The great sequal of New Age. It'll knock your socks off. Tim Seltzer, seltzer@seltzerbooks.com
Sh33p Disclaimer: I don`t own Zoids. Consider this disclaimer valid for the whole damn story :P
Foreword: Disturbed - Awaken, Linkin Park - Numb or Metallica - Sad But True fit the majority of this chapter.
"Why don`t you pick on someone your own size?" A voice echoed in the area of the desert as two young men stood across from each other. It was the voice of a killing machine that had once been a human being, and it was met with something that almost perfectly mirrored it in the underlying threat that it carried.
"Don`t mind if I do," Kale Obscura said coldly, cracking his neck to either side and then spitting a combination of a loogie and a wad of blood into the dirt, walking forward from between the downed forms of Specular and Vega. With murder in both of their eyes, the two charged forward, not giving off any smart talk, not blabbing about philosophy, just trying to beat each other into unconsciousness or death, whichever had the distinction of happening first.
Bit attacked first, but Kale`s speed closed the gap and their strikes made impact at the same instant. The side of a shin slammed high across the side of the blonde`s head, while a straight punch rained hard into the cheekbone of the raven-haired combatant, each of the two faltering back in perfect unison as a result. Kale was off balanced from the kick but Bit had been thrown into a waltz on dreamstreet by the kick, only barely avoiding his vision blurring.
Again they attacked each other, and Bit threw his arms up, one reinforcing the other. Kale`s leg crashed into the defense, it would have broken bones with ease if it were any normal opponent, but instead of that, his kick rebounded and a haymaker of a punch followed.
An amatuer boxer gone mad clashed with a rogue killer who had no sense of mercy, but it was a battle fought on even ground. The blonde`s punch was deflected by an upward elbow, the elbow carried into a downward karate chop, but the chop was parried by a forearm and a fist hit home by the time Kale`s formerly-kicking leg touched down, barely allowing him to keep his balance.
Instead of standing straight though, both arms whipped back up, Kale turned around and the punch to his forehead became a grazing blow at best, Bit`s arms were grabbed and the older combatant slammed into the ground a second later from a judo-styled body throw. Bit hit the ground with a loud thud, but he grabbed Kale`s forearm in the process while turning himself over and springing up to one knee, giving a hard yank and twisting the other right into the air and onto his back, only to get a swift kick in the face in reply.
Bit faltered back and rolled away to his hands and knees, then straightened up to his feet, and Kale simply sprang up to his feet, whipping around into a dropkick that carried him all the way over to the blonde fighter, only to realize too late that he had jumped the gun.
This time, the haymaker hit home.
Kale went flying back in mid-air, blood spraying out of both his mouth and newly-busted chin from the blow. Bit had only barely sidestepped the kick, but that didn`t matter with how hard his fist had struck the other of the two, tilting things almost decisively in Cloud`s favor for the time being.
"You`re not so tough when you don`t have your Zoid with you," he observed mockingly, and Kale finally hit the ground, rolling backwards and to his feet with a good bit of effort, almost staggering back a bit more from the dizziness he was suffering. "Where`s your ego now, asshole? Can`t mock someone face-to-face?" Bit asked angrily, his mood shifting insanely from humor to anger and back again as he smiled after speaking the words.
"I`ll mock you some more when you stop beating the shit out of me," Kale finally spat, shaking his head and straightening up with a feral growl. "Or when I`m finished breaking every bone in your body," he added before speaking again. "Whichever happens first."
"Guess you won`t be mocking me for a while then," Bit replied, darting forward in a swift sprint to close the distance, but where Vega would have jumped, Kale found he was unable to anticipate that Bit merely hopped, just as the raven-haired killer had jumped into the air to try and kick him on instinct. The blonde ducked under the kick though, hanging Kale`s leg up on his shoulder and tagging him squarely in the cheek with an uppercut, hard enough that it jarred the other right back up into the air, but also hard enough that Kale`s reflexes could come into play again.
Those reflexes lead to a backflip right off of Bit`s shoulder, which in turn lead to a solid kick into the blonde`s face, flinging him back into the air and causing an awkward landing on his head and shoulders, then a roll onto his stomach with his face planted into the dirt.
"Short while, wasn`t it?" Kale asked smugly while landing in a crouch, perfectly balanced despite the injury that had been essentially dumped on him over the course of one night.
"Almost as short as the rest of your life," Bit replied as if unphased, picking himself back up and standing tall. Both of the two young men were in what could best be described as that middle ground between collapsing in utter agony and overdosing on adrenaline, yet each was somehow perfectly calm. Blood trailed from the fresh wounds they`d inflicted on each other, bruising had formed all over the both of them and they were each staring ahead. Not at each other though, each was turned sideways to each other, one staring at the crater, the other at the diamond.
Finally though, the eerie, tensed silence was broken, and it wasn`t by the dull, rhythmic hums of Shadow`s evolutionary shell.
"I`ve been waiting for this for years," Bit finally muttered aloud, though partially under his breath. That said, he tilted his head down and glared sideways at Kale. "And I never even knew it until tonight. All I wanted, for two years was-"
"- that one fight that brings out your own inner demons and forces you to confront them. Nothing left to hide-" Kale interrupted, cocking his head back and glaring at Bit in the same manner only to be interrupted again in turn.
"- nothing left to lose," Bit continued. With a brief pause, both spoke again, saying the same words in the same way, the same murderous emotion flooding through each.
"Everything to gain."
As one, each reached behind themselves, Kale moving his left hand - the one turned away from Bit - up the back of his overshirt and grabbing a hold of something, Bit following in kind with his own left hand, which was hidden from Kale`s sight.
Two clicks echoed through the air, and as one again, each drew a weapon. For Kale, it was a dagger. A stabbing tool, straight and tapering away to a sharpened tip. For Bit, it was the handleblade his ancestral grandmother had given him, shaped like a warped Z, held upside down. Again, with perfect unison, the two turned towards each other, stopping all movement after bringing their weapons forward, each man waiting...
A staredown. Cold, ruthless, hardened to the core.
Each fighter stared into one another `s eyes. No blinking, no movement, each looked straight into the soul of the other. Whoever blinked first would probably die as the two killing machines that had once called themselves mere Zoid Warriors engaged in a battle like none other.
Where once stood men, now stood demons. Demons bathed in twilight, the stars, the setting moon and the ever-distant sun proving only shallow illumination compared to the disturbing crimson glow overtaking each, a glow provided by the nearby energy cocoon that was still only hours old.
And then, each began to smile. Slowly, bearing their teeth as if each was an animal. Disturbing, a mirror image could be seen for all of a split second, and during that time, everything stopped. It was as if the entire planet held it`s breath -
"Oh my god..."
- and then, Bit Cloud blinked.
"DIE!"
A flash of movement, a harsh clash of metal against metal, several fractions of a second passed and sparks flew in a hail through the air, the entire world went black and then the sun started to rise, revealing what looked like a shellshocked Bit Cloud standing back to back with Kale Obscura, each of the two in the middle of leaping sideways through the air, their weapons still hot from the clash.
Another second went by, each touched down in their own strange way, Kale on his feet in a crouch, Bit in a kneel with one hand going forward to avoid falling over.
"Amusing," Kale finally announced, standing up as Bit did the same, and even though they still mirrored each other almost exactly, their expressions no longer matched. Across the face of one, there rested the expression of a coldhearted, ruthless murderer like few that had been seen in the history of the world. Across the face of the other, only a mixing flood of emotions could be witnessed, ranging from horror to disbelief.
Something had snapped the previous evening but on the very brink of falling into the void, something had pulled Bit Cloud back. The abyss was denied another victim, and Kale found himself staring into something that, for the first time in months, sent a chill up his spine, while Bit found himself staring back at something he could only see as pure evil.
They were staring at each other.
What they saw were themselves.
"Or... Not so..."
"What... Was..."
Neither really finished, each only mirrored each other again.
To an extent.
Each charged forward once more, steels clashed, Bit knocked away the dagger with the handleblade but Kale had been counting on it, twisting broadside to the other combatant and then jumping, slapping the armor on his shoulder - hidden as it was by his overshirt - right into Bit`s head. Cloud stumbled sideways, Kale landed and lashed out furiously like a wild, caged animal attacking a sacrificial lamb, his leg crashing into the upper half of the blonde`s back with an audible, blood chilling crack, slinging Bit right off of his feet and to the ground.
Again, Kale attacked with the dagger, stabbing outward. Bit rolled up to his knees and narrowly used the handleblade again, slapping the blade away before it could come in contact with his face, only to to realize all too late that it had been an utter ruse.
A fist cracked like a baseball bat across the side of a skull, and Bit went down again, crumpling like a heap while Kale straightened up, twirling his weapon in hand before catching it in the midst of a quick motion, now holding it upside down in a stabbing position. It hurt to even think, he was distracted, he`d lost a lot of blood over the course of the night and it felt like at least a few bones had been cracked or broken, but in the back of his mind, something urged him on.
As Kale attacked again, Bit Cloud rolled out of the way in a haze of pain, lashing out with the handleblade and swiping a clean cut across Kale`s cheek, just as the dagger was drawn back out of the dirt and a slash echoed with a whistle in the air.
In unison, each reeled back from the other, one hand cradling the fresh wounds they`d both suffered. Slowly they rose once more, each bleeding anew. The cuts were a perfect mirror image, one across Kale`s left temple, the other across Bit`s right. Each of the two slowly got back to their feet, wheezing, panting, trying just to stand.
Kale was exhausted, Bit was exhausted. Kale was hurting, Bit was hurting. Kale was bleeding, Bit was bleeding. Each had been in some of the toughest battles that had ever been fought, to give up and allow death or retreat wouldn`t have been shameful for either of them, but neither would have done such a thing. Something kept them on that field of battle, something that could never quite be explained. It was something far deeper than pride, contempt or even revenge.
Fate had brought them against each other. It was up to them to sort this out.
"I..." Kale began, failing to continue for a second.
"Hate," Bit tried to pick up the words, but faltered as well. As one, one last time, they finished the sentence in eerie, terrifying finality:
"You."
Finally, both straightened up, Bit gave a twirl to the handleblade and Kale mirrored it with his dagger. For a second, neither did anything else, and then they attacked.
Kale threw his dagger, Bit screamed, his grip on the handleblade failing instantly as hard steel stabbed mercilessly into softened flesh and tough bone, almost knocking his shoulder out of the socket, slowing him down but only for a second. Like a wild, enraged predator - a lion made human - the blonde continued his insane charge forward, jumping up with inhuman grace over Kale`s leg and landing perfectly in an uncharacteristic fashion.
As one, they whipped around to face each other, but also as one, they lashed out. Spirits clashed this time, not steel, not even flesh.
This time again, Bit flew back, crashing with a skid along the ground, moving right between Vega and Specular`s downed forms until he had stopped, right along the glassed edge of the crater. Kale had staggered back several steps, one of his arms hung limply at his side, the other outstretched in the posture of a finished haymaker. For a second, he stood there, and then collapsed to his knees, his good arm sagging down to the ground. The flexible armored pad along his shoulder was completely cratered in the shape of Bit`s fist, the fabric over it annihilated and the edge of the hole looked as though it had been recently set on fire.
Sweat poured down with the blood on his face, Kale`s face clenched exhaustedly.
"Why... Won`t you... Just... Die?"
Bit only laughed mirthlessly, propping himself up on his good arm and finding that his attack had missed Kale`s head only to strike him right in the left shoulder. Coincidentally, it mirrored the wound on Bit`s right, bar the fact that Bit`s was a stab wound and Kale`s was a force trauma. The results were practically the same though, aside from how Bit was now bleeding from the shoulder as well. His arm had gone into a completely numb shock of unnatural cold, it hurt like Hell just to try and flex his fingers, let alone will his elbow to bend or his arm to move.
Kale looked in no better shape as far as that went, slow to his feet but still in better conditions that his half-dead opponent, at least as far as the last match-up had been.
"Quitting just isn`t something I know how to do," Bit finally said, grinning like an absolute psychopath.
"I`m not telling you to quit, I`m telling you to die," Kale retorted sharply, glaring up from the ground with that same chilling glare, the glare of a vengeful spirit, no longer alive but unwilling to accept it until some key task had been carried out.
"Then come and make me, you rotten bastard," Bit growled out, only then realizing that the dagger was still -
[... Vega went flying from the impact with Kale`s leg, bouncing off of the huge, glass-like cocoon of energy, his entire body gone numb from the shock it caused. Sparks of electricity flew off of his small body, and after several seconds of moving through the air like a stone from a catapult...]
- embedded in his shoulder.
It was then that Kale started walking forward, picking up -
[... Sparks of electricity flew off of his small body, and after several seconds of moving through the air like a stone from a catapult...]
- speed. Bit didn`t know what he saw for a moment, and then -
[... Bouncing off of the cocoon of energy and moving through the air like a stone from a catapult...]
- came clarity, and with clarity, understanding. Kale jumped -
[... Bouncing off of the huge, glass-like cocoon of energy...]
"It just might work..."
- and Bit steeled himself, literally tearing the dagger out of his own shoulder with a loud scream and leaning forward, putting every ounce of his remaining strength into throwing the weapon right into a series of mid-air flips -
[... Bouncing off of the cocoon of energy...]
- through the air -
[... Bouncing off like a stone from a catapult...]
- and passing under Kale`s jumping form with the speed of a rifle round, going straight into the energy cocoon with a final spin, landing right on the very butt of it`s grip and then rebounding like a bullet, slinging through the air with a whistle.
"DAMN YOU!!!" Kale screamed, all too late realizing that he`d jumped into a trap.
"You lose," Bit whispered out coldly, just as the knife drove into Kale`s back, just left of the spine. The result was unbelievable, and the seeming incarnation of unstoppable destruction went screaming through the air, flying right over the edge of the crater from the sheer force of the dagger alone, tumbling through the air before landing some two hundred feet straight down with the sound of glass shattering in an echo that carried around the crater and into the desert.
"Let`s see you mock me now, you sorry son of a bitch..."
With that, Bit Cloud fell onto his back and let out a final wheeze.
The world went black a second later, even as the desert sun rose like a
great king in the sky.
Intriguing.
"I almost thought you would want to step in."
As did I. It looks as though our gamble has paid off, though.
"So now we have a true victim, an unwilling killer, a hero, a psychopath and an inspiration."
Five wild cards in a stacked deck.
"Should we get involved now?" Madison asked, not really impatient, not even concerned for the wellbeing of any of the people, or the Organoid, that had wound up involved in the brutal taste of Hell that had ended mere moments before. As far as she was truly concerned, they were merely means to an end. All she cared for was Roc.
Indeed. Do you want the honors, or shall I?
"Go ahead."
With that, several miles away, Dana Masterson`s head shot up. She knew to steer the Foe Hammer - which she, Katherine and Lars had been keeping in a steady hover over one of the vertical landing pands of the Garnhelm Base - into turning around, promptly moving at a relatively slow speed of several dozen miles per hour towards the site of where the battle had only just ended. She didn`t know why, she just knew.
Humans do not know how to guard their minds, it seems.
Madison didn`t respond with anything but a shrug.
As the longest night in civilized history ended, the Raynos touched down on the road outside the Transtock Temporary Home for the Criminally Insane. By the time it had stopped moving, Jamie Hameros was gone and the Wild Eagle had taken over in a frantic sort of way. A pair of Gustavs sat outside the structure, each of them a deep, dark shade of green. Will ignored them, popping the cockpit open and jumping the entire distance down to the ground.
Legs that normally would have gone numb from the force of landing merely felt a brief tinge of shock at the impact, the personality currently in control already taking over fully. Jamie was frantic, the Wild Eagle was the only one even vaguely coherent at the moment, and by the time he got to the door, he found that he was a bit late to stop everything.
Bodies were everywhere. Some had obviously been there for an hour or two but many looked fresh.
Literally jumping the way over several of the bodies though, Will ran forward, heedless of anything in his path. The error would cost both of them deeply, for right as the Wild Eagle rounded another corner, the butt of a rifle slammed into his temple unexpectedly. Out like a broken lightbulb, Jamie Hameros` body slumped to floor in surprised unconsciousness.
Fifteen minutes later, Brad Hunter touched down hard on the legs of the Pteras, which bent forward automatically as if preparing to take off again, only for it`s cockpit to pop open as Brad jumped down. His gun was in one hand, but it would do no good as the doors to the institution were kicked open a third time in one morning, three armed soldiers popping out in plain sight.
With instincts hardened by an underworld past and sharpened through years as a Zoid Warrior, Brad deftly picked two of them off, but his gun literally exploded in his hand before he could nail number three, the round literally going down the barrel and blowing up on impact with the very bullet he was about to fire.
"Surrender or die!"
Tongue in cheek, the former mercenary raised his hands.
"Good boy. Maybe I`ll get a raise outta this one..."
As the remaining troop started to walk down the steps, the doors were kicked open yet again, and this time, two pairs of men emerged, followed by a woman and two more men, all of them armed but four of them carrying hostages. At least, if Brad was still armed, they would be hostages. One was a blue haired, tan skinned young woman in an inmate`s jumpsuit, the strait jacket that had recently been thrown around her currently being used to stifle her admittedly weakened protests. Hours without sleep, mental exhaustion and fear for the other captive kept that resistance to a minimum.
Jamie was still unconscious, the Wild Eagle`s personality having lost it`s hold the moment the rifle had knocked him out. A trickle of blood still leaked down from one badly bruised temple, two of the soldiers were dragging him where the other two were just holding Leyla by the biceps of her arms.
As it stood, they weren`t hostages because Brad was unarmed. All three of them were prisoners, nothing more.
"Take the Zoids on one trailer, pack all three of the prisoners into the other," the woman ordered coldly, nothing even remotely feminine sounding in her voice. Two of the soldiers methodically walked towards Brad and jammed the tips of their rifles into his head, forcing his arms behind his back and roughly dragging him along.
"So much for trying to play hero," Brad muttered to himself in thought,
gritting his teeth as he was lead off like a lamb to the slaughter.
Romeo City. As night faded to morning, Leon Tauros stirred awake for the fifth time in the two hours he`d been able to get any sleep. A Godos to either side of his Blade Liger told him not to let his guard down too easily, he might have been working to protect the city out of the goodness of his heart but that didn`t mean he trusted anyone in it as far as he could throw them.
The Red Blade growled lowly, shifting as if irritated. The air was so thick with so many emotions at once, that Leon probably could`ve cut it with a knife if he wanted. Fear, stress, anxiety, outright panic, sadness, anger, hatred and everything else, it ran the gauntlet for human feelings. Reality had only just started to set in for a lot of the people in Romeo City, the shock was wearing off and being replaced steadily by a growing apprehension, underlined with a vague sense of communal unity often seen during particularly traumatic periods of time.
"So much for getting any more sleep," Leon thought annoyedly, leering out over the desert and silently strumming his fingers over his left arm. The Zoid rumbled again, as if empathically sensing it`s pilot`s distress.
"I`ll be fine. Just wish I could get some more rest," Leon replied in kind, still scanning the horizon with all the vigilance of a soldier, even though he actually lacked military experience. Several more minutes went by, and then a yawn stifled the silence of the cockpit, followed by several knocks on the Liger`s right paw. Leon looked down in that direction, spotting a familiar looking woman with green hair.
"Coffee`s up!" Pierce shouted up at the head of the Blade Liger, looking a little worse for wear, herself. The Storm Sworder was 'parked' not too far back, on one of the now-abandoned roads leading into or out of the city, with Leon and the two Godos situated next to him standing right in front of it.
"Why do I get the feeling this is going to be one of those days?" Leon
asked himself while undoing his harness and flipping the cockpit open.
Miles away, on the other hand, just over the enormous, ridge-type hill that half-circled the city, a force was gathering. It wasn`t as big as the numbers that were spared to tackle Bit Cloud, instead this group seemed more focused on carrying on a real battle rather than a surprise raid or massacre. The Zoids themselves were practically built around the idea of doing just that - they massed in with around thirty Scout Foxes, each of which was the same build as the version Brad Hunter had been 'gifted' with for a month or two.
In short: Thirty of the best small-sized Zoids that had ever been created were about to charge into battle. Their air support wasn`t too shabby either, a pair of Hammerhead I-G units - gunships. After that, there were close to sixteen Foxbats, and nearby to all of them was a specific Whale King.
Type Nine, one of the two largest varieties alongside the Type Ten, able to carry up to a hundred Zoids on average with room for more with modifications. It was the Emerald Nightmare, Vilhelm Rommel`s personal flagship, having touched down on the ground sometime in the late night with darkness as a cover, unloading the assault force along with a final Zoid that was only now stepping down the great carrier Zoid`s jawline.
Seconds passed, then, two hollow thumps sounded in the relative quiet of the desert, followed by the sounds of footsteps. Loud, dangerous and spiteful, yet at the same time defiant, but only to an extent.
The blue Geno Breaker shifted through each step before settling down, all thirty of the Scout Foxes vanishing as their cloaks activated. In the cockpit, Bill Chapman sighed to himself bitterly, leaning back and trying to slip a finger under his forced collar. It was no good, the damn thing wouldn`t even budge.
"I hate this..."
"The attack will commence in one hour. Be prepared," a voice chimed irritatingly into the cockpit. Smooth, elegant and a bit regal, it was the same voice that Bill had come to utterly despise in the past few days, namely the voice of one Vilhelm Rommel, giving personal orders on the front lines of his own, deluded and utterly insane war of annihilation.
There was a clicking sound, the communications switched off automatically and Bill Chapman was alone in the cockpit once more, not even an annoying voice to keep him company. He knew not to speak, the cockpit was probably bugged anyhow, but despite Rommel`s probable wishes, Chapman could still think quite clearly.
"God forgive me for what I`m about to do," he thought with regret, leering
at the top of the hillside and knowing that he would soon be on the road
to becoming an unwilling mass murderer.
Author`s Note: *Takes finger off the AHBL button. For a few seconds.* >_> Need to give everyone a break, huh?
Illidan: You forgot that good ol` Will E.(Wild Eagle) wracked up an impressive kill list too, 800+, I believe. Kale is somewhere around the 10,000(give or take a few) mark, Vilhelm`s probably not dirtied his hands enough to be directly accountable, Bit`s got at least 150 or so, plus the hundreds he wiped out with the Panzer when Bill was kidnapped in the middle of the second Blitz/Thunder battle. Chances are, very few of the dead went out with the chance to feel much pain :P
EndlessAdventure: *Ding ding ding* Someone got it right! I already told Zinou, buuuut since you guessed on your own *Gives EA two cookies.* Kale`s l33tm0 ninja ski11z didn`t bail him out this time, I`m afraid. Though I intend to get a lot of mileage out of the battle`s aftermath in developing both of them. Kale`s finally tasted the bitterness of defeat, Bit`s stared into the abyss of what he could have and may yet become again. The experience is going to give me a ton of room to work with them, as well as room to work on Vega and Specular.
DJ Wolfwood: Despite that you haven`t left a review lately: Expect the OC you requested the use of to be seen sometime in the next two chapters. Don`t expect much of a role, but he will appear. And for anyone else: This is a one time deal, don`t come asking for me to put your OCs into this story, I`m only doing this because the character fits a scene I have planned.
As for the Lightning, Sabers, Three Snipers, Schlag, etc... Well, as Zinou told me: I can`t keep focused on the actions of every single character on planet Zi, so you`ll just have to settle for scant appearances at best for the time being. Harry Champ will also show up, eventually.
That`s all for now folks, enjoy, leave a review and Sh33p out!
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