Fan Fiction / Zoids Fan Fiction ❯ a tale of (now) three warriors ❯ the third member ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: I own none of the Zoids in this fanfic, but most of the characters are mine. I'll be broke from when the people behind Metroid come after me, so there's no point trying to sue me. That's all.

The Blade Team Gustav was rumbling along comfortably. Robert and Trey would soon be back at their base. That said, they were not a great distance away to start with, but suddenly the distance seemed to increase. With a grim frown, Trey stopped the Gustav, and elbowed the sleeping Robert in the ribs.

"Uhh. What?" Robert grunted. His partner pointed wordlessly at the sight he was beholding, directly in front of the Gustav.

"Oh. Oh crap." Robert muttered, wide awake and hating it.

"Yes. Indeed." Trey replied, keying open the cockpit canopy. The partners stood up to meet the obstacle.

The obstacle in this case was a trio of zoids standing between them and their base. Two were Helcats, each one different, while the third, the one in the centre that appeared to be the leader, was a black and crimson Zaber Fang (I refuse to call it a Sabre Tiger!).

"Blade Team." Said a deep voiced man. The external speakers built into one of the zoids projected the voice, but neither Trey nor Robert could discern where it came from. "We, the Wildcats Team, challenge you to battle."

"To an official battle." The voice added as an afterthought.

"I take it then that you aren't Backdraft or bandits." Robert said, more or less hoping that the auditory intakes of the zoids could pick up his voice, which he had raised anyway.

"Oh no, we're a registered team. Far from the scum you speak of." Said a different voice, a younger, lighter one. Once again, neither member of the duo could figure out where it had come from.

"Do you accept our challenge, Blade Team?" spoke up a third voice. This voice was female, and from the sounds of it the owner of the voice was the typical young and beautiful zoid pilot type. However, from her confidence and authority, it was almost certain that this was the voice of the leader, and came from the Zaber Fang.

"When and where?" Trey asked, beginning to dread the answer.

"Here. And now." She replied, the zoid growling in accordance.

"That's nuts! We're almost out of ammo, and in a pretty crap shape to fight." Robert said angrily.

"So you refuse our challenge?" asked the deep voiced one contemptuously.

"No. Here, now, we will fight you. But not without a judge." Trey replied, staring at his partner. "We." He hissed.

"I know you can't win without me, so who am I to disappoint a friend?" Robert replied, a sly smile playing across his face. "But I want more of the money."

"It's a promise. Now let's get into our zoids before these people start without us." To the Wildcats Team, Trey said with confidence "We accept your challenge!"

As if in reply, and too precisely to be coincidence, there was a familiar streak in the sky, and the same thundering impact as the judge capsule landed. By the time it opened, Trey and Robert were already in their zoids, ready and waiting.

"Battle mode zero-nine-zero-two, surprise battle. The Blade Team versus the Wildcats Team. Ready…FIGHT!" it announced.

"Surprise battle? So we're just more guinea pigs for the Commission's new battle mode?" Robert asked as he jinked his Liger to avoid the stream of cannon shells being fired from the Helcats in a rather amateur fashion.

"Probably so…Eat this!" Trey replied, interrupting himself to scream at the enemy Helcat as he directed a blade strike at it. To his surprise, it leapt over the deadly blade, to be hit over a dozen times by Robert's gatling cannon upon landing. Trey turned to the other Helcat, aiming his arm cannons at it while the Helcat's back mounted beam guns trained on him. Mexican standoff. Trey smiled, and opened the missile pods of the Gunsniper. The effect was like a cluster of mortar shells landing around the opponent zoid. It was a familiar sight, but satisfying nonetheless. He wondered if he would ever feel shame from ending a standoff like that one with a weapon that no one was ready for.

Robert was having fun with the Zaber Fang, which proved to be a greater challenge than he gave credit for. Aside from the back mounted gun assembly the zoid sported dark red panels mounted on its flanks slightly resembling the blade assemblies on the flanks of the Liger, and Robert soon discovered their purpose.

"You must be short on ammo. Just so happens that so am I. Just so happens that your Blade Liger isn't the only zoid in this battle with specialised close combat weapons." The pilot said, her voice stereotypically confident. With that, the panels dropped open, and from the projectors at the ends of them sprouted a pair of blades. However, these were different to the blades possessed by Robert or Trey not only because of their sickle-like shape, but the fact that they were blades of pure energy. Such weapons were a relatively new technology, known as thermal energy blades.

"Do you know what I am sometimes called, Robert?" the pilot asked, a wicked smile spreading across her youthful face.

Robert took a moment to recognise the distinctive blades. "So you're the Reaper. Can I call you Ruby instead?" Robert said, already devising a plan to fight the well-known pilot.

"I see that we both read the same magazine." Ruby Marquise smiled. The two of them had both featured in a commonly sold zoid magazine.

"Oh. Another standoff. I think that I won't intrude on this one unless I need to." Trey said, walking his zoid over to where Ruby and Robert were staring each other down.

"I hope you realise that one of the Helcats that you shot up is still operational." Said the deep voice.

"Well what do you know? I do have something else to do." Trey turned the Gunsniper around to face the battered but still perfectly operational Helcat. To an outsider it looked like the Blade Team were in a back-to-back moment, about to be annihilated. That was how it seemed, but it was certainly not the case. It was more of another stand off than anything. A double stand off too.

"Ready?" Robert asked his partner, slightly tightening his grip on his controls.

"For what?" Trey replied, ready to switch to sniper mode.

"For NOW!"

The Blade Liger blurred away to one side, and immediately Trey keyed online the sniper rifle, although his cockpit did not switch. This was one of the modifications that he had made, enabling him to fire the sniper rifle without changing cockpits. It was useful for moments like this, when the heavy shell of the sniper rifle was needed but there was no time to switch cockpits. Of course, it was far less accurate, but at such range, and considering that Trey's target was directly behind him, it took just one shot to disable the Zaber Fang. Unfortunately, he had ignored the Helcat, which was out of ammo but lunged into close combat anyway. Trey's reason for ignoring it sliced the zoid in half. The blades sheared through the under carriage of the Helcat, leaving the top half in one piece, thus not hurting the pilot. Too much.

"The winner is…The Blade Team!" announced the judge, who lifted off shortly after.

The cockpit of the fallen Zaber Fang whirred open, and Ruby hopped out, approaching her victorious opponents. Trey and Robert had already left their cockpits, and stood waiting. From two directions came the Helcat pilots, one a grizzled bearded man, the other a tall wiry man with short blond hair. Robert stuck out his hand to Ruby.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." He said, ignoring Trey's look of disdain.

"The pleasure is mine; even though I lost." Ruby replied, shaking Robert's hand and smiling. "You must be Trey Wenner."

"And you must be Ruby Marquise." Trey glanced at his partner, "Robert has your poster stuck up on his wall."

"Hey! I don't tell your secret!" Robert protested.

"You know, you have been waiting for so long to meet her, so do you realise that you're making yourself look pretty bad? Not a nice first impression." Trey said, smirking.

"I'd rather not look like an asshole." Robert muttered.

Ruby cleared her throat. "I was ready for you to be so…interesting, shall I say."

Then one of the other pilots interrupted, the older one with the deep voice. "Ms Marquise, are you going to pay us anytime soon?"

"We're in bit of a hurry." Said the other Helcat pilot.

"Yeah, sure thing. Here. It's not exactly the conventional sack-o-gold kind of payment, but it's the least I could do for such a good pair of mercenaries. Here." Ruby took two small plastic cards from her belt, handing one to each pilot.

"Credit cheque. Perfect." Said the deep voiced pilot, a smile somewhat visible through his beard.

"Just the way we like it. Thanks." Said the other, before they began walking away.

"Hey!" Robert called after them. They turned around. "How are you going to get around? We trashed both your zoids."

"We have our Gustav parked about a hundred metres away. We should be fine." The tall pilot replied.

"So are you just going to leave your Helcats here?" Trey asked.

"They're too damaged to be of any use anyway. Besides, it isn't as if we're attached to them or anything." Said the deep voiced pilot.

"We just bought them yesterday for this fight. We were expecting them to get totalled. Not a bad price too. Well, we'll be going." Finished his partner, and the two mercenaries continued walking.

"Seeya." Robert said, before turning back to the cute pilot in front of him. "Aren't you going with them?"

"Nope. You see, the Wildcats Team has only been around for about a month or two. The only reason I formed a team at all was so I could get high enough to challenge you two." She replied, fidgeting with her necklace. A necklace with a red gem hanging from it, out of irony.

"And you wanted to challenge us because?" Trey started, hoping to hear what he wanted.

Ruby took a deep breath. "I wish to join you."

"Sure!" Robert blurted, "Of course, it's not really up to me to decide."

"Well, your zoid meets the unofficial prerequisites, and your piloting skill isn't anything to mock.

"Welcome aboard." Trey said, holding out his hand.