complex and one who was more likely to circle around the point for an hour, like a shark, he just didn`t get the chance to show it too often.

It was very difficult to be serious around Marcus Harlock.

"Let`s see now..."

"Take your time, Shoujonen, we`ve got a while," she replied, throwing out her own insultingly cutesy pet name for him in the process. Coming from Mark, that would`ve been a major insult. Coming from Kat? It caused his cheeks to flush slightly, red eyes sliding shut as he flopped his head back and she turned sideways on the couch, laying her legs in his lap and waiting with the cigarette in her mouth.

"Do I have to be complimentary, or insulting?"

"Whichever."

"Life`s gone to Hell, you`re one of the only shining points I`ve got left. Mark is completely over the edge, his girlfriend`s an anchor to reality with a cutely torturous nature and his uncle makes me wanna shove my head in a blender. That good?" Kyle asked, running a hand over his girlfriend`s shins and leaving his other arm to dangle over the back of the couch.

"It`ll do."

"Hear from Stigma, lately?" He asked, curious as to how his seemingly older twin was fairing these days. Katherine was as impassive as she ever was to most people, except for Kyle.

"Haven`t seen hide nor hair of the old bastard since we took Vega to Garnhelm."

"Rayth?"

"Nope. Haven`t heard of or from him, either."

"Good freaking riddance," Kyle muttered out idnignantly. He had been friends with Rayth, once, it was how he had met Kat in the first place. After a while though, the younger Takahori had just gotten on his nerves, and from there, things had eventually gotten violent.

Kyle and Kat were both ex-Backdraft members. Both had been failed candidates for the Five Kings program. Kyle was too much of a nice guy who wasn`t a latent telepath, Kat was only good with a Pteras and a monkey wrench. Kyle had been in by choice to try and gain skills as a Zoid pilot and get enough money to pay off his parents` debts, Kat was born to a mother who was a relative to a founding member of the Council and a father who had been an in-law to the Count`s son. To put it bluntly, they went back a long way.

Despite that history though, his comment still earned him a light, but annoyed knock in the stomach by one of Kat`s legs, leaving him to leer uneasily at her with one eye, the other still shut.

"Don`t talk about my baby brother like that, he didn`t know any better," she growled out.

"He still tried to kill me."

"... Oh, like your partner hasn`t?!"

A pause. A loud sigh.

"You win."

"I always win, dear," Katherine said with a smile, her cigarette dangling off of her bottom lip without a care in the world.

Engines cut out, the thruster died down and clumsy-looking ground legs extended down, metallic feet grasping the dirt with each stride, wings flapping briefly to give a bit more life to the Zoid`s fading lift. It had been hours now, but it was still around mid-day to mid-afternoon, somewhere in there. The house was a fairly quaint looking place, a moisture farm situated a few country miles from the town of Iden Madria, situated on the border of the Helic Republic and the neutral zone that the Zoid Battle Commission held its games in.

"Home again, home again..." The pilot of the newly landed Zoid thought to himself, the cockpit sliding open with a gasp of scentless air, giving him the chance to take in the sight of the area in colored detail. A familiar, beaten up looking Pteras stood off to the side of an extended driveway, originally it had belonged to Maria Hameros, back when she had been piloting. The Zoid paid no attention to its new visitors, staring endlessly off into the distance, wings tucked behind it, dirt and rust stains that wouldn`t come off playing havoc on a once well-maintained paint job.

"Jiggidy-fucking-jig," he added aloud, undoing his safety harness and then standing up. The winds of the desert whipped at his short-kept, chocolate-colored hair, rustling it like the feathers on an eagle`s wing, but he paid it little mind. The area hadn`t changed much over the years, aside from the additions of more and more machines and buildings to house them. Moisture farming was one of the few assured ways to make a good living in the desert, and Oscar and Maria Hameros had been among the first to take part in it when the industry had been born, striking into an underground river that was fed directly by the ocean, over five hundred miles away.

They were probably the richest family in the local countryside, the fancy, Spanish-styled house they lived in was proof enough of that. It was almost big enough to qualify as a small mansion, if not for the severe lack of greenery outside of the private garden.

"Just as you remember it," Will commented, though Jamie didn`t respond. For Will, it was actually the first time he had ever been to his own parents` home, mainly since he hadn`t even been 'born' during the time Jamie had lived and visited here. He knew enough though, to think it alright that he park the Raynos in plain sight near the front year.

"Let`s go meet the family, shall we?" He asked, promptly jumping over the side of the cockpit, which instantly slipped shut without a pilot to occupy it. For most people, a jump from that height would`ve meant broken legs at the best, for the Wild Eagle, it meant temporarily numbness in the soles of his feet. Nothing else.

Landing in a crouch, the teen stood up with the slow, thoughtful motions of a war veteran, glancing around and taking in the scenery a bit better than he had been able to before. There was a familiar collection of dolls and toy Zoids scattered across the porch, familiar to Jamie, anyway. They obviously belonged to his younger sister, wherever she was right now. His mother`s car wasn`t anywhere in sight and the door to the part of the garage she kept it in was still hanging open since she rarely remembered to put it back down after pulling out, that meant she and Linda were both probably off somewhere.

Iden Madria was one of the only places on the planet that hadn`t been nailed down in some way by Rommel`s global ambush. There weren`t any up-to-date Zoids in the immediate area, bandits viewed the place as being too much of the wrong kind of wealth to pillage it and it was too out of the way and too defenseless to make a full scale assault practical, but also too out of the way for anything but shipping Gustavs, HoverCargoes, Whale Kings and other aerial Zoids to really get too without being overly supplied. It was self-sufficient in every way, power and food included.

As such, while the rest of the world tried to avoid imploding, life just went on in Iden Madria and the area around it as if nothing had changed, bar the problems with phonelines, television and the internet.

Tucking his hands into the pockets of his vest, the young man took several minutes to truly familiarize himself with the Hameros property, not with Jamie`s memories, but fresh ones of his own. It was disconcerting to have the realization that you`d lived somewhere for thirteen years, but this was also your first time being there, never having arrived or left to begin with.

The house itself was three stories tall, along with a second garden on the roof, extending for about two city blocks in all directions, with the garage being a seperate structure altogether, joined to the house by a paved walkway. Everything looked as if it had been made of adobe, but that was only the external layers, while the hard wood floor of the porch was quite real.

Real enough that it made a classic, cowboyesque thump with every step of the Wild Eagle`s boots. Several more seconds trickled by, then a gloved hand knocked at the door a few times and drew back into the pocket it had come from, leaving him to stand there.

Waiting.

Waiting to get into his own home no less.

At least he`d thought it was his own home, until the door flew open, initially showing him the smiling face of a man he thought was his father, promptly replaced by an irate expression and a shotgun, brought up and promptly shoved forward, the tip of the barrel obscuring the youngster`s right nostril in the process.

"Gee, happy to see you too, Dad," Will grumbled out annoyedly. Oscar was utterly unmoved.

"What the hell did you do to my real son?" He asked angrily.

"Jamie`s taking a nap. Put the gun down, I didn`t kill him or anything," the younger of the two said tiredly. "A lot happened last night and I`m really just wanting a place to crash for a day or two, alright?"

Hesitantly, the gun began to lower, and Oscar began to inch a step back. He`d always kept a shotgun by the door, just in case. There was also another mounted in each hallway, all three of which were fully loaded, as well as a magnum tucked into the dresser next to he and Maria`s bed. He may have had a preference for frontier living, but he wasn`t stupid enough to think that he would be left alone forever, this was proof enough of that.

"Can I?" Will asked again, ready to leave and head back to the Blitz Team base if this was the treatment he was in for.

"... Can I see Jamie?" Oscar asked, having fully brought the gun down, though he didn`t trust this cursed secondary personality enough to put the weapon back in its place.

"... When he`s better," Will replied glumly. "I wasn`t kiding when I said that a lot happened last night. Can you point me to my... His room?"

A few seconds of pause, then the older man made a motion to the staircase. "Third floor, second door on the right," he said, stepping out of the way and keeping an eye on the limber youth, even as he made his way down the first hallway and up the first flight of stairs.

"It`s settled then," Jack said with a hint of question to his voice, though it was still more of a statement than anything else. Brad only gave a nod and lowered the binoculars he had borrowed, passing them back to his old brother in arms and then putting his hands to his sides with a steeled look in those frigidly blue eyes. The two were standing atop the back-mounted guns of the Lightning Saix as casually as if it were the top of a set of monkey bars in elementary school.

"Yeah. It`s settled. I`ll have to borrow your gun-" "Yours for the taking." "- but it`s still settled."

A pause. Jack took a single look through the binoculars and inched his tongue into his cheek ever so slightly, having to use a finger to keep his bandana from weighing down on his eyebrows. Half the reason he ever wore the weighty looking sticks on the thing was because they usually served to keep it from sliding down over his eyes, keeping the weight relatively balanced.

"We attack just before sunrise, with as much cohesion as we can manage," the slightly older man said, lowering the binoculars back down and taking a glance at his former gangmate. "You sure you`re really up for this, Brad?" He asked with true concern. The ties between roadies and orphanned blood brothers were too deep to fade in a few years, and even if they weren`t as close with each other as they had once been, they each still cared for each other as if they really were family. Brad was still injured. Badly. There wasn`t any hiding that.

"It`ll take more than some cracked ribs and a bruised head to stop me, Jack. You should know that by now."

"Times change," the other shrugged. "People change with them," he added, turning back towards the direction of the town.

"Our names changed, but we`re still the same," Brad shot back, though his words carried a much deeper meaning than most people would`ve read into them.

In response, Jack only raised a fist, which was promptly smacked by Brad`s own in reply, the gesture repeated again before the two exchanged a near mirroring smirk.

"May as well get to sleep early if we`re gonna stand a blue chance in Hell."

"Blue chances in Hell are always the best," the younger of the two said, and meant it. "More interesting that way."

"So much for throwing caution to the wind, eh?" Jack asked with a knowing smirk, still staring in the direction of the town. Even if it was a bit of a hassle to, they could see the lights shining in the distance, over the tops of the trees that only barely came up to their waists atop the Lightning Saix.

"I did throw caution to the wind," Brad replied with a pause. "It just hasn`t blown back in my face yet."

Author`s Note: Sorry if parts of this read as rushed or what-have-you. I`m having a serious case of Author BahhhhhhhHHHH*snerkdroolfrothmehm3hbahbuhmuhDIE.* lately, so you`ll have to excuse me :P But even if it did suck(or didn`t, up to you), it has done what I wanted of it...

Set the stage. Nuff said.

EndlessAdventure: "Faint?" I must not be working those two hard enough if you only detect it faintly :P I may not, and I sincerely HOPE that I`m never going to be a romance writer, but these things happen in this kind of situation(or something like it). People wake up to true feelings, some relationships fail, others become stronger. Suffice to say, I`ll be taking decent enough care of the majority of those who survive if the good guys win this.

The Big Fisch: Yeah, I should`ve described Rommel`s expression. All I can visualize is the Spock Eyebrow effect with a blink or two thrown in for emphasis >_>; And glad to know SOMEONE doesn`t think I`m goin` soft...

Illidan: Glad Kale has so many fans... As for Brad, I`m going to be TRYING to make up for lost time in developing him a whole helluva lot more than I have so far, at least I will pretty soon anyway. I may even finally get around to the long overdue Brad, Naomi and Jack POVs I`ve been meaning to get to, but ya never know... And yeah, Harry`s growing up. He doesn`t have a choice in the matter and with Leena having just been kidnapped, things are only going to get harder on him. I`m actually liking the poor little bastard more and more everytime I write him... *Shrugs.* As for Jamie, only time will tell. And another thing: Rommel may assume a lot, but he`s just that damned good. Trust me, I`ll be proving it sooner or later. Just been having to keep the good guys alive till now, yanno?

Engar: Gee, the sanity being sucked out of everyone? I`d neeeeever do something like thaaaat...

*Snicker.* Champton`s not really a last-stand type of place, but it is the first safe haven that comes to a lot of people`s minds. Not so much as Farentown or Romeo, but if I had to rank it to them, it wouldn`t be that far behind. Bit will continue to be Bit. Maybe he`ll end up similar to Kale, maybe not, even I don`t know yet. As for him beating the crap out of Madison, he probably won`t, but you`ll just have to wait and see, now won`t you?

That`s it for now folks. Hopefully I`ll be able to continue fleshing things out in detail, but I intend on leading you all on for a while longer.

Expect the mindfucking to continue.

Enjoy, leave a review and Sh33p out.

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