Reign of Chaos Chapter 29, a Zoids fanfic by Sh33p

Sh33p Disclaimer: I don`t own Zoids. Consider this disclaimer valid for the whole damn story :P

Foreword:'Evacuation,' from the Armageddon soundtrack, suits just about all of this chapter, bar scenes five and seven, the proper songs for which are listed below:

Linkin Park - Intermission
Hack Sign - Aura(Regular or Evil versions, both`ll work)

The third wall of a nearby building ripped away, the rest of the structure threatening to collapse as Katherine Takahori sought to work her magic on the unwilling connections between Gustav and trailers, knelt down with nothing but elbow grease, determination and desperation to fuel her.

She was in that situation for the simple reason that, all of two minutes ago, all Hell had broken loose in the center of the city that was Farentown. Something had blown up out of the ground and started levelling everything in sight with all the precision of a blindfolded pitbull trapped in a room with its weight in mice. Buildings were falling and burning all over the place, the ground had collapsed into a miles long trench that lead out of the city and it was really a miracle that she hadn`t been smashed to a bloody pulp several times by now.

That miracle was mostly due to the thick armor inherent to the Gustav, which made it even more absurd, in Katherine`s eyes, that she was trying to rig up both trailers from the outside.

She trailed off, biting against her tongue as she finished setting the locks together and ran out from behind the Zoid, hauling it towards the open cockpit and wiping grease off on her jumpsuit the entire way.

Abbie and the nameless boy were both waiting for her when she threw one hand onto the rim and used it for leverage, jumping off of the ground with the stance of an olympic athlete, only to crash into the seat almost sideways.

Abbie only winced at the sound of another building collapsing, doing her best to maintain a level head as the cockpit slid shut. It had been her idea to go back and get the trailers rigged up in the first place, though she hadn`t said why until a few seconds after parking close enough to connect to them.

The engine churned and rumbled, the heavy wheels pulled to life and the Gustav began to move forward, crashing through a small pile of debris but continuing onward regardless. Abbie drove on the wrong side of the road, breaking every speed limit that the heavy thing could manage, but there was little chance that it would actually matter now.

"Where are we going first?" Kat asked, still wiping her hands off, ignoring the sweat that trickled down her face.

There was a disbelieving silence between the two women, punctuated by bursts of gunfire and explosions ahead of them, and then Abbie spoke up.

"I can`t let those people die. They`re helpless," she said, and meant it. There was little hope behind her words, she was too focused on keeping the Gustav from running into a building to a try and feign any right now.

"They`re already dead," Kat almost shouted, slipping into a cold logic. "They were all screwed the moment that thing came up, if the building hasn`t collapsed on them, their power`s probably gone out by now!"

"At what cost? We don`t have any supplies with us right now! We`ll be hard pressed to survive even if we pick up people who aren`t injured, let alone people who are."

Abbie tried to ignore her. Kat only snorted with an expression that was more often used by her deceased brother.

That finally drew her attentions away from driving, but if she was going to make a response, she never got around to it.

"I can agree with your logic, Katherine," a third voice said from behind, as lifeless as a corpse and as subtly venomous as a spider bite. "But if you threaten her again, I`ll have to kill you."

Neither woman could speak, and Abbie could only barely manage to shift her focus back to the road as Kat looked back over her shoulder, spotting the nameless boy. His eyes, as dark as burnt red wood, had finally gained focus, settled onto her as if they were a pair of laser cannons threatening to drill holes through her skull.

It was a look she had only seen from a few people in her lifetime, and it was a look that she instantly knew not to question or argue against, if only because doing so removed any real guarantee of her survival.

Without another word, she swallowed and turned back around, rigidly sitting up and gathering her wits. Abbie spoke first, seemingly ignoring what had just happened.

"Since saving the hospital patients is out of the question, we`ll just have to pick up anyone we can find in the streets. Did you manage to secure those empty containers?" She asked dimly, knowing the answer already.

"Yeah. We could probably get a hundred people, if they were willing to cram together."

More gunshots rang out, and the miniaturized evacuation kicked off with a literal bang as two or three more buildings crumbled to dust near the center of the city.

"Holy Hannah!" Came the cry over the broadband, only to cease with the beginnings of a gunshot followed by a scramble of static before another speaker came on.

"This is nuts," he thought darkly as the second voice was silenced in much the same way as the first. It was bad enough that the city was burning, the power was also out and there was literally nothing he could do but make a byline through the streets in a Zoid that was too wide to even manuever properly without tearing into the buildings on either side.

"Calm down! Gimme your location, I`m on my way!" Harabec shouted back, trying to calm the other down. It was absolutely futile. As the Rev Raptor rounded another corner with such precision that most high performance Zoids would`ve toppled over, he heard a sound akin to glass shattering, audible for less than an eighth of a second before the comm went dead.

He had been fortunate enough to have been outside the city when it had all started, having taken his Zoid out for a mix of a run and a patrol on one of the lesser guarded sides. As a result, he had been one of the last to make it back into the city, among the few who had had the courage to actually try going back in the first place.

"Anyone left out there?" He asked, not exactly expectant of an answer. It was almost a relief that he didn`t get one.

The Rev Raptor stopped all together, bending forward and giving him the chance to get a glimpse down the next street.

The only sight to see was something thicker than the Zoid itself was tall, swinging in like a baseball bat or a whip and passing through century old buildings like a hot knife through butter in the process.

With little to guide him other than reflexes and the experience that had honed them, the Revered Raptor tightened his grip on the controls and guided his Zoid into a series of sideways jumps, shattering glass and concrete with every rebound from the sides of the two buildings that had formerly hidden it, both of which promptly snapped like twigs as the attack passed right through them, echoed by an unearthly howl.

Thousands of tons of debris threatened to come down all around him when he touched down, but reflexes kicked in once again, and before the dust had even started to rise around the Rev Raptor`s bladed feet, it had begun to sprint forward, outpacing the collapse by scant yards, only to turn a corner with an awkward jump at the last second, moving away from where the attack had come.

Dust and rubble streaked by in a tidal wave behind the Zoid, which hopped straight up and spun around in mid-air. If not for the fact that it had made it onto one of the main roads, the action would`ve most likely ripped numerous chunks out of the structures to either side.

Another shriek poured into his ears, filling his thoughts with a sense of impending doom that was only barely fought back by the stubborn determination of age and sheer, unbridled spite.

"I ain`t dyin` `til I`m good `n` senile," he growled out, taking another look around before sparing a glance at his scanner.

Whatever was leveling the city, it was large enough to outsize all of the other blips on the screen. Considerably.

The Gustav churned to a stop in front of what had once been an ordinary apartment building, though the upper levels were now either completely gone or blazing like the mid-day sun with fires that could probably scorch the paint off of the Gustav`s armored hide.

"Think anyone`s actually still alive in there?" Kat asked hesitantly, resisting the obvious urge to gawk at the entire scene playing out around her. While they were mostly save from anything short of every building within a hundred feet of the Gustav collapsing, it didn`t take away from the horror of the situation unfolding all over the city.

"I think that just answered your question," Abbie replied as several people, all of them dirtied from soot and two or three of them bleeding from minor wounds, came running out, their apparent leader bylining for the Gustav`s cockpit.

"Go to the back, the containers have an opening on either side!" The green haired woman ordered with a shout, hoping that the sound would reach the man. For emphasis, Katherine partially stood up and waved towards the back.

"There should be a loudspeaker input, just right of the steering," the nameless boy pointed out from the back, and true to his words, Abbie finally noticed that there was a handheld, button operated microphone on the dashboard. She had never actually bothered to take note of the fact that it even existed.

"Oh," she mumbled out as Kat grabbed the thing and repeated the orders without pause. The people, who had formerly been screaming for the cockpit to open, promptly took off towards the trailers, and after a quick glance at the rear view monitor confirmed that they had made it in, Abbie pressed the accelerator once again. Thoughtlessly, she gnawed on her inner cheek and turned the heavy freight hauler down another street, going on instinct in a bid to find a way out of the city that had, in a matter of minutes, become an absolute warzone.

To say the least, Marcus Harlock had never liked the sound of static, because usually it was even noisier than his grandfather could be when recounting tales of his life in the Republican army before his 'good for nothing' son went and immigrated into the neutral territories - and to say the least, that old fart was loud.

In this case though, the static was more than just annoying, it was also unnerving. To hear a voice screaming for aid, then suddenly have it blip out of existence and be replaced by the grating screech of static, underscored by the sounds of countless fires and explosions?

Most people would`ve been terrified enough to try and run away. Unfortunately for Mark, he didn`t have the common sense, let alone the survival instinct that would`ve fueled it if he did.

"Always wondered how we`d live up to the name," Kyle commented, about as idly as a death row inmate with no hope for survival. "Think Abbie and Kat made it out?" The older of the two asked a bit too casually for Mark to do anything but gawk at as the two carefully guided their Zoids through the debris-ridden trench that had knifed through the city.

"I`m more worried about Beck," he answered dryly. "Knowing that old nutcase, he`s probably in the thick of things trying to either help people or fighting with whatever the hell`s doing this."

"And the girls?" Kyle asked again, bringing the Blade Liger to start climbing one of the steep walls. He was obviously intent on getting at least a bit of cover.

"... I don`t know. Abbie`s got too big a heart to just up and leave without trying to help someone on her way out, and I don`t know Kat well enough to guess about her," Mark answered dimly, staying in the trench.

"Eh?" Mark voiced a bit dryly, stopping the Shadow Fox and glancing down at his scanner. He had seen part of whatever it was that was laying waste to the city, but only part of it.

In truth, that part had been more than enough for him to know that fighting it was probably futile, even in a bid to buy time for people to flee the city. The incessant roars and howls coming from where the scanner showed it to be were more than enough to further discourage him.

"What`ve we got to lose?" Kyle asked, glancing down at the Shadow Fox from the cockpit of the Liger. The smaller Zoid hadn`t budged an inch, it was still standing there, orange optics glinting dangerously amid the background lighting of all the fires raging through the area.

"Everything," Mark answered in short order, returning the glance without even knowing it. The Shadow Fox almost mirrored the action, growling uncertainly at the Liger.

"May as well take a shot at it then," Kyle said, falsely sure of himself. Against an opponent that formed a blip almost a quarter the size of the entire city, it wasn`t exactly easy to be confident.

There was a brief pause as the Shadow Fox tilted its head forward again, barrels making a brief spin before Mark spoke once again.

"Stop being so fucking depressing, you pussy. It`s not like we didn`t survive the apocalypse or anything..."

"I guess this is the part where I say something all endearing and brotherly, huh?" Kyle asked with a smirk.

"No, this is the part where you acknowledge that my Zoid`s better and I make for a far more compelling and masculine lead than you," Mark answered with an only slightly smug tone to his voice.

"Catch ya on the flip side, chin-bitch," the younger pilot said, cutting the conversation short as the Shadow Fox took off into a series of nimble strides, hopping through the debris of the trench and making a byline for the center of Farentown, even as the Ivory Blade Liger growled with what seemed like a mix of annoyance and resolve, blasting off down the street with the near reckless abandon that had seemingly become the Suicide Team`s trademark.

It was starting to feel about as late as it actually wasn`t when Bit Cloud began to settle back into his seat, exhaustion guiding his slightly labored movements as he shifted his eyes to the distance, however orange tinted the cockpit monitor made it out to be. Liger growled something negative out, unsettling him, but only slightly.

"You feel it too, eh, buddy?" He asked, to the Zoid, rather than the sleeping Organoid within it. The cockpit shook slightly from the nod it made in answer to his question.

Roc stood not too far away, seated on its haunches in an eerily lifelike, yet stoic kind of way, those red pupils, surrounded by the blues that colored the rest of the Ancient`s eyes, having remained focused on the general direction of the city that was situated, strangely enough, upon what had been Zi`s north pole, well over a thousand or more years ago. The wobble caused by the planet`s rotation had changed that fact, but the city, lifelessly glowing a deathly red, sat there anyway, oblivious to the millions of changes that had taken place in the outside world.

But as one city stood, something dark whispered to the creature`s hapless protege that another was being violently snuffed out like a matchstick being stomped upon. The instinct that seemed to alert him to it was probably a result of how far he had come through his short time in the Hell known as Nyx.

"Well, nothin` we can do about it," the blonde commented dimly, not even really wanting to believe his own words, however truthful they were.

All you can do, Bit Cloud, is to rest. You would not have been able to do anything even if you were in a position to help.

"Then why this supposed 'guardianship,' if I can`t even try to guard anything?" He asked for the umpteenth time. Doubts were obviously starting to crack away at the resolve of the young man, mostly born from his severe lack of involvement with the world at large anymore. After all, how do you protect something if you don`t even know what`s happening to it in the first place?

Your mere presence here is all that serves to safeguard this planet from another Awakening, Bit Cloud. Considering that, I would venture to say that you are protecting everything well enough.

"... Against what?" Bit asked dryly, loosening his belt and giving Liger the emotional nudge to lean the seat back as far as it would go.

... The Arch-Demon, and the countless monstrosities and mistakes that helped to bring it into being.

"Big help that is," he complained. "You`re always so god damned cryptic I can barely learn anything from you."

I am only cryptic, because you do not understand. Be glad that that is the case.

"Whatever..." The blonde grumbled out under his breath, getting about as comfortable as he could before settling in to go to sleep.

An explosion rocked the entire area. The last major building to hide behind went sky high - literally, flying up from the ground as a missile struck into its base and the ensuing explosion vaporized the first five or six floors like a stick of butter caught in the fire of a plasma cannon. The force of the blast had been enough to do the rest, and by the time the remains of the structure finished ascending, Harabec knew that he was so far past outgunned that it made the technical odds in his battle with Kale look downright easy.

He would have thought something offensive in the general direction of the attacker, but before he could, he had to survive another attack. This time, it came in the form of a barrage of pulse cannons. Whatever kind of saurian monstrosity he was dealing with, it had noticed the mosquito-like raptor that had come for its head.

Tunnel vision hit him like a brick, rugged, gloved hands tightened on the controls and his feet turned to lead on the accellerator, the unmodified Rev Raptor took to a speedy run without so much as a single step to gain momentum, going from zero to eighty-eight in one powerful stride, then gaining even more speed over the course of the next seconds.

Concrete turned into super heated dust in its wake, the sides of what had once been structures housing countless prosperous buildings became scorched, molten debris, each one bearing gaping new holes from weaponry powerful enough that one hit spelled certain death.

Still, the Rev Raptor kept moving, and Harabec Davids kept its manuevering as fine tuned as a Sinker at the Guylos Grand Prix, skidding to a hard stop as the building in front and to his right suddenly blew apart in a firestorm of plasma.

"Son of a bitch!" He managed to get out, already yanking the controls accordingly while the blades deployed, glowing with bluish-white hot energy of their own, even as the Zoid itself crashed through the remaining wall of what had once been a high rise apartment building, though it had been reduced to a standing, right angled-wall that stretched up almost twice as tall as the Rev Raptor. Like glass, it shattered from the Zoid`s weight and momentum, the blades not even having much of an effect on the process.

The ground that the Raptor had been standing upon promptly vanished into a blindingly bright ball of solid white fire, though it quickly lost its strength after several seconds. Beck grit his teeth against the shock of the blast, which rattled his skull. Eyes narrowed, and with them, the triggers were pulled. Both of his cannons, plowing through the smoke and giving himself the narrowest of peeping holes.

All that he could make out was the view of a part of the side a monstrous foot, so big that it could easily step on his Zoid like a cockroach.

And that was when he heard a whistle, along with what sound like a whip ready to crack, just loud enough to sheer through the background noise of the countless fires and lesser epxlosions tearing through the city.

For one of the countless times in his adult life, the reflexes of the Revered Raptor held true once again, hauling the pitifully small Zoid out of the way with a lighting sideways jump, just as something big came in from behind, tearing through the ground with horrific ease before jaws so large and powerful that they could rip chunks out of a Whale King, snapped shut like a beartrap where Harabec had once been standing.

At that moment, time seemed to slow down, leaving the former champion to throw an attentive, if not shellshocked glance to his right, at the exact instant that a fiery, orange optical unit started to glow a bit brighter.

The head easily bordered on the same size as that of an Ultrasaurus, yet it was longer, the teeth sharpened, and its optics were as large as the Rev Raptor itself, if not larger. Where the Ultrasaurus could inspire hope, this thing inspired only dread. Its armored hide, now that Harabec had the time to study it, was set to a dim shade of white, with the exception of countless extra armored plates and the large, forward-set cannons that extended from where the crest of an Ultrasaurus would be, all of which paled in comparison to the covered gun barrel that he could barely make out, retracted into the monster`s throat.

"What are you?" He asked raspily, just as the Rev Raptor`s left, bladed foot touched down onto the concrete for a second time in as many moments. Time instantly unfroze with that singular action, and the optical unit that had set on him suddenly darkened drastically in what almost seemed like disappointment, boredly raising up from the ground and pausing to regard him after the rubble had finished falling to the wayside, giving Harabec a near-full broadside view of it.

The destruction of the city seemed to halt in that instant, but time didn`t stop or slow with it. Instead, it stayed the same this time, giving Harabec the precious seconds to look it over, or at the least, what he could actually see of it.

The neck was impossibly long, but thick and sturdy as well, with every section of its length covered in heavy armor that matched the head in coloring. Between each plate, in the few naked spots that were required for flexibility, there were four turrets, each boasting a heavy, long range plasma cannon, the variety more often found on a Type Nine, combat Whale King, or the less powerful versions seen on the ZBC judge satellites.

His eyes wandered, trailing down the demon`s enormous neck to its base, atop which rested a gigantic turret of a type unknown, and behind it was a battery of four gigantic mortar cannons, each one ascending a bit higher than the other. At the peak of the hump at its back, another turret stood, this one much shorter and angular than the one at the base of the neck, outfitted with four thin(for a thing of that size, anyway) barrels that looked eerily similar to an external charged particle gun. A second such turret extended out over the base of the tail behind it.

And the tail itself was easily just as long as the neck, armed similarly but ending with a thin battery of three long range cannons mounted on a relatively slim section that tapered off to a slightly pointed tip.

Exhaling sharply with a breath that he hadn`t even realized that he`d been holding in, Harabec looked forward, again gaining tunnel vision as he gulped against a feeling that could only be described as absolute hopelessness, blended with the thick feeling of desperation that was born from it.

At the back of his thoughts, the old veteran could swear that he heard a voice, insidious and cunning, but possessed of what could be described only as absolute ecstasy.

"The Hellwalker," it answered maliciously, threatening to destroy every ounce of confidence that Harabec had ever gained in his years as a Zoid pilot.

Swiftly and lethally, turrets in the neck adjusted their aim and fired without remorse, regret, hesitation or mercy, none of which had even the slightest chance on what was rapidly becoming one of the biggest killing fields since the Guylos-Helic Wars.

"It must have been an inevitability," Madison Rose commented with the same apathy that had been her trademark ever since she`d been Awakened.

"Indeed. It must have. Tell me, why did you come, hmm?" Vilhelm Rommel asked, pulling up a chair, turning it backwards and then seating himself against it, leaned forward with his arms crossed on the back. The lighting was dull, but not pitch black like some of the other cells that he preferred to use.

With a prisoner as dangerous as her, he wasn`t taking the chances of an unguarded, unmonitored cell, having instead gotten her one that boasted five cameras - one at the corner of each wall, near the ceiling, and another hidden just next to the overhead lighting. Each one had a miniature, 9mm gun mounted just beneath the lense, and all of them were trained on some part of the Guardian`s anatomy, ranging from her head to her mid-section.

Somehow though, even with five lethally powered guns pointed at her, shackled and held by chains that weighed at least five hundred pounds, each of them having been made from solid titanium alloy, and even without the hundred pound, electrified club that she wielded like a lightweight baseball bat, the raven haired Ancient Zoidian still seemed uncompromisingly dangerous.

"I don`t have to tell you anything," she said with the calm that could only come from genuinely not giving a damn either way.

"Oh, but you must have a reason for coming here. Really, why else would one of the most dangerous people on the planet come straight to Nyx, especially after everything you`ve probably been through?"

"I`m not following your train of logic, Acolyte," she answered, her arms hanging limply down the sides of the metal block that encompassed the limit to her range of movement. She could stand or she could sit, nothing more.

"I know parts of what you`ve been through, Guardian. No one can go through things of that nature and come out unscathed - so why not take a vacation instead of coming right back to the very place where your race made its last stand?"

"Then whose was it?" He asked, maintaining a razor sharp calm, but lacking any real focus. As far as Rommel was concerned, any information he could get out of her that he didn`t already know could be put to good use in some area, regardless of how trivial it seemed at the time.

"I suppose you`re basically just trying to bleed information out of me the easy way, in order to keep me alive for more intense questioning - and maybe torture - later on... Or perhaps you`re just trying to get the useful bits of knowledge out of me, then you`ll seek to do to me what you did to your brother, correct?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not... I haven`t made up my mind yet, after all," he casually shrugged, straightening up and almost boredly resting his head against one hand. "Do you have any suggestions, dearest Guardian?"

"Raping and torturing me will be utterly useless," she began as plainly as if giving the weather. Her stance left little doubt in Rommel`s mind that she was telling the truth, and as a result, he marked it off of his list of interrogation methods. She continued.

"And difficult as well, I doubt you would even be able to find a member of your organization who would find me attractive enough to maintain his arrousal. On top of that, any attempt at beating me will only serve to delay any additional information that I may or may not have, and if you outright kill me, you`ll just serve to destroy your own plans - and yourself as well."

"Assuming," she agreed, only to continue. It was like a business negotiation between an emotionless machine and a chess master, each prodding the other for strengths and weaknesses to be exploited or, at the least, aware of.

"Given the security and the way you`ve approached me, I`m going to guess that you know I`m only here because I want to be. I`m also going to guess that you want to know why that`s the case, when you`ve probably managed to figure out that I could get out of here at any time - even now - with minimal effort," she said as a statement, rather than a question.

"Indeed. That`s quite the mystery. Would you care to elaborate on your reasoning, or are you going to leave me in the dark?"

"By now, you know that the Liger Zero, and by default its Organoid and pilot, have been proving to be a considerable thorn in the side of your goals, first destroying a considerable aerial fleet, then a small ground army and finally two of the only three Geno Saurers in your possession. It is my short term goal to ensure that the pilot of the Liger Zero, Bit Cloud, endures the harshest struggle possible. To that ends, I`ve given him a motive to come here and face the final Geno Saurer pilot in the least advantageous circumstances possible."

"Even knowing who that last pilot is?" Vilhelm asked with palpable amusement. Madison only nodded.

"The harder his last test, the more he will have to rise to pass it. If he wishes to become a Guardian for the planet, nothing less will work, and if possible, I would`ve found a way to make it harder," she explained with a tinge of heartless honesty that could make a political critic weep in envy.

"Interesting," Rommel commented. "And when do you believe your student will be coming to 'rescue' you?" He asked.

"Tomorrow. I`d venture to say around nine in the evening, by the system humans use, but with my student`s less-than-perfect timing, probably a bit later."

"Anything you would prefer us to know? You know, make it even harder for him?" Vilhelm asked, more than happy to play along with the master who was currently selling out her own would-be successor for the sole purpose of forcing him to work harder. He found it deliciously ironic, in a way.

"His Organoid, Zeke, is currently recovering from energy drain," she said. Rommel gave only a slight nod before speaking again.

"If you weren`t such an ugly bitch, I`d probably want to marry you," he commented, standing up with a shrug and then heading to the door.

"And if I cared, I`d bother to tell you to fuck off," she replied apathetically, having obviously learned at least a bit about modern-day insults since she had first met Bit Cloud.

The Gustav churned onward without pause or delay, almost skidding around another corner with trailers in tow, though each was only just barely over half-full. It didn`t exactly look as if there were any other survivors to be picked up, but there was now the issue of actually getting out of the Farentown deathtrap without being baked to death or crushed - or something worse that neither Abbie or Katherine had stopped to think about.

The boy had yet to speak again, though he had, at some point, taken his eyes off of Kat`s head. She had practically felt the shift, but never looked back to make sure of it. In truth, she wasn`t really all that afraid for her own life anymore, but when it came to the nervous wreck that happened to be driving the Gustav, she wasn`t quite as sure.

The Zoid came to a stop after pulling through a wall of smoke, only to come a dozen or so feet short of ramming headlong into a fifty foot tall pile of burning, flaming rubble that even a Gustav wouldn`t`ve been able to plow through.

"Another dead end," Abbie grumbled out with the dejected tone of someone who was just past the breaking point, but not quite far enough to really lose it. "This is hopeless..."

"Just shut up and keep driving," Kat ordered sternly, heedless of the sudden feeling of eyes burning non-existent holes in the back of her head. "We`ll find a way out sooner or later."

"I just hope its not too late," Abbie replied, again starting to pull the Gustav into reverse.

"Thank god," a fourth voice intruded into the cockpit, this time issuing from the front of the dash board, namely from the speaker of the communications setup.

"That you, Abbie?" It asked as a shadowy, canine figure seemed to literally appear atop the pile of rubble from nowhere, completely impervious to the smoldering fires burning beneath its clawed feet. The instant those orange-hued optics lit up and a synthetic-sounding growl echoed over the immediate rumbles and groans of the dying city, both women knew exactly who and what it was.

"`Bout damn time you showed up, newbie," Kat said with near palpable relief as the other Zoid started to descend from the top of the rubble pile, with Abbie reflexively seeming to guide the Gustav back to give it room.

"Traffic`s a bitch. Is Abbie in there?" Mark asked, more or less unconcerned if his insult cannon fodder`s girlfriend threw a jab or two at him. He had more important things to worry about, for once.

"She`s a bit too fangirlish to bother doing anything but gawking at the moment, and the kid`s giving me a death glare, so all in all, I`d say things`re starting to look up," Kat answered, the tension in the cockpit literally breaking like glass.

"Areyouokay?!" Abbie finally managed to practically squeek out, earning something vaguely akin to a half-muffled 'yes dear' from the other end of the comm before Mark spoke up again.

"You guys need a way out?" He asked, switching the conversation to the more dire situation taking place all around them.

"Yeah," Kat cut back in. "Abbie made sure we got as many people out with us as we could, but by the time we finished..."

"Nice to know the end of the world can`t move some people`s hearts outta the right place," he commented, and Kat almost broke into a snickering fit at the fact that Mark had actually broken from being his usual crazed self long enough to spring for a compliment of someone. In front of someone else no less.

In a matter of seconds, the Shadow Fox`s laser vulcan gun had lifted up out of neutral its forward-set firing stance and began to whirl around, a motion echoed by a sudden bend in the back legs. A few more seconds went by before the rubble was literally blown out of existence by a wide spread of pulse lasers, burning the already scorching debris into nothing but a quick cooling pond of concrete.

The gun whirled back around and set back into place, the Fox straightened up and Mark spoke again.

"There`s a trench leading straight outta the city, it`s how I got here. It`ll be a rough ride, but the Gustav can handle it. Might wanna warn your passengers, too," he explained, bringing the Zoid a step or two closer.

"I think I like that thing now," Abbie commented, finally managing to say something coherently for once. "But where do you think you`re going with it?" She asked sternly, taking control of the situation the way she almost always did when she felt he was acting out of line.

"Straight to Hell, why?" Mark asked as casually as giving the weather. Kat almost twitched.

"Drop the tough guy act, Mark. What`re you planning?" She asked before Abbie could snap at him.

"Me and Kyle are gonna try and buy you guys time to get out. I don`t know where Beck is, so don`t count on him showing up right now. Just get out now," he ordered as bluntly as possible.

"Don`t argue with me on this. I love you, and I`ll see you when this is all over, alright?" He asked, just as the Shadow Fox reared up to jump over the Gustav all together.

"... If you don`t come back alive, I`ll beat the crap out of you," she grumbled out in defeat. "Love ya, Markie, see you when this is over."

And with that, the Fox leapt up over the Gustav, landing behind the second trailer and breaking into a sprint down another street, even as Katherine morbidly finished connecting the dots that Kyle was going to be involved as well.

"... How the hell did you manage to get over that, that quickly?" She asked, finally ceding ground to her younger companion as Abbie numbly shifted the Gustav back into forward and pressed the accellerator once again.

"Right now, I just wanna get the hell out of here," she explained as dryly as a desert sunset.

"Where the hell do you hide something that fucking huge?" Kyle wondered as the Ivory Blade Liger sped through what remained of one of the countless streets in what had once been the second largest city in the neutral territory between the Helic and Guylos nations. To put it mildly, the senior member of the Suicide Team wasn`t exactly itching for a fight, but stress had made him anxious to get it over with anyway.

The Zoid growled something negative in response to the emotions of his thought, drawing him out of his search and returning him to reality for the most part.

"Something wrong?" He asked it, glancing down at the scanner once again and coming to the disturbing realization that the red speck signifying the lone enemy that had done so much damage was now practically on top of him as far as the 2D layout was concerned.

"Well, that answers that," he began in wonder, sparing another glance around the wide open area he had emerged into, just as a horrific cry echoed from far above. His expression fell almost instantly, dropping from the look of a young expert, ready for the fight of his life, to the same look as a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding truck.

"Fuck me," he muttered out, feeling the Liger stop on a dime as the entire world seemed to rattle. Once - buildings that had barely remained standing near the center of the hellish maze began to tremble. Twice - those same buildings started to crack and crumble. Three times - each building was now in the midst of falling. Four times - it was all over.

A foot the same width and height as that of an Ultrasaurus, but vastly more armored, crashed through Mazemia`s field of vision like a falling star, shattering the world in front of him as it sank into the burnt, collapsing concrete.

In an instant, Kyle Mazemia had gone from being a lion on the prowl for an intruder to a mouse trying to find a way to bring down a pissed off elephant.

Mark? Mark would`ve been able to come up with some witty comeback for dealing with the virtual collapse of any sort of advantage - real or imagined - against something of this monster`s sheer magnitude, at least Kyle would`ve probably felt that way had he been able to think clearly. That idiot probably would`ve enjoyed doing so, too.

Quite frankly, even if Kyle had been able to think of something to say, it never would`ve gotten past his lips as more than a hoarse whisper.

For seconds on end, he regarded the leg of the thing, not once thinking to look at anything else, and in those seconds, it felt as if the battle had been lost already - as if it had never even needed to be fought in the first place.

Then those precious moments of hopeless silence crashed into oblivion as his reddish eyes finally lifted themselves up from the console and locked onto what must have been the tail end of the monster. It bent away from him though, slowly angling to Kyle`s front and the demon`s right, countless gun emplacements whirling to point at a target just out of his sight.

And then every single one of them fired at the exact same moment, bathing an area just beyond the hind legs in enough plasma to liquify a Judge Satellite with minimal effort.

"What the fuck could something like that be wasting so many shots on?!" Was his first thought in the instants after the strikes first began, and as an increasingly massive pillar of solid black smoke, 'shadowed' by patches of hot, startk white filled the area just beyond his range of vision, Kyle found out the answer.

"What in God`s name`re you doing here?! Is my nephew with you?" Harabec`s voice rang out over the comm, though it lacked his usual ornery grit by miles. The Revered Raptor practically flew out of the explosions with a long jump, just as the Ivory Blade Liger finally began moving again, taking off after it. It was a rookie`s mistake, really, even if Kyle wasn`t even close to being a rookie.

"DON`T EITHER OF YOU HAVE ANY GOD DAMNED COMMON SENSE? GET FROM BEHIND ME OR YOU`LL GET HIT BY THE SHOTS THAT FUCKING THING IS THROWING AT ME!" Harabec barked with the tone of an irate parent or a homicidal drill sergeant. Against orders spoken like that, the younger veteran could only reply on sheer force of instinct, suddenly darting out of the path that his older comrade was moving in. Exactly as Harabec had predicted, the attacks to follow would`ve burnt him to a crisp, even if they hadn`t even been aimed at him.

"What is that thing?!" Kyle demanded hotly, whipping the Liger around on its forepaws and swinging his blades forward, into the better firing stance, as he did so.

"The Hellwalker," Harabec answered. "That`s all I know," he added, swiftly bringing the Rev Raptor to a skidding halt and then side stepping a trailing barrage of plasma beams.

The attacks stopped. Neither side dared to break their all too immediate ceasefire, and the guns along the tail of the newly titled Hellwalker suddenly began to rotate back into what Kyle guessed was their neutral positioning, all moving in near perfect unison.

Slowly, the Raptor and the Ivory Liger stepped closer to each other, moving until they were almost shoulder to shoulder - or blade to scythe.

"Any ideas?" Kyle finally managed to ask, unknowing that his reliance upon Harabec was based on experience that the older pilot didn`t even have to begin with. Either way, he never got the chance to really answer.

A pause. Harabec chuckled numbly as the Shadow Fox slowly made its way to stand at the side opposite of the Blade Liger, its fanged, predatory mouth literally sagging open in disbelief.

"An Ultrasaurus on crack?" Kyle asked blithely, seeming to slip back into his own skin as his his partner in insanity showed up.

If Mark had a witty comeback on hand, he never got the chance to make use of it. The world was too busy rattling all over the place for him to even do more than spread the Fox`s legs to give it better balance, an action that Kyle and Harabec had both already carried out several seconds beforehand.

The cause of this was the same cause as to why the city of Farentown was now completely lost beyond repair. The Hellwalker.

With the speed of an annoyed monster of unspeakable power, the huge beast wheeled itself around. Step by massive step, giving the three who had dared to stand against it a full view of its body for the first time since the entire incident began - which included the view of a dozen smaller turrets extending from the belly, and the countless undeployed missile launchers on the outer side of each leg.

Finally, it finished turning, the neck raised high and the head completely out of view, leaving a tense silence to follow for several seconds.

And then, like an irate demon, it lunged down - but only partially, getting its enormous face as close to the three seemingly paralyzed Zoids as was possible without leaving itself open to attack. At once, Kyle, Harabec and Mark were treated to the view of staring down the gunbarrels of no less than three massive emplacements along its snout, or the equally unpleasant prospect of how close its gigantic teeth were to them.

With nothing short of a malicious intent that defied description, the Hellwalker screamed at them, sounding like some inhuman cross between a man and an Ultrasaurus or a Whale King. Dust and debris flew back, smoke cleared behind them and fires blew out from the force of it, and all three were treated to the bird`s eye view of another gun hidden within its huge jaws, the barrel extending over the course of a few seconds.

A glow formed in the blackness within, Harabec was the first to fall out of his reverence.

"You should both get the hell outta here," he advised with the calm of the dead.

The glow intensified, particles began to glow and filter into the Hellwalker`s sides from vents that had been either unseen or unnoticed before. Mark responded second, his lack of judgement shining like a full moon against the bleakness of their situation.

"Go fuck yourself if you think I`m lettin` this son of a bitch trash my hometown and get away with it," he snorted.

The glow turned into a narrowed star, expanding slowly as a sphere of excess particles began to form up at the tip of the gun barrel, whirling like the hot, fiery death that was being promised from behind them. Kyle finally spoke, his often hidden leadership potential sounding out with his words.

Before any of the other two could respond, the building energy finally let loose as a titanic beam of pure death ripped from the jaws of the Hellwalker...

Author`s Note: Sorry if this and the next chapter both read a little rough. Characterization blocks bitchslapped me all through writing them both, and this is the first time I`ve written anything near the size of the Hellwalker(which, FYI, is roughly 3.2 miles long :p), so it might not exactly flow like water.

The Big Fisch: Now why would I have a grudge with the population of Zi, hm? >_> I like torturing and killing them too much to hold a grudge with them! *Cackle. And nods, at Kale.* He`ll show up again at some point, I just felt the need to explain where he`s been lately.

Illidan: Henry is now something else all together, to be quite blunt about it. And, to paraphrase a song I despise, he`s not that innocent :P Like I said before, Shadow and Kale are just taking the equivelent of a working vacation, so to speak. You know, go off to a nice little tourist trap of a town, sample the local food, do some laundry, commit a few crimes against humanity...

And it`s only Borealis` first day on the job. On top of that, he`s working for Sarah. Sarah, who is the mother of two hellraisers, named Kale and Vega. Sarah, who killed her own husband. Sarah, who came a step short of single-handedly bringing down the ZBC and setting herself up to take over the Backdraft. Sarah, who`s basically an older, more mature, ripened Leena. Sarah, who`s practically taken over Champton like she owns the place.

Reign of Chaos by Sh33p

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36

Best Fanfics on the Web, selected by Tim

Tim Seltzer's page www.seltzerbooks.com/tim.html

Discuss books at Blogging about Books http://www.seltzerbooks.com/blog/
Other book reviews by Richard Seltzer
Opus authors -- contemporary writers whose entire work is great
The Readers' Corner and Writers Showcase

This site is published by Samizdat Express, 213 Deerfield Lane, West Roxbury, MA 02132-002. (203) 553-9925 seltzer@seltzerbooks.com

Book collections on CD and DVD. A library for the price of a book.
Limited time offer: 2 for the price of 1

Return to Samizdat Express


	Webseltzerbooks.com