Fan Fiction / Zoids Fan Fiction ❯ a tale of (now) three warriors ❯ Royal Cup Part III: Insurrection ( Chapter 9 )

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.

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Naomi couldn't help but wake early - sleeping in the open with only her Gunsniper as cover had a tendency to do that. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her stomach moaned at her. Leon was already awake, and Naomi stared quizzically at his back. He stood on the trailer, as if he'd fallen asleep standing up.

She paid no mind to him, slithering out of her sleeping bag and tugging on her jacket and boots.

“There's another one,” Leon murmured.

“What was that?” Naomi asked.

“A shooting star,” Leon replied, “They've been going since the start of the Tournament, but this morning there have been more, and they've fallen faster.”

“So you noticed?” Naomi asked, “That's why you seemed a little out of it after our first battle.”

“Yeah.”

Naomi stood next to him, looking in the same direction for a moment before her stomach reminded her again of what she was doing.

“Don't know about you,” Naomi said as she lit the stove, “But I need to eat.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“It's time!” Gil announced triumphantly. “Phase one begins!”

Inside each of their cockpits, Lydia, Gaston and Gil had installed a long-range vox transmitter. Each of them now pressed the same combination of buttons. The units sent messages to each of the pods. Within them, the drone zoids stirred. The three revolutionists woke them up. Set them free.

“To arms, comrades!” Gil cried exultantly, “Today the revolution begins!”

The cockpit to the Dibison whirred shut, and Gil brought the rest of its systems online.

Gaston flexed his fingers from inside the Dark Horn. Aside from the extended range pulse cannon there was a gatling rifle back mounted on the zoid. He'd personally done modifications to the drive systems and motor to compensate for the loss of speed and mobility, but still he had nothing like the agility of Lydia's Zaber Fang.

With only a single barrel chain gun and beam rifle, the Zaber Fang did not seem too imposing, however the ammunition for both was specially designed for zoid hunting, and due to its lack of more powerful but heavier weapons, its speed was unmatched, save perhaps for a Lighting Saix. Lydia smiled. “Finally the fun begins.”

From atop the plateau, the three zoids watched as their soldiers marched out from concealment. Procuring so many was immeasurably difficult, but it was worth it. Already the first wave left a wake of crippled zoids and destroyed judge capsules.

“Let's go.”

The Dibison jumped off the plateau, sliding down the escarpment expertly with a delicacy not usually expected of such a heavy zoid. The Dark Horn and Zaber Fang followed suit, until the three of them charged into the thick of the melee.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Leon saw it first, the rising cloud of dust heading from the canyons. Out of instinct he pushed aside his plate and climbed into the Blade Liger. Naomi watched for a moment before nodding, climbing into the Gunsniper and waking it up. The zoids hopped from their trailers, and watched the oncoming cloud. The Gunsniper converted to sniper mode, and through the zoomed in optics, Naomi gasped at what she saw.

“They're zoids,” she told Leon, “Dozens of them. Guysacks and Molgas, all of them.”

“Contacts from the left too!” Leon yelled, and he zoomed in his display to get a better look. “I got Rev Raptors and more Molgas this side.”

“So what do we do?” Naomi's finger rested on the trigger.

“I…don't know.”

There was an explosion then, as the Guysacks fired as one with the beam guns mounted on their curved tails. They were closing in fast.

“That's answer enough for me,” Naomi growled as she fired. “Shit, that didn't make a difference at all!”

The dead Guysack had simply been replaced with another one from the horde.

“This is bad,” Leon said to himself as he readied the pulse lasers built into his blade assemblies, “This is really quite bad.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“What the…Pteras, approaching from behind!” Gorden reported.

“What?” Trey sat up in the navigator seat behind the pilot and craned forward to see, “How many?”

“That many.” Gorden pointed to the screen.

“Good God.”

Trey told his team mates as much.

“We're so close!” Ruby protested, “We have all the co-ordinates in our grasp!”

“The Royal Cup is of no significance now,” Ko said quietly, “There is something far greater at hand now. It was only a matter of time before they tried it.”

“What are you talking about?” Robert asked, “It's the Backdraft Group, isn't it?”

“What remains of them hired me once, not too long ago,” Ko confessed, expecting uproar. There was none, and hiding her surprise she continued, “I was a mercenary, a dog of war, so they never told me much. But I overheard three of them talking about plans for the `Revolution'. The Backdraft Group had been all but crushed, but a few loyal to the cause remained away from the scrutiny of the world. Slowly, they began accumulating zoids, installing drone systems into the cockpits to do away with the need for a pilot. They stole mainly mass produce zoids, like Guysacks and Molgas. I got a few Pteras for them, and they were both impressed and inspired. They reasoned that they'd need aerial support. So they got more scavengers out for Pteras. The same happened when I brought back some Rev Raptors.”

“How can we be sure that you still don't work for them? That you won't betray us?” Trey asked cautiously.

Ko looked at him witheringly, “I have had ample opportunity throughout the tournament.”

“Maybe you just wanted the co-ordinates for the finish line so you could claim the prize,” Ruby said.

“That would be a waste of time. There's bound to be at least one other team already there, and I can't handle a whole team alone.”

“So what now?” Robert wanted to know.

“Pteras closing in fast. I got missiles fired! Brace for impacts!” Gorden yelled over the inter ship vox.

The Whale Prince shook violently, and the lights flickered. Ko released the table she had grabbed onto and pulled out her gun, a compact pistol. She tossed it to Trey.

“It's the least I can do for you to trust me right now,” Ko said, “But one thing's for sure - if I don't get out there, this thing is going down.”

She hurried out of the room, heading for the hangar and launch bay.

“They're coming in for another pass,” Gorden said before missile impacts shook the transporter again. Ko stumbled into a wall, and forced herself on.

Eventually she made it to her Stormsworder, and the heavy grade mag clamps moved it to the launch rail.

“Gorden, open the main ramp,” she said to the pilot, strapping the last of her restraints on and gripping her control sticks. The other pilot did not respond, but the mouth ramp whined open. The Pteras screamed by.

The clamps released Ko's zoid, and she fired up the main engines, shooting forward along the rail and into the open air. The slower Pteras looked back at the new exponent. Two of them tumbled to the ground, each missing a wing. The Stormsworder kept going, straight up, its energy swords still glowing. The Pteras followed, firing their beak mounted machine guns up at the much faster zoid.

“That's right,” Ko whispered, “Follow good old Captain.”

The Stormsworder suddenly stopped accelerating, hanging in the air for a moment before freefalling down. Minute adjustments turned the zoid itself into a missile, heading straight for the other flying zoids. Captain had gathered so much speed, Ko wasn't even using her thrusters. The mindless Ptera's continued firing, before pulling away.

“Now!”

With a grunt, Ko kicked her thrusters to full burn, blistering past the Pteras and smashing them out of the sky with the supersonic shockwave. But now she was going to nose dive.

“No!” Robert cried as he watched from his Blade Liger's screen.

But Ko didn't hit the ground - she was far more skilled than that. With barely sixty metres to the ground, the Stormsworder flattened out before climbing back into the sky as steeply as Ko dared. Already the sharp pull up had made her think she would never breathe again. Then she saw the rest of the zoids on the ground.

“The ground is lousy with Guysacks,” she said, “There are more Pteras up there, I'll take care of them.”

“I read you loud and clear,” Trey replied, “Gorden, set us down. The Whale Prince is too vulnerable in the sky.”

“Roger that.”

The transport began to descend, and now among the cacophony of weapons discharge, its recessed laser cannons could be heard blazing.

“How many Pteras are there?” Robert asked.

“A lot, that's all you need to know,” Ko replied as she flew past, “But there are loads more Guysacks down there.”

“Great,” Ruby murmured.

Gorden set down atop a relatively high plateau, but the Guysacks could still get up there if everything went to hell. But there were other teams down here as well, fighting desperately, trying not to get over run. Ironically there was also a judge capsule, and it was shouting out admonishments until a well aimed shot decapitated it. Trey took aim with his rifle, and began picking off zoids from the plateau. Robert and Ruby instead leapt down to the ground, lowered their blades into place and charged in, joining a Shield Liger, two Command Wolves, a Dibison and three Stealth Vipers. There was an explosion of dirt as four Warsharks surfaced, taking down a Guysack each in their jaws. These pilots, too, had seen the greater danger in the rampage than rival teams. The zoids of their team mates lay wrecked around the place.

The Blade Liger leapt, shearing off a pair of tail guns, while the gatling cannon flared in a wide arc, crippling more drones. The shock cannon pulsed when the Liger landed, and more drones collapsed, but more simply replaced them. Robert charged straight in, activating the standard pattern attack thrusters mounted on the Liger's back. The gatling cannon fired non stop, and a red warning rune flashed in the corner of Robert's display accompanied by a steady beeping. Robert stopped it with an impatient stab of his finger. He yelled as the adrenaline burned in his blood, his zoid's blades reaping a fine harvest. The Liger slowed, cutting its speed rapidly by “drifting” sidelong along the ground, arcing around until the zoid pointed in the direction he had just come. With another flare the thrusters awoke again, hurtling the zoid forward. Despite the rising number of warning runes lighting up all over his screen, Robert pushed on, determined not to lose. He noted grimly that the Command Wolves and Shield Liger had been overwhelmed, and the Dibison was reduced to using its horns in close combat, its triple cannon, missile pods and assault mortar cannon assembly depleted. As he looked on, one of the Stealth Vipers was dragged down and ripped apart by many sets of pincers. Ruby and Trey were nowhere to be seen, but Robert had in fact travelled a surprising distance.

A black rune got Robert's attention, and with a curse he stopped firing his gatling cannon, lest it exploded. It was already overheated, and he was forced to deploy a dose of emergency coolant. The blades were close to overheating too, and since he didn't want to melt them, Robert switched them offline, folding them back to their places. Immediately he activated the pulse lasers mounted on the assemblies directly behind the blades. The rounds the guns fired were of a lower calibre than those fired from the gatling, but their penetration values were good. He caught sight of Ruby, blasting and slashing her way furiously from a pile of relentless Guysacks, her crackling energy blades looking slightly faded.

“There's no end to them,” she cried, panic growing in her voice.

With a scream another Stealth Viper was dragged down, and a Warshark was blasted out of the air as it surfaced and jumped.

“Just keep firing,” Trey said, his Gunsniper appearing next to the Zaber Fang. The blades had been deployed, and the arm mounted guns were smoking. “There is an end to them, we just have to find it.”

Just then everything was rocked by a sonic boom as Ko did a fly by, heart wrenchingly close to the ground. The Stormsworder climbed back into the sky, beam gun rounds pinging off its armour as the Guysacks raised their tails.

“At least those Pteras are taken care of,” Ko commented, diving again and firing the machine cannon pods mounted at the base of her zoid's wings. “Niiice Guysacks…just stay there and let me shoot you…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“They…they're retreating!” Naomi panted.

“Good,” Leon replied, “At least good for now.”

The pair of them watched as the stampeding zoids disappeared back the way they came before shutting their own zoids down with relief. Leon skipped the damage reports except for the most important ones, such as the one detailing the leg and drive system damage. Everything else was unimportant, even if it was eighty percent of the zoid that was damaged. The battered Blade Liger crouched low on its legs, low enough to the ground so Leon could hop out of the cockpit. Leon turned and studied the Liger's condition with increasing dismay. Virtually all of the armour had been put to scrap, and his shock cannon was out of ammunition, his pulse lasers almost empty, his blades operating at seventy and zero percent for the right and left respectively - the previously damaged assembly had been snapped clean off as a result of multiple strikes. Complaining loudly as it crouched down, the Gunsniper came to rest, the cockpit canopy opening and Naomi hopping out. There was almost no ammo left in her rifle, and the remaining arm's gatling was running short too.

“In this condition we're not going to survive another assault,” Leon said grimly, “If we had more ammo then we'd stand a little more of a chance, but I doubt we'd last very much longer.”

Naomi was about to reply when there was a great tempest from above them. The two of them looked up at the descending shape of a small scale Whale King. There was only one team which had something like that…

“You guys came at a perfect time,” Leon smiled as Trey walked down the open jaw ramp of the Whale Prince.

“Can you get your zoids aboard?” Trey asked, “There's still room for a couple more, and ammo to go round too.”

“Sounds good to me.” Naomi hurried back into her zoid, walking it into the innards of the Blade Team's transport. Leon followed just behind her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Why did you call them back?” Lydia asked, “We could easily have crushed everything.”

“No,” Gil said, “Even with so many drones, eventually human pilots would out-fight them. There are two reasons, primarily. First, I intend to make a statement to the Battle Commission.”

“A declaration of war, you mean,” Gaston grinned.

“Yes, you could put it like that. Secondly, I'm starting a war of attrition. No matter how many we crush in any single attack, there will still be a few more remaining. But with a continual series of attacks, we can weasel out every last zoid trying to oppose us and destroy it.”

“And even the most skilled zoid mechanics have their limits,” Lydia added.

“And so I intend to break them.”

“I understand now.”

“And also, this Genocide Team over on the eastern region of the tournament area,” Gaston mentioned, “It seems that every drone we sent towards them was annihilated completely. From my understanding, that team consists of two Genosaurers and an even rarer zoid christened the Genobreaker.”

“Yes, I noticed them. I've already sent them a greeting card and a proposal,” Gil smiled.

“We could do with their help. Three charged particle cannons…imagine the possibilities!” Lydia reflected.

“The plot certainly thickens,” Gaston grinned, looking up at his Dark Horn.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“That was certainly an interesting little turn of events,” Rogan said as he climbed out of his cockpit.

“Still, it wasn't much,” Liko added as he climbed out of his own Genosaurer, “At least you let me use the charged particle gun, Serth.”

Serth's command couch lowered to the ground from the cockpit, mounted to a hydraulic armature, and he climbed out of the seat before letting it rise back inside the zoid.

“What's most important is this,” he said, holding up a data slate.

He held it up for Rogan and Liko to see, thumbing the play stud and playing back the message he had just received and saved to the slate. A picture of a solidly built man in the cockpit of a zoid appeared on the screen.

“Greetings, Genocide Team. I trust that this message finds you safely. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gil Tyrosa, formerly an officer of the Backdraft Group. You may have noticed the drone zoids that have been swarming over every participant in the tournament. This is our doing. What we are trying to achieve is a resurrection of the movement once known as Backdraft. We grow increasingly weary of the zoid battle commission and its fascist restrictions, and we have begun creating a new era of zoid battle, one where there are no restrictions, where the pilot's instincts are his only rules. And we'd like your help. No doubt Junteau Ridge is marked on your maps. Meet us there, where the ridge meets the plains. You will know us when you see us. I look forward to meeting you in person.”

The message ended.

“Well?” Serth said.

“It was a Dibison cockpit,” Rogan said.

“Yes, meaning?” Liko asked.

“This guy is obviously the leader of all this. And all he has is a Dibison?” Rogan said, “He's desperate.”

“Perhaps,” Serth said, “That's probably why they need us.”

“Why the hell should we back the Backdraft?” Liko asked, “Hmm?”

“Why should we back the ZBC?” Serth replied, “As far as I'm concerned, they can all go to hell. But since these clowns will be expecting us, we might as well pay them a visit.”

“Then what?” Rogan asked carefully.

“Well, I'm still working on that, but if any of you have a suggestion, I'm open,” Serth replied.

“Then let's go,” Rogan said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“The game continues, a white pawn crosses the board and becomes a queen. Black is reclusive, but soon to spring. Hahaha…Soon it will bear fruit, and the first game shall finally come to an end. Isn't that right, my beautiful pet, my minion of destruction. Soon you shall rise, renewed and glorious. But we must wait, for the sacrifices are yet to be complete. Soon. It will all happen soon…”