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
Foreword: "And all shall be revealed..."
Orgy - Fiction(Dreams in Digital)
Disturbed - Remember
... And yeah, the dog sounds like Barry White or Isaac Hayes.
"Where am I?"
The question could`ve had numerous answers, but the most obvious, to the girl asking it at least, was also the most similar: In an infinitely white void. Aside from her, there was nothing to be seen. It was just white, in all directions. No obstacles, no details, no colors, just solid, uniform white. She couldn`t tell if she was floating, standing, upside down, right side up or sideways entirely, it seemed as if equilibrium had no place being here, and if even if it did, it wouldn`t have mattered.
There were no sounds, it took her a while to realize that she wasn`t even breathing, and it took her longer to realize that even if there was no atmosphere, she didn`t have to. She couldn`t feel anything but her own skin and clothing, and even that felt different than it usually did because she wasn`t wearing the same, nerd-like outfit that she had been using for the past few weeks to hide all of the scars across her body. Instead, she wore white sneakers, matching socks and a pink dress that ran all the way down to just beneath the kneeline, a bit tight in some places, a bit loose in others.
On top of that, her glasses were missing.
As if that wasn`t enough, her scars themselves were gone. She was almost, bar the clothing, back to her old self...
"... What the hell is going on here?!" She asked a bit frantically, though she didn`t notice that there wasn`t even an echo. The area she was in was either that big, or that small, and she couldn`t tell which. Her other senses were dulled as well, she could only smell her own scent and she could only taste her own saliva.
Needless to say, Leena Tauros had experienced vastly more interactive days in her lifetime.
It was at about that time that the void suddenly began to change. It started with a few thin waves of black, then picked back up with numerous streaks and splashes of colors of all kinds, filling her vision in every way until finally, it all stopped.
What she was left with was a perfect, empty copy of Rev`s Diner, on the evening after the Royal Cup. Banners were still up, the arcade games were running, the lights were on, food was laid out on every table, some of it partially eaten, all of it still hot or cold. Drinks were set near every plate but a few, and the pool table looked as if it had sat through a round of Brad, the Taskers, Pierce and Jack Sisco, the same with a table that had a half stacked deck of cards on one side and several other hands of cards lay on the other.
There was even a dusty black baseball cap sitting on on the floor, just a few feet from the doorway.
"... Okay, this is just freakin` me out, now," she grumbled, poking at the dress she wore and then shaking her head before heading for the door. "May as well check and see if everything is like this... Hopefully I`ll find someone I can ask about this..."
It took all of two seconds to get to the exit and unlock it, giving one hard yank and then leaving Leena Tauros to have to scrape her jaw off the sidewalk.
The process of 'painting' the world was still going on, but there were blank spots. Places occupied only by white gaps in the world, ranging from a manhole into the sewer that hadn`t had its lid put into place yet, to a second floor window on the side of a building she had never gone into, one that hadn`t had the actual window put in yet, not by whatever or whoever was doing this, at least.
"This is nuts."
At that, the sky shifted colors from being the equivelent to a puddle of mixed paints that hadn`t blended yet to being a spectacularly cloudless, star packed night sky. In addition, the 'gaps' seemed to finish filling in, rendering the world around her to a set appearance that was nothing but an empty, lifeless version of Farentown at night. Cars were everywhere, and after a few seconds, she realized that she was holding the keys to the Blitz Team`s jeep.
Her hands had been empty less than a second before that realization. It was unnerving.
"This... Must be some kinda dreamworld or something. I must be asleep..."
She was wrong of course, but in her situation, it was a relatively acceptable mistake. It wasn`t every day that reality bent over backwards for you, after all.
"If it`s some kind of dreamworld then... Maybe I dreamt up some people who could explain things to me..."
Wrong again, but still trying. After several seconds of thinking, she promptly gave up. Reasoning through things had never been one of her strongpoints, but spotting the obvious was, and to her, this was obviously some sort of false reality. How it was constructed, she didn`t know. How she was there, she didn`t know. How to escape though...
"If this place is only filling in the parts of the world that I know... Then..."
A few seconds went by and she turned sharply to the left, breaking out of her immobile stance and racing over to the Blitz Team jeep before swinging the door open and smacking the small pedal to the left of the accelerator down. At that, she dropped the keys and the hood popped open. Leena stood up and twisted around the door before peering under the metal plate that had formerly been covering the engine block.
"Holy hell," she muttered out in an instant. She had been proven correct in a vague assumption that if the place had been created out of her memories, she would be unable to see the engine of the Blitz jeep because she had never looked under the hood to begin with. That meant that the world around her still had at least one gap of escape, and even if she had made many, far better decisions in her lifetime, it was all she could think to do to climb up onto the fender and jump up over the gap.
As a result, Leena found herself tumbling back into that solid white void, just like before.
Only this time, there was equilibrium. It was as if the world suddenly regained its sense of direction, and the falling sensation set in many times over as a result. For a few seconds, she found herself wondering if she would`ve been better off spending however long it would`ve been in the empty trap of a memory, but instead, she found herself landing on both feet in the middle of another memory.
This time, it wasn`t one of her own.
Her clothing was still almost the same as it had been before, but now she had her usual, gravity defying hairclip back in place, even if her dress had changed again. Instead of just being pink, it was now a mixture of pink and red, fitting into the fashions of the late Chaotic Century era, just before Golden and Battle Centuries began. She also had on white wrist bands.
The white void had changed in the instant she had touched down onto her feet with a grace and agility that she truly did not possess, switching over to what looked like a gigantic room with an empty pit sitting towards one wall, large enough to house an upturned Whale King or a dozen HoverCargoes at once, even more if you stacked them on top of each other. It was slightly rusted, winds could be heard echoing from outside, even through what must have been fifty feet of armored roofing. Numerous dead, dying and warped Zoid Cores piled into the pit, which had a few wide puddles of inch deep liquid, the same kind often associated with modern-day Core maintenance units.
"... Whaaaat now?" The girl groaned out defeatedly, no longer sure if she even could escape this time.
"Oh! A visitor!"
That did it.
That did it.
By the end of the next split second, Leena had whipped around, quite intent on breaking the sticks off of her hairclip and using them to strangle whoever had just popped up, but by the time she finished the spin, she had lost every ounce of maliciousness that she could conjure up, instead choosing to stare dumbfoundedly in a mixture of shock, awe and outright disbelief.
He was roughly around Brad or Leon`s height, wearing a recognizably older model of the Guylos Special Forces uniform, dating back to the late Chaotic to early Golden Centuries. A sleeveless, dark blue longjacket worn over a pilot`s flightsuit, running down to just above the knees, dark brown boots, leather gloves that went back to the middle of the forearm, along with an unrecognizable mantle of some sort, with a silver neckpiece that poked up from the collar to just in front of the chin.
If the guy was a bit shorter and not so pencil necked, lacked the distinctive red tattoo under his left eye and had a more pointed jawline, he could`ve passed himself off as Bit. Even with all of the changes, he still could have passed himself off as Bit. He even had green eyes and blonde hair that tilted in the same direction as Bit`s did.
"... Who the-" "... Why`re you dressed like Fiona?" The newcomer asked curiously, head cocked to the side with a vacantly unknowing expression on his face.
At that, Leena finally went rigid, took on a completely unreadable expression and then fell over backwards, completely passed out.
"... Well, that wasn`t a very good first impression, was it?" The fellow asked, idly walking over and tucking a hand into one pocket before poking at Leena`s side with a stick that appeared in his hand out of nowhere. "I know you didn`t faint, Miss. You might just wanna get up and let me explain things..."
"Go away, ya freakin` history lesson nightmare," came the disoriented mumble from the floor. In response, he kept poking away at her side with the stick.
"Look, I understand and respect if you`re a bit overwhelmed or anything, but laying there is just gonna get in my way. If you`re not gonna move, I`m just gonna have to work around you..."
At that, she flew back up to her feet and all but leveled the poor sap with a backhanded smack, followed up by a typical slap, each of which moved so quickly that even if he had been able to block them, he probably would`ve ended up punching himself in the process. Either way, the young man went airborn for several seconds and landed with a disgustingly fluid series of movements, arms and legs bending about and flailing as if made of rubber, face shifting to an expression that looked as if it had been taken right out of a cartoon. A small cloud of dust erupted from where he smacked into the ground, followed by a very un-Bit-like groan.
If it were Bit, he would`ve just screamed like a sissy or something and tried to gimp away.
This guy just stood up, stumbled backwards out of the dust cloud and literally pulled his head back into place before rubbing his apparently numb cheeks.
"And I thought Raven was anti-social," he grumbled out annoyedly, calming down in an eerie way before sighing. "I`m guessing you`d either like to disembowel me or want me to introduce myself, right?"
"I`ll take both," Leena answered, suddenly wielding what looked like an egg beater on steroids. In response, the man twitched before the entire world went solid white once again, the egg beater vanishing, the stick that had become lodged in the ceiling following suit and both of the two 'standing' in the midst of an endless void of nothing, bar each other.
"My name is... Sort of is, anyway, Thomas Schubaltz," the fellow said professionally, and at that Leena again calmed from mild insanity to the mixture of awe and dumbfoundedness.
"Thomas Schubaltz died over two hundred years ago..."
"I`m an imperfect copy," he replied plainly with a shrug, his clothing suddenly changing again to a slightly heavier, more ground soldier-like dark green trench coat, though it lacked sleeves like the previous longvest. Underneath it, she could tell that he was still wearing his same flight outfit, and the mantle hadn`t changed either, though the collarpiece was now less apparent and could be lifted off with the rest of the mantle itself.
"An imperfect copy?" She asked disbelievingly.
"Long story. Ties in to this whole... World-thing-whatever," he answered, just as the world in question flooded with more color until finally, it resembled the bedroom of thirteen year old, innumerable gadgets strewn about, ranging from an old tape player made out of an even older VCR to a primitive datapad crafted from a few calculators and a stolen PDA.
The bed was about the same size as Leena`s own, there was a mostly-glass door leading out to a balcony overlooking a high class garden, which ran out to a ten foot high brick wall, bordering the garden with the forest around it, and the lake that was visible in the distance. Several second and third place awards in things like boyscouting were visible on the wall, along with dozens of first place awards in junior level computer science and other fields, even an image of a younger version of the man, aged to around six years old, standing next to a slightly older boy with a bulldog standing between them.
"What is this?" Leena asked, finally spouting off just about every question she could think of at once.
"Me, the world, your clothes?"
"EVERYTHING?!"
A pause, and the man identified as Thomas thoughtfully plopped down into a chair at a computer desk that Leena either hadn`t noticed before or hadn`t been there before. "Well... I guess I can explain it pretty simply, unless you want the long version..."
"Simply."
"Thought so," he shrugged. "Might wanna sit down though, this is gonna take a while," he advised, and Leena did as he suggested without a word, though that murderous glint was starting to return to her eyes as she plopped down onto the bed. All the more reason, Thomas felt, to tell her what she wanted to know.
"What we`re in now," he began, gesturing to the room at large. "Isn`t real. Not to you, at least, to me this is a form of reality, but to you, this is virtual. In the physical world, you`re sitting in the cockpit of something called the Giga Gojulas, in a state that closely resembles a hypnotic trance," he explained, continuing before Leena had the chance to state her disbelief. "What we`re in is a sub-program created by something called Beke II, he-"
The world shook briefly.
"It," he corrected himself. "Is a combat computer system originally designed for the sole purpose of seeing through stealth systems, analyzing the movements and strategies of opponents, providing information on how to counter their tactics, stuff like that. At least that was the original intent, after an... Incident involving the real Thomas Schubaltz and a woman by the name of Riese, Beke I sort of underwent an upgrade."
"Slow down."
"What do I need to explain?" He asked, a bit less annoyedly than the real Thomas would have.
"Incident with Riese?"
"Ah... Riese was a telepath of enormous strength, about the only equal she had was Fiona Alysse Linette, I think she might be one of your teammate`s great-great-great-great-great-great-really great grandmothers, at least if Beke is as right as it thinks it is."
"What did she do?" Leena asked curiously, shifing out of possibly homicidal maniac mode and back into a state that vaguely resembled normalcy, laying down on her side and propping her head up in one hand.
"Mindwiped him. Hid every memory he had so deeply that the only things he could access were the memories required for language and his skills as a pilot and jack-of-all-trades with machines and computers. He didn`t even know his own name until a guy named Doctor Dee Phabes told him."
Leena winced.
"But he maintained his sense of duty, it was really all that was even giving him a purpose at the time. For a few weeks, he kept going and going as a Guardian Force member, unable to access even the slightest memory of his past. He pushed away his friends, buried himself in his work and tried to make it fill the void where his life used to be, but it eventually got to him. A chance encounter with a pilot by the name of Raven drove him over the edge after that, and to make up for the fact that he didn`t have a Zoid at the time, he joined the Guylos-Helic exchange program again. This time though, he got his hands on a Gojulas."
A nod. He continued.
"After that, he installed the remains of the Beke unit into it, and from there, things went on their own. He and Doctor D. tried to modify Beke in the hopes that it would give Thomas an added edge to make up for his lack of fighting skills compared to other pilots, like Van Fleiheit or Irvine. They modified it enough that what started out as a basic consciousness evolved on its own, overnight, into a fully sentient artificial intelligence, which in turn subverted the original programming of the Gojulas. On the initial test flight though, it- am I moving too fast for you?" He asked at her dumbfounded expression.
"... You lost me at Beke. Keep going."
"... Right. Anyway, on the initial test run of the newly dubbed Giga Gojulas, Beke II 'entered' Thomas` mind and tried to help him regain his memories, but not directly. You see, Beke II is sort of... A God Program, if you get my drift. What started out as a combat calculator with a limited ability to think evolved on its own, growing into a fully self-aware personality with the ability to read into every possibility in every way imaginable and then some, moving past the realm of mere sentience and becoming 'self-aware' for everything around it, especially its creator. It wanted Thomas to get his memories back, but it knew that if it helped him to do it directly, it would probably end up getting him killed. Even if it is a techno god, Beke is still just a machine. H-It, can`t truly interface with a human mind like a telepath can."
"So, what happened after that?"
"It manipulated and enhanced him him. First just a few images, loose clues, then that triggered him to try and keep piloting it even after the initial shock almost caused him braindeath from how Beke... Overclocked him, so to speak. On his own, he went out into the world again, this time with a real purpose. Eventually though, it boiled down to a lot of close friends and family being injured in the process, and after he got his memories back, he made the choice that Beke knew he would."
"And that was?"
"He climbed in one last time, piloted out of the base it was being kept in and let it go. It copied his memories down as best it could at the time and then went off on his final order to leave and never be used by a military power to gain a totally unfair advantage."
"And how do you figure into it all?"
"I`m the result of Beke putting all those memories to use. Aside from a few gaps before he was four, and his life after Beke and the Giga left, I am Thomas Schubaltz. As for the world around you, well..." He paused thoughtfully, giving a shrug. "Beke figured that even if it had me to protect - sort of - I needed something to do with my time. So it created a virtual sub-program that I could use to create my own world, operating first off of memories, then pure wants. If I want to relive something, I can do it here, same if I feel like rewriting something or living an experience out on my own."
"And how do I figure into all of this?" Leena asked, causing the virtual Thomas to facefault in an instant before scratching the back of his neck.
"Well... Beke figured that since I am Thomas, and I had a constant desire to help protect the world, it should carry out our wish. For the rest of his life, it looked out for the real Thomas from afar, tracking him by hacking into Riese`s Micro Sworder hivemind and hijacking a few insects, then when he died, it deactivated those and went into a state of thoughtful hybernation. Keeping that objective in mind, it used its abilities to predict and measure things accurately enough that it guessed that the whole... Mess that you guys`ve got going on now would happen. It guessed so accurately that it was able to predict that there would be exactly two people whose fates were genuinely variable and could be interfered with by it without screwing up the rest of the predictions it had."
A pause. And then came the part he had facefaulted about.
"You were Plan B. Your older brother was the one that Beke was originally after. If not for the Red Blade Liger and its connection to the real Thomas, you never would`ve been brought here."
Much to his surprise, she was only curious, not homicidal.
"How was I Plan B if both me and Leon could work?"
"Leon was closer at the time, not to mention his brain chemistry was calculated as being a bit more similar to Thomas` than yours. He also didn`t have any significant others who might miss him," Thomas explained with a passing shrug, feeling a bit more comfortable now. "And there`s also the matter of your personalities... Beke felt that Leon would be more willing than you once the risks involved were made clear."
Another brief pause as Leena sat back up and waited for an explanation. When he failed to provide one, she sighed and asked anyway.
"What was the plan in the first place? What process are you talking about?"
"The same process that Thomas went through, downgraded though. You see, what happened to Thomas was basically... He became exactly like Beke, to an extent. He was more than human, but less than the machine that made him that way."
"I don`t understand," Leena pointed out with a glum look on her face.
"He went past sentience, sort of. He became aware of others as well as himself, sort of like telepathy only... More powerful and not conscious at the same time. He could spot the weakness in Van Fleiheit`s knees just by looking at them, or pick up Doctor D.`s future lung condition just by hearing him breathe. Understand now?" Thomas asked, knowing that he would never be able to truly articulate what had happened to his true self in the process. Either way though, the explanation seemed to work.
"And what`s so risky about that?"
"It worked on Thomas because... Well, Thomas` memories were both hidden from him and protected at the same time. It doesn`t know what`ll happen with someone who has all of their personality still intact, Beke`s calculated only a 50/50 chance of it working on someone who has their memories intact, let alone someone who`s got slightly different brain chemistry than Thomas. And even with the original, it almost killed him..."
"What`re the pay-offs then?" Leena asked, showing a streak of gutsiness that Thomas hadn`t anticipated. If Beke had, the machine god wasn`t saying a thing about it. Not yet, at least. True to the changes that were already taking effect in her, Leena Tauros had started becoming a more thoughtful person as of late, though the courage had been born of her single-handed fluke over the Triad Team. Put together, it was giving her a boost of actual strength with the confidence and strong will that she already had, and added to a softening heart, that made for a potent combination.
Leon wasn`t the only one who would`ve said yes.
"A far lesser extent of what Beke did to Thomas. I`m not sure if it would be the same though, only Beke knows what you`ll really be able to do and he isn`t telling me," Thomas explained with a dry tone, shifting a half-dangerous glance of an unfriendly bull dog that was standing outside of the room, visible just through the balcony. The thing was the size of the Liger Zero Panzer.
"... EEP!!!" Leena yelped, promptly falling off the bed and crashing to the floor with the look of a cat that had just looked death in the face and lost, only to survive by an angry human yanking it up and flinging it over a fence by its tail.
Thomas was utterly unphased.
"Say hi to Beke. As you can see, it prefers taking the appearance of an overly protective bull dog that belonged to the real Thomas and his brother when he was a kid. Same name, too," he said as casually as if giving the weather, like nothing had happened at all. The dog named Beke II seemed to get even bigger, inching to the door and literally peeking an eye inside to try and find Leena.
"Could you please tell him to not do that?! Dogs the size of houses and I usually don`t get along too well!" She yelled right back, trying in vain to get under the bed, which promptly seemed to hover up and out of her reach, lifting off of the floor and leaving her completely uncovered. With a mild twitch, she found herself back in her old flight costume. Pink, fitting like a combination of spandex and glossy leather, even the gloves. Her skin was still perfectly flawless, though she didn`t get the chance to notice this too well, looking up from the completely annoyed looking Schubaltz to the disembodied 'eye' of Beke, then looking up to watch as the mattress and support frame of the bed spread apart like a mouth opening wide, revealing white emptiness in the process.
By the time her mind could finish comprehending this, the scenery had changed with the snapping shut of teeth, leaving her to fall aimlessly through the void again, temporarily losing all sense of balance and feeling before she found herself crashing through the roof of reality like glass, appearing in the same hangar as before and landing on her back side, completely unharmed. There wasn`t so much as a sign of her entry, and as she sat up, she realized that the scenery was warping again.
A blur of color and movement and she was practically driven to her feet from nonexistent momentum, slapping into a wall after flashing through a reinforced steel door like it wasn`t even there. She hadn`t even moved herself in the process, the world itself had moved around her instead, and it did so again, rotating until she was able to look down the hallway in time to hear and see the beginnings of a commotion.
"I don`t care how badly you think you need it, Thomas!" A slightly squeaky, but still heroic sounding voice yelled. "I won`t let you go out intent on committing murder if you don`t get your way!" It added, and the world blurred again until she was standing with a perfect, above ground view of the parts of this duel of words.
On one end was... Thomas. His uniform was the same as the trench coat-styled outfit he had been wearing when she`d last seen him, but his eyes looked empty. Determined. Void of anything but a mission and a willingness to plow through anything and anyone in the way of it, though there looked to be a lingering agony, boiling just beneath the surface. Across from him stood two people, each bearing a passing resemblance to a certain team mate of hers, not quite the same as the one carried by Thomas, but still quite strong.
The man was short in stature, lending himself to a posture of constantly being the underdog. He had brown, almost black eyes, somewhat tanned skin and wore a uniform similar to a Helic special forces outfit without the armored undershirt, foolishly exposing a bare midriff and lower back in the process. He also had a rat tail and spikey brown hair, pulled tightly back, not to mention fingerless biker`s gloves and combat boots. The red stripe on his face clenched it, that man was-
"Van Fleiheit... Then that must be-" "Fiona!"
She was cut off by the same short man she had been glancing at. The woman in question looked utterly defenseless and on the verge of wanting to run away, though a steel-like resolve could be seen just barely shimmering beneath the outwardly vulnerable exterior she was portraying, as if fear had been possessing her to some extent for years, but she was closing in on the end of her rope at the same time.
"Back away and keep out of his reach. With how he`s acting, I don`t want him lashing out at you," Van ordered firmly, getting into a fighting stance and reaching for something holstered at his back. Leena recognized it instantly as the same weapon that Bit had spent spit-shining on his second day back, with the same holster as well.
Suddenly, everything added up.
"Bit`s related to Van and Fiona?!" She yelped at last, only to be surprised again as a voice popped up from beside her.
"And Thomas too, for that matter. It`d take too long to explain as more than an act of God and/or a fluke of nature, but you get the idea," a miniaturized version of the bulldog from earlier said with an eerily deep voice, rolling out like a gruff-but-smooth saxophone tune, carrying with it a deep amount of thought and emotion in the process. "But that isn`t the point here," he added as Leena looked down to where the little animal was hovering next to her with a completely blanked expression.
"Take a good look, Leena. If you agree, you may end up something like this."
The two had spoken a bit more, and then, like some sort of demonic, hell-driven dreadlord, Thomas lashed out, crossing the distance with an eerily quick, precise speed. The attack was just as swift, if not more so, and Van struggled to block it.
"... I`m taking guidance from a fucking holographic, electronic god pit bull..." Leena muttered. The dog was completely impassive, watching the scene below with grave interest. Instantly, the world shifted again until Leena was doing the same, whether she wanted to or not.
"Could this possibly get... Any crazier?" She asked, more so to herself than to Beke, who just huffed something out too quickly for her to understand.
By the time she finally shifted all of her focus onto the violence taking place in the hangar, a scream tore through her senses and left her with a feeling of disgust and horror, her jaw sagging open as Van Fleiheit fell to the floor, face first. Both legs had been broken at the knees, so viciously that his feet didn`t look as if they were pointed in the right direction anymore.
Thomas loomed over him with a look of grim, almost perverse satisfaction, muttering something under his breath before snapping back to attention and looking at Fiona, whose face was now starting to shed tears of shocked disbelief and unbelievable emotional pain.
"Va-HOLY SHIT!" Came a stunned exclaimation from a door that lead into the hallway to the hangar, revealing a man and a woman who each bore a passing resemblance to Naomi, though the man wore the leather strips around his arms that would one day become that signature, almost universal symbols of mercenaries, bandits, gang members and loners, be it as tattoos or arm bands. Both looked as stunned as his words had been.
"Get out of my way, Irvine," Thomas said without looking to face the newest arrivals. Alarms had started blaring across the base, the two newcomers were too awestruck at their defeated comrade to even hear them. "Same for you, Moonbay."
The hate filled reply, dripping with shattered trust and utter contempt wasn`t long in coming, not from Irvine at least. It was almost instant.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! VAN WAS YOUR FRIEND, YOU BASTARD!" He screamed, suddenly reaching towards his backside as the chocolate skinned woman beside him practically dove out of the way with a numbed yell. By the time Irvine had finished drawing his weapon, Leena winced and looked away, another scream of pain filling the hollow confines of the empty garage. It echoed from the walls, followed by the smaller echo of shattering glass and hard cast plastics.
Thomas was gone by the time she opened her eyes again, being greeted instead by the visual of the now irate, concerned and tearful Moonbay gripping Irvine`s downed form in a near bearhug as Fiona stood there in absolute, near catatonic shock. There was blood leaking down the side of his head, both hands covered all of his face and forehead except for one winced, moistening eye, and a loud, booming scream of pain followed from the mercenary, his gun lying near his downed friend, who was painfully quiet with gritty determination.
"Oh my god..." Was all that Leena could think to say.
"It gets worse, but I think you understand that by now. I`ll spare you the details of how his fight with his brother went," Beke said slowly, the scene and the blood, the violence and everything else about it fading away as the world changed to another unfamiliar backdrop, namely the windmill field where the Trinity Ghosts had worked their scheme.
"Suffice to say, the changes could prove... Very negative," it stated needlessly, giving her one last chance to back out now. It was at that moment that a yelp echoed through the emptiness around them and the dog looked up with what Leena could somehow tell was a grave expression, even if the look on Beke`s 'face' hadn`t changed a bit since it had appeared.
There was a distant thud and a small scale explosion of dust before a blonde figure in the distance stood up, wiped himself off and then was standing next to her as if he had been there all along.
"Sorry about that - it took me a while to find you again."
"It`s... Fine..." Leena half-mumbled out, taking a step or two back from the once harmless seeming nerd and swallowing back the urge to try and run away.
He knew why almost instantly.
"You showed her, didn`t you?" Thomas asked, glancing down guiltily at the dog, which gave the equivelent of a shrug.
"She had to know the possible consequences. I didn`t want you there though..."
"I might have altered her eventual decision."
"No," Beke replied, suddenly standing up on hind legs and vanishing into a figure composed purely of 0s and 1s, vaguely outlined as being humanoid in appearance. There were no features beyond shape and outline. "I had to make sure you didn`t watch your own self`s past mistakes, Thomas. Bad enough she had to sit through it, ya know?" It asked neutrally. The blonde gave a slow, agreeing nod before tucking his hands into his pockets with a sigh.
Beke turned to Leena after that, an expression somehow forming from nothing as the outline began to change, shifting until it took the appearance of a black haired Thomas with no tattoo and different clothing. Rather than a special forces uniform, Beke wore what looked like a dark green, Japanese kimono, with black pajama pants and a long sleeved, matching shirt visible just beneath, held loosely shut by a blue, sash-like belt, its shoes changed from boots to slippers, with no gloves.
"I would love to have given you more time to make your choice, Leena," it began, voice suddenly changing to the extent that it matched the pitch and tone of an aged, desert-worn philosopher of some kind. "But time is short. Your friends are looking for you, and I have to take you back to them soon or they`ll start falling apart," it continued before finally finishing.
"Will you accept the changes, or will you stay as you are now?"
At once, everything in her life became nothing but a meaningless build-up.
It had all boiled down to this choice, this moment, this very instant of time where it felt as if the weight of the world itself was dropped into her hands.
It came to a potential sacrifice, and the dangers involved, against the potential salvation of humanity as she knew it on Planet Zi.
It came -
["Whoops! Sorry Brad!" Leena shouted out gleefully as the Heldigunner and the Command Wolf, along with Benjamin and Brad, vanished into a hail of Megalomax-like cannon fire.]
- to one decision -
["No one..."
Guns locked and loaded, targeting system settled onto the Hammerhead and the helpless young man hanging from its underside.
"Stands me up on a date!"
Harry`s eyes widened, Fuma gasped in absolute disbelief and Leena pulled the trigger.
"WEASEL UNIT TOTAL ASSAULT!!!"]
- where the lives of everything -
["LEENA!!!" Harry yelled out as his Iron Kong dove in front of the downed Gunsniper, intent on proving itself as one final, absolutely useless shield against the coming shockwave of death from the Berserk Fury`s charged particle cannon.
"HARRY!!!" She yelled back, unable or unwilling to tell him to save himself, even as the Vengeful Dark roared into view, piloted by a madly cackling Leyon Martin.]
- and everyone -
["Who`s first?"
"Allow me!"
"Leena! Don`t attack him alone!"
"Oh, crap."]
- lay in her hands.
["Looks like they`re doing pretty good without you."
"... Yeah."]
And for once in her life...
[It was one of those glances you`d be more prone to see with people who had either been meant for each other or had spent their entire lives longing after one person, and in that moment, Leena Tauros realized just how much Harry really did care for her.
She also felt like something of an idiot for not seeing it sooner.]
For once, in her entire misbegotten, mistake filled life...
["Take your jacket off... I can`t give you three days, and I can`t give you a bath or any food, but I can still give you some rest. Go to sleep, Harry. I`ll wake you up if anything serious comes up, alright?"
A light, already half-asleep mumble was the response, and for the time being, at least for Leena Tauros and Harry Champ, all was right with the world, even if it was falling apart around them.]
Leena Tauros made the right decision...
"I`ll do it."
And at the back of her mind, she could hear a small, confident voice,
telling her that she had done just that.
Author`s Note: Yeah. Sorry this one(and the three after it) were so long in coming, I needed - and still need - a break from writing ROC for a while. Hopefully it`s going to be worth the wait, if this chapter alone didn`t make it that way.
The Big Fisch: As you can see, Leena was Plan B. G`luck against that demon, I`d offer you a shotgun, but I`m already out of useful ammunition against it...
EndlessAdventure: Not King Gojulas. Thomas` L33t Machine was a Giga Gojulas, the only one in the NA/ROC timeline. And yes, I am a sick bastard. Let`s leave it at that.
Illidan: If you haven`t already, check through the main page of my website(there`s a link in my FFN profile). My apologies for blocking you `til next Friday, but allow it to serve as a warning to anyone who feels like asking me when a chapter is going to come out after a long wait - it`ll be out when I finish it. That is FINAL. *Bangs a gavel all Foley-like. Then motions back to the reply.* Dunno why you hate Roc and Madison so much, buuut maybe a few upcoming twists`ll hopefully change your mind. Leena wasn`t tortured horribly, as you can no doubt tell, but you`ll have to wait and see on Jack and Brad, Jamie and Bit...
Welp, that`s all for now folks. Enjoy, leave a review, Sh33p out and see ya next time!
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