Reign of Chaos Chapter 6, a Zoids fanfic by Sh33p

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

Foreword: Linkin Park - Numb only goes for the parts of the chapter involving Bit Cloud and/or Kale Obscura. Anything epic/militaristic/suicidal/hard and/or fast fits just about everywhere else.

It hurt just to breathe. It felt as though his body had been slashed repeatedly with knives made out of pure fire, and as much as it hurt to breathe, it hurt even more just to try and find the resolve to move. His clothing had changed, he was certain of that much. A hospital gown, apparently. His clothes - what were left of them - were hung up on the top of a rail that held a curtain around the bed he was lying in. Multiple IVs were linked into his skin - if not for the vague numbness he was feeling from god knows what painkillers they`d pumped him full of, those would probably hurt too.

At the lack of feeling, he reached over, patting where his right arm was. Several pokes at what felt like plastic, then a grab and a squeeze. A jolt of pain allowed a unique bit of comfort in the fact that his arm was still attached. It was still numb, but it was at least attached.

Slowly, he leaned forward, or tried to, actually. The first attempt failed with a soft thump on the pillow, rustling the plastic beneath the bedsheets. The second attempt failed too, by the third he was starting to worry that he was too close to death to do anything but stare at the ceiling but on the fourth try, he succeeded.

Something nudged vacantly at his senses. For a moment, all he felt was a vague emotion, unsure of what kind it was. It 'poked' and 'prodded' at his mind, and then he heard a voice. Soft, comforting, but also his own. Just a small bit deeper, more sophisticated in a way.

You should rest. You went through a lot, even Van couldn`t have endured that kind of abuse.

"Gflgho..." A pause. A snort and then a wad of what looked like a mixture of leftover mucus and blood landed somewhere on the floor as he sat up, absently picking the needles of the IVs out of his arms and hands. It took supreme effort even to hold himself up right, let alone speak and remove the medical gear as he did so.

"How long was I out?" He asked, not really registering how he usually concealed his bond to the Liger Zero and it`s Organoid.

All of fifty minutes, if that. Your body is tired and hurt, your heart is heavy with grief and your mind is ill at ease with worry and regret. Rest.

Elsewhere. They didn`t give him the same kind treatment as the two of you. Now lay down, Zeke ordered with authority, though Bit was in no shape to defy him. With a wheezing sigh, the Royal Cup champion fell over in exhaustion and passed back out.

Outside the infirmary building though, a lone white Liger stood attentively, one of it`s 'eyes' turned to the hospital room that it`s pilot was recovering in, the other set towards the area outside the recently deployed perimeter wall, towards a distant glow near where the battle had played itself out. The Fury wasn`t anywhere in sight, but a blue form could faintly be seen within the Liger Zero`s enormous mouth, protectively withheld from the greedy hands and eyes of a desperate military. The form was Specular, herself still recovering from the energy drain that came with literally ripping loose of the Fury`s core in all of a few tensed seconds, let alone the loss of power that had come from taking a full fledged charged particle beam.

Several specks were visible in the distance as well, though the Liger wasn`t paying any attention to them. Zeke already knew what they were coming for, and what they were. Whale Kings, four of them ranging from a Type II, one of the two smallest varieties, and the only dedicated gunship version of the Whale King`s design, a Type I and two Type VIIs, which ranked in as some of the largest models. All of them that could carry Zoids were bringing whatever they had aboard, every gun was primed.

In an old prison cell though, these were the thoughts farthest from the mind of one Kale Obscura. In fact, just about everything seemed quite far from the thoughts of the raven-haired, Raven-looking young man. He was staring at the dull gray ceiling directly above him, alone and for the most part, surprisingly well off compared to his brutalized counterparts. How -

[Literally bathed in his own blood, the lone, half-dead figure in the crater forced his head out from the broken, glass-like dirt that had shattered around him. Spitting out broken up shards and sand, realization dawned upon him that he was still alive - if only because it hurt too much to be dead. A dull kind of pain washed over him with every labored breath, and with great strain, his half-useful arm reached around behind himself.

Lying on his stomach after a two hundred or more foot tall from the force of a dagger that had been bounced off of an Organoid cocoon wasn`t something that Kale intended to be doing at the start of the night, but he was intent on making the best of it. With what strength he could still summon up, the blade was pulled from his flesh, issuing a gooey leak from the wound before the weapon was nonchalantly dropped into the glass.

Everything was a painful, blurred haze as he struggled his still-useful arm back to a neutral position and started pushing, slowly forcing himself up out of a shallow body-shaped imprint in the glassy terrain of the crater, only to fall onto his more injured side after doing so. He didn`t even have the strength to scream.

The glow of the cocoon - out of his own sight since he`d fallen into the crater - dimmed ever so slightly, a whisp of energy breaking it`s orbit and wobbling above the other three casualties of this most personal war, slipping down into the crater only to find itself held back. It hovered restlessly above Kale`s dying body, and with what remained of his few seconds of consciousness, he leered dryly to the right, spotting a dangerously contemplative looking Liger Zero. The same Zoid who`s back he`d broken weeks earlier.

Shadow strived, but Kale`s life was really in Zeke`s hands this time. The Zero rumbled, but Kale passed out before he could see the confrontation end.]

- he didn`t know, nor did he very much care for that matter, at least when it came to the how-he-was-alive part of things.

In case you haven`t noticed, I`m still immobilized. Rest well, knowing that tomorrow, the battle will begin anew.

His injuries were almost gone now, but scars remained. A shallow, barely visible one across his cheek, and a larger one across his shoulder. Part of him wearily guessed that Bit would end up recovering in much the same way, as even the vicious bruising from some of the more intense blows of the night - including Specular`s ambush or the countless kicks and punches to his head - wasn`t even visible anymore.

A light groan came, and it brought also a smirk, and he turned over onto his side, shutting his eyes and falling asleep. Eerily as ever, his pose almost perfectly resembled that of Bit Cloud in reverse.

Shots rang out around Romeo City. A tenuous peace shattered like glass in the shower of plasma that followed, from right in front of the eastern line of defense, the same line that the Red Blade Liger and Leon Tauros were positioned with. As luck would have it, the ambush was swift and precise enough that seven of the thirteen Zoids in the perimeter were gunned down by the time they could try fighting back, leaving only a Command Wolf, a Saber Tiger, two Heldigunners and the Liger to fire back in reply, with Pierce`s Stormsworder not having launched yet.

The attackers were using cloaks. Cloaks had holes, holes that were visible when they opened fire. Leon spotted said-holes instantly, pulling the trigger with uncertainty the first time and successfully blowing another hole into one of those aforementioned cloaks. The whole, coincidentally, was also into the cockpit glass, killed the pilot instantly and leaving the virtually decapitated Scout Fox visible as it`s systems went down, slumping in defeat to the ground.

"One, two, twenty-...nine," Leon guessed correctly, swinging the Blade Liger to one side in the middle of a hop, landing on the Zoid`s foreclaws and skidding around in front of the Command Wolf, shield kicking on instantly as the majority of Foxes opened up in that direction. For several seconds, the shield held -

- and then shattered, just as Leon himself jumped the Blade Liger out of the way again, the Command Wolf dodging to the side and opening up with it`s turreting gattling gun. Slugs the size of trash cans chanced a victory over durably lightweight armor, spraying the head of one of the remaining Scout Foxes. The Zoid took to the air in shock, exploding as one of the invisible Foxes behind it attacked again.

"Twenty-eight," Leon mumbled as an afterthought, charging forward with a detached calm to his expression, blades swinging down and into attack mode. The calm didn`t last long at all though, and with a loud cry of battle befitting his ancestors, Leon Tauros entered the battle with relentless fervor.

"What hit me?" A lazily pained voice asked, eyes cracking open with blurred results in the middle of a kind of room, namely a Gustav containment unit turned into a modular part of a transport. From the looks of things, this was a far more comfortable model than the one he`d been in during his last trip around the block in one of these things. The harnesses and the dual row of seats leading to a console at one end of the thing just screamed 'troop carrier,' though it wasn`t filled to even half capacity from the look of things. Five peoples tops. Two had guns, the other two were seated to either side of him.

"... Where am I?" He asked dryly, blinking the haze out of his vision and trying to rub his eyes only to realize he had handcuffs on, which had in turn been chained to the grips of the safety harness lowered around him.

"Probably on the highway to Hell, if you ask me," a familiar, sardonic voice pointed out in absolutely cynical calm. "But at least it`s with me, right?" Another voice cut in, decidedly more cheerful and even a small bit reliant sounding.

"Ding ding ding," Brad chimed. "Yeah, it`s me," Leyla answered, and Jamie looked to the side to see that she was both wrapped in a straitjacket and pinned in place by the safety harness that was being used to hold her in place. She probably could have broken loose if she was more in tune with herself, as Fiona or Riese had been, but unlike them, Leyla was still only vaguely learning about her own nature, let alone the abilities that very nature provided. Ancient Zoidians were naturally a far tougher, stronger people, they were also highly prone to telepathy, as their bonds to both Organoids and Zoids pointed out. The only reason Bit, Kale and Vega had all advanced so far compared to Leyla was because they all had Organoids, histories of prolonged stress and a number of other factors driving them forward.

Of course Leyla, Brad and Jamie didn`t know these things. About all they knew was -

Well, Brad was just being himself in this sort of situation: Less than optimistic.

Another explosion filled the air, Leon Tauros counted about twenty-six Scout Foxes now - make that twenty-five. The Blade Liger skidded sideways to a dead stop, knocking one of the quick, mostly invisible Zoids right off of it`s feet, at least it would have. In reality, the attacker had become impaled on one of the Liger`s glowing, golden blades, and shots rang out again barely a second later as the Command Wolf burst into flames. The attackers came from above as well, fifteen of the Foxbat Zoids that Leon had encountered the previous evening, all flying out of formation and simply flying over the line he and the other defenders had formed on the eastern side.

No help was coming, though. Leon had advised the city`s local Guardians(there were a minimum of three stationed in every major city on the planet) to hold their own lines at any cost, convinced that there might be more attacks planned to take advantage of everyone rushing to put out a single brushfire. Now, with Romeo City about to get bombed into oblivion, he realized just how rigid and unuseful that idea had been.

And that was when a number of gattling gun rounds rained down into one of the Foxbats, scattering the entire group and causing their pilots to panic for a moment, veering from the city entirely. In the process, one of them flew a bit too close to the ground, and the eastern line`s second Saber Tiger made sure that the pilot paid for it with his life, lunging up from the ground and gutting the smaller Foxbat in mid-air with it`s dagger-like fangs, backflipping out of the collision and landing right as another Scout Fox briefly became visual, plasma already streaking at the Tiger -

- only to be shot in mid-flight by a counter-bolt from the Blade Liger, altering the aim of the first bolt and the second and repeating the process several times until the entire stream had been diverted, passing by the Saber Tiger at an angle and giving it`s pilot just enough time to whip around and open fire, tagging the Scout Fox six times in a row with his triple shot cannon.

Another Foxbat crashed not long after, the Stormsworder swooping right into it`s flight path at extremely low levels and pulling up at an impossible altitude of under twenty feet with the drag from it`s turbulence dragging the other Zoid right into the ground. Pierce smiled vacantly to herself, almost dancing through a burst of fire from another of the remaining twelve aerial Zoids.

The Stormsworder literally snapped straight up, dodging over the swarm with less than a second to spare as the two Hammerhead I-Gs hovered up over the battlefield like Apache helicopters, orbiting at it`s edge and throwing several volleys of anti-Zoid rockets down at the Heldigunner. The pilot was only barely swift enough to dodge them, plowing head-on into the side of the hill and then making a sharp right U-turn while moving down underground, the rockets blasting out a massive crater in the extended hillside.

Another explosion followed seconds later, pieces of a Foxbat rained down, smoking and ablaze, several showing the signs of a swift blade cutting right through them. A silver blur moved over the battlefield, luring away several of the aerial Zoids and leaving only the Hammerheads and a lone Foxbat to continue providing air support to the invisible attackers that were the Scout Foxes.

"This is nuts!" One of the Saber Tiger pilots exclaimed as his Zoid took a dozen shots into the side, flying off of it`s feet and landing right on top of a quickstop that had thankfully been abandoned since the previous evening. The local officials had possessed the foresight to move anyone who wasn`t fighting back by about three rows of cityline, forming an essentially dead bufferzone that could provide a temporary shield and obstacle course for ground attackers. It was also a line of cityscape plagued by rampant looting, but possessions could be replaced - lives couldn`t.

"If you were nuts, you`d be running away!" Leon replied with the tone of a leader at war. "Now hold the damn line! Nothing gets through, got that?!"

His words set the tone of the battle for the defenders, and almost as if envigorated by the orders alone, the Saber Tiger practically flew back out of the rubble, landing in a sprint and gunning down the leftover Foxbat with a roar. Almost as if choreographed to follow that action, gunfire exploded through the rubble, and one of the Hammerheads rocked in mid-air, it`s underside being raked with firepower. The pilot was skillful though, barely tilting to the right and smoothly sliding out of the way as the forward rocket launchers opened up, firing off a pair of the more powerful weapons in it`s considerable arsenal.

The ground exploded, forming a crater down by almost thirty feet. The Heldigunner could barely be seen scampering through the dirt with just enough speed to have avoided the blast, leaving a briefly visible tunnel opening in it`s wake.

Three rods-on-jet-engines tore through the air, stabbing like swords into the side of the low flying Hammerhead. They were only a precursor though, another blaring sonic boom howled through the battlefield, kicking up dust and blurring visuals as an orange headblade scythed vengefully along the top fin of the gunship Zoid, the upside-down Stormsworder twisting back up at the last second and swiftly dicing one of the Foxbats across the gut in the process. The green Zoid continued flying for a split second, then tumbled down to the ground in two, one of the pieces bouncing off of the still-flying Hammerhead and exploding next to it.

That did the job, the first Hammerhead lost altitude and it also lost it`s directional control, blasting forward at full speed, where the Red Blade Liger finished it off, blades sticking straight up and tearing out the Zoid`s guts as it passed overhead, crashing into the ground and crumpling like a tin can before exploding in a bright fireball.

"Hold them back at all costs, don`t let any of them through!" Leon ordered sternly, swinging his blades straight forward over the Liger`s shoulders and perfectly gunning down a Scout Fox that had been creeping through the killzone towards the city. Briefly, he was exposed, but the Heldigunner saved the day, exploding out of the ground and shocking Leon as well, literally flying over the Red Blade and slamming back down through the ground, a charging Scout Fox skidding to a halt and falling feet-first into the hole in the process. The instant on-rush of sand and dirt held it there by it`s forelegs, and several shots tore out it`s guts from underground by the time that Tauros had overcome his own shock.

"Can`t let that happen again, I don`t want to get nailed off my guard," Leon thought tensely, swinging his blades back down and turning to the left to attack yet another Scout Fox, which had only vaguely become visible against the background of fire from the Hammerhead wreckage.

["I`ve been waiting for this for years. 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-"

[Like an agile predator, he rose, turning to face his dangerous prey only to find his prey replaced by another predator, something so malignant, so evil that he could only scarcely comprehend it`s presence. Like a deer caught in headlights, he stared into the eyes of something that embodied the abyss of demons that he so dangerously leaned over, something so demonic that it shocked his entire being to the very core.

["To be a Zoid Warrior, one must have courage, honor, and a sense of justice."]

"Whafghn..." A jumble of a word that was intended to start a question. A slacked jaw to go with it.

He wouldn`t be getting any rest this morning. Sweat, cold and tired, rolled down along bandaged cheeks.

[Where he saw the most horrid demon that could ever take the form of any human being, he saw himself.]

[Surrounded by over a hundred dead enemies. Alone. Bloodied by shrapnel wounds. Hyperventilating. Sweating. Crying. Laughing.]

"... Am I?" Bit asked himself, placing his head briefly in his hands and waiting for a calm, reassuring 'no' from Zeke.

It never came. With silence though, came restlessness. With restlessness came a reserve of energy, and with that reserve came a willingness to use it.

Standing up, he walked over to the clothing that had been haphazardly hung over the rail, pulling it down and removing the nightgown, at the same time sorting through the small mess for his boxers.

Outside, the Liger Zero stood solemnly, glaring at the dozens of Zoids now gathering on the smoothly paved grounds of Garnhelm Base, each of which was practically getting a king`s welcome by the now-overworked maintenance crews. The list ran the gauntlet, from Bombard Gustavs to a Europlas or three, Aerosaurs, Gunsnipers, several Shield Ligers, Command Wolves, Saber Tigers, Dibisons, a few Gojulas, along with several Iron Kong Mark VIs. It was obvious that this was largely a Republican-commanded operation, whatever it was, mainly since this was also an incident closer to Republican territory.

Specular stirred somewhat in the Liger`s jaws, but remained unconscious. The shock to her system had been considerable, even Zeke would have probably required a chunk of Zoid Magnite just to survive, but something else was driving Specular on. That something was an eleven year old boy lying half-dead in a hospital bed in the building that Zeke was standing closely to like a male lion protecting his pride from any potential challengers.

A flare of gold, and with it came a clash of blood red and emerald green. The Blade Liger touched down hard on all fours, arcing into a wide turn as Scout Fox number twelve went down in a blaze of glory, briefly becoming visible, then invisible again before outright exploding, the parts raining down in a hail of visual distortions before the effects of the cloaking device fully wore off.

An explosion, another Scout Fox went flying through the air and the ground beneath it shattered into a blistering hail of machine gun rounds. The Zoid`s brutalized carcass landed with a crash and slowly smoked, not quite exploding into flames just yet.

"Seventeen left," Leon corrected himself, counting only the Scout Foxes, despite the Hammerhead that was still bombing the daylights out of the morning warzone. Again, the Blade Liger dodged as a hail of rocketry blazed by, tagging the downed Scout Fox and erasing it from existence in an enormous blast. By the time Leon had touched down, he was given a split second to analyze the situation.

One Saber Tiger, the Heldigunner, Pierce and himself. The other Saber Tiger had been knocked out of commission while pummeling an errant Scout Fox that had wandered too close to the city, but it was still repairable and the pilot still alive, just out of the fight for the time being. A humane part of him wanted to stand guard around the downed Saber Tiger but his tactical side kept him in the fight - one Saber Tiger and it`s pilot weren`t worth forfitting the lives of a few hundred civilians.

Another blaze from above, a Foxbat crashed and burnt as Pierce swooped back down at full speed, levelling off at another impossibly low flight level and then ascending back up at the last second, right in the path of the remaining gunship. The larger Zoid tumbled harshly through the air but refused to go down, righting itself after several seconds and tilting downward, the entire battlefield getting sprayed with machine gun rounds an instant later.

Leon was lucky that his shield had recharged, if not for that, he would have been killed. The Heldigunner survived by manuevering further underground and the remaining Saber Tiger had the sense to just run like hell. Pierce on the other hand...

"You`d think they`d have the decency to go down after getting hit by a sonic boom," she complained, folding the Sworder`s wings back up and tilting around in mid-air as her momentum faded and gravity kicked in. Wings extended, the claws at the middle of those wings folded down and a group of six machine guns was exposed, opening fire at once with the main gattling gun. The Hammerhead rocked violently from the assault, it`s tail popping open afterward to reveal twenty-four missiles of some sort, all of which launched at once.

"... Shit," Pierce muttered, swooping up and catching one of the last three Foxbats in her exhaust, sweeping it off course and allowing the poor bastard to take the brunt of a few of the incoming missiles. A sonic burst later, the Stormsworder was bylining for the upper atmosphere, slicing another Foxbat`s head off and allowing it`s body to knock out a few more of the missiles with a thunderous blast.

On the ground though, things were still getting increasingly desperate. Leon grit his teeth, pulling the trigger and blowing the head off of another Scout Fox, raising his shield again and lunging forward. Another Fox materialized, thrown into the air from the impact and shot down by the Heldigunner before it could hit the ground. The Saber Tiger practically flew overhead from the right a second later, landing with a loud crash of metal and machinery before jumping again, a brutalized Scout Fox lying in it`s wake.

"Fourteen," Leon mumbled to himself, swinging his blades forward for a stab or two and charging into combat again...

The sound of something peeling alerted one of the nurses. Slowly, the middle aged woman made her way through the open infirmary, peeking into the curtained off sections one by one before arriving at the last two, just in time to see one of their two newest patients slowly peeling the bandaging from around his forehead. It made her gasp in surprise because this patient had effectively been two steps short of dying less than two hours ago.

Now he was almost perfectly healed aside from the numerous rips and cuts to his clothing. There was also a shallow, barely visible scar on one of his cheeks.

"Ask him," Bit replied, motioning out the window with a thumb towards the Liger Zero, already well on his way to leaving the room. The nurse, for what it was worth, just stood there in muffled shock, watching a guy who`d been close to becoming a corpse earlier in the same morning waltzing his way over to one of the other curtain-rooms without another word.

His memories of the events leading up to the end of the previous evening were still fresh. A bit blurry, but fresh. Among those memories was one of a bloodied heap of something in a purple-and-black or blue-and-black jumpsuit with white gloves and black hair, but he hadn`t been paying enough attention at the time to recognize just what and who that heap was.

Vega Obscura lay, unconscious and bandaged up to high hell and then some, an oxygen mask over his face, numerous IVs running all over his arms and chest. Internal damage had been severe, physical trauma was also bad, and relative to his smaller body size, he`d lost at least the same amount of blood that Bit and Kale both had. Almost anyone else save for his own older brother, Bit Cloud, Madison Rose, Leyla Tsun and Sarah Obscura would`ve been dead by now, but Vega was still holding on from the looks of things.

If Kale was capable of doing this sort of thing face-to-face, was Bit capable of doing it too?

"Get well soon, King," he mumbled aloud, giving a thumbs up to the unconscious youth before leaving, heading for the room`s exit. The nurse was still standing there in dumb shock at the very sight of him.

One of the Scout Foxes halted, the ground in front of it explading from several shots by the Saber Tiger`s gattling gun, but a second`s mistake in trying to avoid one attack lead to a far more severe blow as the tail of the Heldigunner ripped out of the ground, the blades on the tip missing at first only to come back down like a guillotine, slicing through the neck of the Scout Fox and beheading it in an instant before passing back down into the sands as if it had never even been there to begin with.

That brought the attackers` ground numbers to nine. Leon smirked mirthlessly, allowing himself a small bit of pride in having succeeded this far, but something snapped him back to reality before it could turn into a mistake, and the Red Blade jumped through the air, the ground beneath it exploding from a dozen rockets, machine and gattling gun rounds the size of trash cans raining down in the Zoid`s wake.

"Booster on," Leon said to himself, the intensity having long since fallen to a detached, cool demeanor of thoughtful actions and reactions. Where a pilot like Bit Cloud or Vega Obscura would have fought on raw feeling and emotion, Leon Tauros was far more calculating and skillful. Less willing to throw himself at an enemy with everything he had at once, and right now, that was paying off greatly in the fact that he was even alive. Seven against forty-seven were not a betting man`s odds, after all.

A blast of hot white from the Liger`s back, the booster had activated, and Leon swivelled it to the left almost on instinct, hurling the Zoid out of the line of the Hammerhead`s fire and landing at just the right angle to take an awkwardly made aim with one of his blasters. A second spelled the difference between victory and defeat on a battlefield - in war, a second spelled the difference between getting to celebrate with friends or having them lament over you at your funeral. In this case -

- a second also spelled the difference between Leon and the unfortunate crew of the Hammerhead, as three pulsed bursts of plasma blazed out of the Blade Liger`s right blaster, slipping through the air in a straight line and nailing the gunship Zoid right in the cockpit. The first shot was absorbed by armor, the second shot blew a hole through that same armor and killed most of the crew and the third shot finished the job, screaming in and incinerating the last few members of the Zoid`s crew and detonating the equivelent of it`s brain.

The Hammerhead`s engines cut out, it glided through the air and smashed into the ground with a thunderous explosion of flame and shrapnel, briefly shaking the entire battlezone and throwing the Saber Tiger straight up and down into one of the second row-buildings of the city, thankfully it had already been evacuated like the rest. Almost in concert, the last Foxbat dropped like a stone to the ground, exploding with a small shock than that of the Hammerhead.

"Then go back and reload, I think we can probably handle it from here," Leon ordered, still in as much command of the whole mess as he had been from the start. More shots tore through the dirt, another two Scout Foxes became visible as their insides were mangled, exposing them also to shots from the Blade Liger`s dual impact cannon. Each round hit the heads, and each time it happened, the pilots were killed.

The Liger Zero tilted it`s head down, Bit was briefly able to see something blue held protectively in it`s jaws, and gave only a slight nod a second later, followed by an annoyed sigh.

"That`ll do," Bit mumbled aloud, scratching the side of his head and then looking back up. "My clothes still in there?"

"... That`s right. Crap," he grumbled out again, slapping himself on the side of the head and regarding the worse-for-wear clothes he was currently garbed in. "Any ideas?"

A thud of several pairs of clothing, Bit blinked and turned around, a shirt and a pair of baggy, gray pants tossed haphazardly his way, a pair of boots landing with thumps at his feet. He was only barely sensible enough to catch the weighted down armored shirt that smacked into him a second later. The Bit Cloud of the Royal Cup Tournament would`ve fallen over in surprise, the current one merely blinked again and looked at the young woman standing across from him, smoking a cigarette.

"Heard about what you did for Vega. Took your clothes while you were out and matched `em up to your size since I didn`t have anything better to do," Katherine Takahori exclaimed nonchalantly with a shrug. "They gave us free reign on any spare uniforms they had, I figured you wouldn`t turn down the help," she added as an afterthought at his curious gaze.

"Don`t mention it," she answered, perhaps a bit coldly, perhaps just a bit apathetic. Either way, the woman walked off before he could question her further. Tiredly, Cloud pried the clothing off of himself and leered at the holster still attached to his belt, noting that it was empty.

"Good," he muttered, not wanting to lose his only keepsake of his grandmother. Without another word, Bit looked around and walked his way over to the small locker room usually reserved for on-base Zoid pilots. The fact that the lock was off was evidence that everyone was in a frantic rush to get ready, the fact that the room was half-filled with men and women in various stages of undress and redress was also proof of that. Not quite used to changing around a number of people - particularly when at least half of them looked like they could kick his ass into his throat with minimal effort - Bit made his way to a relatively out-of-sight corner and switched clothing.

When he emerged about two minutes later, his normal clothes were draped over one arm, the empty holster of the Handleblade still in place at the back of his belt, sneakers held in one hand. No one really noticed him, a mixed blessing. While it meant he blended in quite nicely, it also meant that he had the risk of getting ordered into action and then having to explain that he wasn`t actually a soldier, just an escaped hospital patient.

On the plus side, as he stepped back up to the foreclaws of the Liger Zero and spotted his reflection in the golden metal of the claws, he found he looked quite nice in military clothing. The t-shirt was worn under the armored vest, which was pretty much the same type that had once been worn by Van Fleiheit, although Bit`s was a size bigger since he was about a head or so taller than his ancestor had been. The pants were comfortable, not to mention a good bit easier to move around in than his old jeans, but the boots needed a breaking in. The last touch happened to be the gloves, which were the same ones he`d spent the majority of the past few days wearing, though he wasn`t wearing them at the moment.

"... That a good or a bad thing, partner?" Bit asked, glancing up at the Zoid`s head as it tilted to the side, the Handleblade slipping out between the Liger`s teeth and falling right into Bit`s free hand, then finding it`s way back to the holster.

... Probably good, but I`m not quite sure I can bear anymore comments on salted Papayas as an aphrodisiac.

A mortified expression on his face, Bit only nodded and beckoned the Zoid to lower it`s head again. The cockpit flipped open automatically and the blonde casually lumped his old clothes into the pilot`s seat, feeling around his new pants and eventually finding the front pockets. They were a lot bigger and slightly lower than he was used to, but they weren`t too bad. Without a word, he crammed a glove into either pocket and then looked around.

A mobilization was taking place and it was going at a fevered pace. Men and women rushed by, mechanics and pilots and everyone else. Some were dragging ammunition carts, others were driving runway cars and towing Gustav trailers that were carrying around aerial Zoids. The majority of the Zoids that Bit could make out were geared more towards assaults or general, heavy combat, the kind of stuff that happened in wars of survival. A good many of them - like the Europlas, Bombard Gustav and the Gojulas units - were also geared toward shelling operations.

"What the hell is going on?" Bit asked vacantly, staring as a number of Command Wolves scampered by towards an armament facility. Zeke rumbled indecisively.

Deja vu all over again, the Organoid repeated with something the blonde vaguely identified as a bit of contempt mixed with annoyance.

[A gigantic purple diamond stood behind Kale, ominous. Whisps of energy orbited around it, ascending with every passing second. A veiling glow of pink and crimson passed from the edges, it looked like a malevolent glass construct of some sort.]

[A gigantic, crimson diamond stood in the middle of a canyon, being shelled in futility by well over two-hundred of the best Zoids available for the attack. Fear and concern were palpable on the faces of everyone in the command room, everyone but a single young man. He was a bit on the short side, brown, spikey hair kept in a semi-ponytail and dressed in an outfit that much resembled that which Bit was wearing at the present. On his face was a look of mixed horror tempered by a courage that the world wouldn`t see again for centuries.

One thought, it was all that he could hear even in the silence of everyone else speaking at the survival of the enormous diamond. It was simple, blunt and to the point.

Bit stumbled briefly, glaring up annoyedly at the Zoid. "Will you stop doing that?!"

They`d be better off focusing on an enemy they can actually defeat. That or killing Kale and then pulling back for the chance of an ambush against Shadow when he drops his guard.

The blonde turned around, as a result, he was confronted by a man who stood around the same height as Brad, six feet, three or four inches or so, Bit guessed, but a good deal more muscular. A military man from the looks of things, somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five, even if he looked like he could`ve passed off as someone in his early thirties from the wear and tear visible in his eyes. Not someone to trifle with either, there was an underlying tone of violence in his voice, the kind of someone who had way too much pride for his own good. That or the old big-with-little-man-syndrome thing, one or the other.

"You aren`t military, you don`t have the clearance," the man grit out in reply. Bit grimaced, mentally putting his foot down before speaking again.

"Military? No, I`m not military. But I am the guy who put him in here to begin with, so if you`d be so kind..."

"Bullcrap. Now, I`m going to have to ask you just why you`re in a military uniform without any authorization, or is it Halloween for asshats?"

Bit twitched slightly. "Look, pal, I`m not going to fucking shit around here. I killed a hundred and fifty people last night, what`s one more to the pile?" He asked with a dangerous glare that resembled the same one as Kale often threw at his next victims, even if they never saw it. The man flenched under that kind of gaze, backing off ever so slightly, only to lash out with a punch a second later. It was a reflex action, of course.

It was also a fairly stupid move. Bit caught his arm and yanked it forward, forcing the man to punch right into the concrete wall with enough force to bruise or bust his knuckles instantly.

"Now, where is he?" Bit asked again, flinging the larger man right off his feet and glaring down at him murderously. Several of the mechanics paused briefly, watching as one of the most violent people on the base got smacked around like a little kid. He straightened up though, clasping onto his hand annoyedly and shaking the pain out, just about ready to lash out again before the Liger`s growling interrupted his attempts.

"Name`s Jesse Marcai," he muttered out, straightening up and glaring down into the eyes of the other. "Bit Cloud," the blonde answered in kind. "He`s in the main command center, P.O.W. area, level three, room thirteen," the newly identified pilot exclaimed, turning around and walking away a second later. No one bothered getting involved after that, it was actually a pretty good thing to see Mister Violence(that was his current callsign, after all, the old one had been Jesse James) getting knocked down a peg.

That said, Bit glanced around for a building that screamed 'main command center.' He didn`t need to see a sign to spot it, instead just glancing at the tallest, most prominent building within the outer walls, then glancing down to one of the signs over it`s front door, which read 'Command and Control.'

A final screech of charged metal against metal, with the weaker of the two forces yielding in a horrendous flash of fire and light, two severed chunks of a Zoid core tearing out from between the sections of the last Scout Fox, flying free into the air as actual cores and landing with a shatter as half-spherical stones. The Zoid itself exploded by the time that Leon and the Red Blade hit the ground with a skid, blades swinging straight up and back into neutral.

He was out of ammo, his Zoid had some minor damage since he`d spent the majority of the battle dodging around too quickly to take many real hits and he was practically exploding with a mixture of excitement and tiredness. Adrenaline could only propel someone for so long, after all, before the key lacks of food, sleep and a hot shower kicked in. With a sigh though, Leon pulled his sleeved arm up and wiped across his brow, laughing an unusually whimsical chuckle of victory as he did so.

The Heldigunner rose from the sands a few seconds later. Now that he could actually see it as more than a blur of movement in the air or diving into the sands, Leon could make out numerous smaller pieces of damage to it`s armor, the barrel of it`s main gun was steaming a light mist and it`s tailblades looked as though they needed to be sharpened again, but for the most part, it was utterly unscathed.

"I`d say we pulled that off nicely," the Zoid`s pilot commented with relief, and though Leon was a little embittered at having lost over a half a dozen to his own side in the process, he had to agree, if only to keep from driving himself insane from the tense feeling all over his body.

"Agreed," he finally let out, forcing himself to relax a small bit. "What`s your Zoid`s condition?" He asked.

"Pretty close to green on everything but my weapons," the Heldigunner pilot replied. Leon nodded to himself.

"Go back to one of the shops for repairs, see if you can get a Gustav or two out here for the Tigers."

"And you?" The pilot asked. He didn`t exactly have to take orders here, but Leon had pretty much emerged as the only real leader left, aside from the Guardians, and they were busy along the other fronts, however peaceful those were.

"I`ll stay here and put in the call for reinforcements," the Blade Liger pilot finally replied, relief evident in his voice. The Heldigunner pilot sounded off something akin to a 'yes, sir' and turned his Zoid around scurrying towards city limits slowly to weave through the streets without hitting anything. And then it stopped instantly, Leon heard a faint ping on his scanners but his eyes were directed elsewhere, namely the furious red glow coming from the side of the hill, which intensified more by the second before finishing off, forming into a perfect circle which in turn liquified slowly.

His heart skipped a beat, the Heldigunner whipped around and Leon grit his teeth together so hard that his jaw hurt. Slowly, ever so slowly, the artificially formed lava dripped away, until finally a circular hole had been burnt right into the side of the enormous hill that half-circled the city on it`s eastern, northern and southern fronts, exposing only a harsh glare of the sun.

And then a shadow stepped into sight. Slow, ominous, menacing to the extreme. Against the golden-yellow background of the morning sun, it looked black. Only the intense blue glare of the eyes stood out against the rest of the silhouette, which looked more like a murderous demon hellbent on storming the gates into Heaven itself.

A single horn extended from the head, set back along several others like a crest, crab-like pincer claws held out to either side of some sort of engine block atop it`s back, guns rested on it`s thighs and each arm was tipped with three razor-like fingers on smaller grappler hands. The entire world went silent, and for a time, all that Leon could hear was the slow thumps of each step as the slaughterbeast made it`s way through the gate, impervious, it seemed, to the very fires it had probably created.

When it came to a stop after passing the wall-like hill, it bent forward, then threw it`s head back in an earth shaking roar. It was audible even a mile into the city, rattling Pierce, the Guardians, every local and visiting pilot and every civilian to the very core, instilling in many an undeniable terror that could scarcely be believed even if it was seen in their eyes.

Couples, friends and families that had the fortune of being together hugged each other relentlessly, feeling it was probably their last chance to do so, pilots and individuals without that luxury were left to court their own darkened thoughts as what felt like the truthful end of the world was about to rain all hell down on their very heads.

"Everyone stay back. This is an enemy none of you can handle," he announced bluntly, and as the roar of one death machine came to an end, a thread of hope was struck loudly when the Red Blade Liger answered in kind, meeting one thunderous roar with another, one that was equally intense, knocking back the fears of many and assailing the confidence and the conscience of one.

With heroism burning in his soul, Leon Tauros fixed his hands tightly to the controls.

Everyone in Romeo City held their breath at once, and the Red Blade Liger charged forward to meet the Blue Geno Breaker head-on in an eerily terrifying repetition of history.

Bit Cloud watched as Major Conrad Robertson stormed away from the barred door of Kale Obscura`s cell, kicking his own chair over in the process. For a moment, the blonde hesitated to speak, unwilling to blow the fragile amount of cover that he had thanks to the uniform that he`d been given, but conscience and a desire to not see a few thousand people get killed because of a bit of command structure oversight were enough to break that hesitation, and his arm shot out, a hand clasped firmly around the Major`s wrist.

"No amount of firepower you put against that thing is gonna make any difference right now, you should clear out the entire base and get the hell outta dodge while you still can," Bit suggested wisely from the knowledge that Zeke had given him. Conrad only gave an angered huff and jerked his hand free.

Bit shrugged. "I`m not a soldier. Someone just gave me the clothes," he explained with a sigh. Conrad twitched angrily. "Then what the HELL ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?!"

"He came to see me," an amused voice sounded from cell number thirteen, which was coincidentally the only cell with an occupant in it.

"... Do you know that monster?" Conrad asked, tone softening to a threatening, strained-but-low voice.

And then Kale cut in again. "That he is. Bit Cloud, Royal Cup Champion, friend of my half-dead little snot of a brother and officially the biggest pain in my ass that`s ever existed."

Conrad`s jaw sagged. Bit smirked in a disturbing manner, ushering the shocked-senseless Major out of the room and then shutting the door in without another word, turning back with a grimace, his brief burst of confidence leaking away to caution and even a bit of contempt, met only by a near audible smile from his ruthless enemy, who sat still in his cell.

Bit tipped the chair back up onto all four legs, sitting down uneasily and staring relentlessly through the bars at Kale, who was seated on the cell bed in much the same way, only replying with a crooked, smug grin that could put the fear of god into an athiest.

"You tell me," Kale smirked, getting right into his enemy`s head like it was nothing.

"All I want to do-" "- is be more like me, and less like you. You just don`t know it yet."

"And I know, I may end up failing too," Bit cut off the other before he could even try to spin his words around. Even now they mirrored each other, for even as Kale got into Bit`s weaknesses like a maggot to a corpse, Bit drove into Kale`s like a shovel through soft mud.

"Don`t bring Vega into this," Kale sneered. "I`m through fucking around, Cloud. The Backdraft Group and Vega can both go to Hell for all I care, you are my objective now."

"And you`re not going to stop until you kill me, are you?" Bit asked, narrowing his eyes.

"No matter how many body bags I fill in the process," Kale snapped back, matching the other`s expression so perfectly that even the scars across their cheeks lined up exactly.

"I`ve become so numb," Kale growled. "I can`t feel you there," Bit shrugged. "I`ve become tired," the blonde added. "But so much more aware," Kale smirked. "You`re becoming this," he added but this time he was cut off. "All I want to do is be more like me and less like you."

"The sins of the forefathers, huh?" Kale chuckled dimly. "How long?" Bit asked firmly this time. Kale smirked grimly, tilting his head from side to side and speaking in synch with his movements. "Tick," to the right. "Tock," to the left, and he kept saying those exact words with no pause, not even to breathe. Bit reached behind himself, and a click echoed in the hall and the rooms, bouncing hollow along the walls and the bars.

"In three days, you`re going to be living on borrowed time," Kale announced. "That`s all I needed to know," Bit replied, standing up straight and walking to the door, one hand extending up over his shoulder and one middle finger extending up from the rest of the hand, pointed in his mirror image`s general direction.

"I`ll bring the marshmellows, Kale Obscura," Bit replied in kind, flipping the door open and stepping out.

Author`s Note: I just can`t seem to run out of shit to fling at the fan, huh? :P

Illidan: Sorry I wasn`t terribly conversational, I`m not exactly King Social, so yanno. That said, glad you enjoyed everything so far.

DJ Wolfwood: Hope you don`t mind any changes that`ve happened to Jesse(Jesse is the correct spelling for the male version of the name, btw), but he`s only appearing as a minor character for a few chapters so I felt the need to alter him a small bit.

Everyone in General: PLEASE leave some reviews if you liked the story so far, I like hearing from you all directly via IMs and e-mails sometimes, but nothing gets more people reading like a good review count and word of mouth. Like the story? Tell a friend! Leave a review, it may tempt a few fangirls to read and thoroughly break their widdwe hearts *Cackles.* :D

Anywho, that`s all for now. Hope everyone liked/was slightly weirded out by Kale and Bit essentially speaking out some of the verses of a Linkin Park song while screwing with each other`s heads, and hopefully this was worth the wait.

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

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