Whisperings of War
Author's Notes: {**Scratches back of head nervously** Heh, Look guys, I know that this is my third time altering it, but hey! I'm a perfectionist, what do you expect? It's the same plot and everything, I just wanted to edit it (some more), and make it a bit more interesting and not to mention sensible ^_^;; I know, just hang with me here! I have it all down! I have this little schedule/plan thing that I'm going to try my best to follow so I can do this with no problem. I hope. Now, I'm not going to go any further since you guys are already preparing to strangle me rite now.. *Runs away*}
Disclaimer: I like the show, therefore, in order to keep me and other fans entertained while the folks back in Japan make new episodes, we have to indulge ourselves by stealing other peoples' work and using it for our own sick pleasure. Hmmm.. kind of reminds me of my friend.. uh, never mind. Point is don't sue me, I admit, this isn't mine, I'm not THAT smart. Geeze! What do you expect?
Summary: **Bit left the Blitz Team, three years now he's been gone. Working as a traveling mercenary. When a mysterious Zoid appears on the side of the Gygolous Empire his wild ways are thrown, and he suddenly finds himself in a Lieutenants uniform for the Helic Republic. What can he do when an experienced Imeprial Assassin appears and her target is himself? How can he stop this monster of destruction?**
Chapter one: The Monster in the Pit
A gun sniper, colored the deepest shade of black, made its way up a mountain, on to a fateful mission, that would change the Zoid's pilot's life forever.
The pilot was an Imperial assassin. She was a tall, slender, well-formed woman. She had beautiful yet cold, piercing, violet eyes, eyes of a true killer, with hair at waist length of the same color. It used to be short once, but she had let it grown out. She was dressed in a long mauve coat, a black leather shirt clung to her like it was painted on, and gloves the same shade of jet-black reaching to her elbows. She was strikingly beautiful, but she had a look of someone you did not want to mess with, kind of like prodding and teasing a sleeping cat.
Her name was "Dangerous Beauty". Well, her code name was, nobody in the Imperial forces knew what her real name was. Other people knew though. People from her old life, people from her forgotten past, and those people were her old battling team, The Blitz Team.
Three years since leaving that team. It had been too painful for her because one of the team members had left just three months before she stepped out into the world. She also wanted to get out of her father's shadow. She was sixteen at the time, now eighteen, she needed to get out, live her own life, make her own rules, she wanted to get into trouble, to be wild and adventurous, wreck less and carefree, to be free.
Only now, she was a prisoner.
~~~
The landscape rolled onward, to what seemed like the sky. The mountains reached up to touch the heavens like pleading children grabbling at the cookie jar on a high shelf. The mist floated in milky tendrils, swirling and circling in a never-ending dance, as the winds whipped the scrubby plants and rugged trees of the mountains into its command. The overcast hung heavy in the air, as the strong breeze slowly started to die and the crickets stopped chirruping and the birds stopped their singing. A storm was brewing.
In a dark, dank cave, tucked into the rocky crevices that tore from the greenery, another storm was brewing.
In the gloominess there came a faint glow, shouts of aggravated voices, and much more noise that could not be identified. The wide cave-mouth eventually opened up to a vast cavern, filled with floodlights to light up the area, tents and sleeping bags, two Saber Tigers, ten Darkhorns, eight Molgas, and two Redlers. About twenty men and women, garbed in the dark blue tunics of the Imperial Army uniforms, were being assembled by two Lieutenants, their panther insignias embossed on their caps, shining in the brilliance of the harsh florescence of the floodlights. All of the troops were ordered to formal dress, with swift and strict formation. The Empress was coming to wake the beast.
A tall, young, blonde Shouted at the two Redler pilots. "The Royal Empress needs an escort, we tried to explain where this place is to the Royal Guard, but we must be cautious. Now go!"
The Redler pilots saluted, a stout brunette woman, and rather skinny young man. They ran to the massive, pterodactyl like planes while putting their helmets on. They jumped in the familiar cockpits, amidst the milling crowd of troops. They looked down as a couple of ground crewman did preliminary checks and repairs as the engines whirred and buzzed slowly into life. The troops backed off against the wall of the cavern to allow room as one of them waved them clear for take-off. The engines roared as they sped out of the cave in perfect formation. The creatures took air and did a cork-screw, opening their wings wide, and a giving a piercing call as the two pilots did some dives and barrel rolls to warm up, and sped off into the seemingly impenetrable clouds.
Inside the cave the rest of the troops assembled quickly and precisely, their officers giving them a shout of haste or a call to a mistake here and there. After ward, the blonde conversed quietly with the other Lieutenant, a dark haired, squat man, with sharp, dark eyes. "Lieutenant, she was supposed to be here over thirty minuets ago. Do you think anything has happened?"
The older man opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a horrendous clap of thunder, he flinched, he never did like storms; he had a bad experience once. He continued, "I don't know. With a secluded location such as this, and the storm, a decent conversation with a rock is difficult." The squat man chuckled at his statement. The younger one gave a very forced, weak laugh while looking fiercely at the troops who were trying to snicker as heartily as they could, while he wasn't looking. The old man was known to make bad jokes.
After the chuckles had subsided the old Lieutenant looked at the troops with such scrutiny that they shifted a bit. He nodded his approval and rushed into the Officer's Quarters, which was no more than a mere alcove closed in by stiff canvas, with a scrubbed metal table sitting in the center, and two sleeping bags on either side of the tent. The table was scattered with topographical maps and compasses, a small communicator and receiver, and the remains of a meager lunch, lit with the harsh glow of a methane lantern. The two Lieutenants sat down in bare metal fold-up chairs across from each other.
"There is no need to worry. The Empress' Royal Guard may be thickheaded and conceited, but they are loyal and wouldn't let anything happen to her. Besides if they got lost they could go to the Fornayak Air Force Base. It's only about twenty miles from here. They'll be able to pick them up. Believe me Lieutenant, nothing's going to happen to the Empress while there's a military like ours." The old Lieutenant said wearily with a smile of pride.
The blonde nodded, not knowing what to say, and peered at a map of the mountain where they were located. It was part of a large mountain range on the southern tip of Gygolous. Fornayak, they were called, hence the air base's name. Many bands of rovers and drifters made their home here, and throngs of fugitives and bandits established their hideouts in the many caves and caverns in the mountains.
Some even said there was a whole city of them in the center of some unknown mountain in the wilderness, with highways of granite and houses of stone. The Gygolous Empire allowed these mountains to be widely unexplored and unsettled. There were also "The March Castles" as the military bases for the Republic on the border were called, located nearby since the mountains were near the boundary. This was the entire reason why they were so careful in their ways.
This whole mountain range was what is marked on a map as "disputed land", either though it belonged mostly to the Empire. They had to keep hidden and be extremely careful. They would never be found atop the high mountain, right in the center of the range, where storms always seemed to hang and the terrain rugged and inhospitable.
In the silence, the Lieutenants heard a low droning that was immediately dismissed as thunder. As they listened closer it had a metallic touch to it, it was also long and unchanging, it also became more and more pronounced. The Lieutenants looked at each other from across the table, ripped from their reverie. The younger one grinned, jumped up, and rushed out, eager to meet and please the Empress. The older Lieutenant stood up more calmly and composed and strolled nonchalantly out of the stiff canvas alcove.
The blonde was a rush of words as he ordered rifles at ready and the soldiers standing attention. He was also rapping out commands to the front rank for the unloading and passage of the Empress, and also on how to go about the overseeing and observation of the project. He gave himself a small smile of pride as he galvanized the troops into action.
The older officer stood just outside the tent, hands folded neatly behind his back as he watched. He yelled out to three troops to take their Darkhorns and oversee the safe landing of the escort and ordered two more in their Molgas to act as sentry the whole while the Empress' stay and keep a weathered eye out for danger. He and the blonde then strolled out to the mouth of the cave to see five fuzzy figures in the mixture of overcast, rain, and quickly fading mist.
The procession was supposedly low key, to keep as much attention as possible from the Empress. Usually the Republic would help in the transportation of the Empress and track her wherever she went on the borderlands, but the Empire didn't want them to find out where she was going and grow suspicious. There were the two Redlers they had dispatched and the Royal Redler that carried the Empress and her specified pilot. There was also two Zabats of the Royal Guard. This seemed to perturb the blonde, "Damn! Zabats! They never said Zabats were going to be used! They need special landing equipment!" The young officer ranted.
The older smirked and looked up at him, for the young Lieutenant was extremely tall. "You've been in the air force too long, the Royal Guard has specified landing gear to help with that. That's why they look kind of lopsided. Honestly, Lieutenant, I thought you would have known that."
The blonde looked to the ground embarrassedly. She cuffed the loose gravel of the mouth of the cave with his boot watching the mud splash and fall in ripples in the quickly filing puddles. He looked up as the procession stole closer and closer to their destination.
The wind whipped and roared as the Empress drew nearer. It practically engulfed the whole cave in noise as it echoed and rebounded off the walls. First the Redlers landed, then one Zabat, then the Royal Redler, and then the last Zabat circled around to check for intruders and flew in after.
The Empress was unloaded with extreme care and was guarded all the while by her two guards, her pilot stayed with the Royal Redler to oversee repairs and maintenance. She stood tall and proud, with long blonde hair that reached to her waist, and a dark indigo dress reaching to her dainty feet. Her pale blue eyes and fair skin shining in the harsh glare of the light. She approached the two Lieutenants and allowed them to salute her and address her reluctantly before waving her hand airily and saying, "Please, gentleman, there is no time for formalities. Now, I want to see her."
The Lieutenants gave each other an uneasy look. The Empress looked at them severely. "I can assure you, gentleman, that whatever you are about to show me I can handle quite well. If you wish to keep your positions in this army, that is." She said calmly.
The officers finally gave in and bowed low.
The little procession made it to the end of the enormous cavern, where only a couple of floodlights stood lit, making it dark and gloomy. The Empress showed her distaste by coughing weakly and looking to her Commander of the Royal Guard. "With the technology of this time, you'd think we could get proper lighting." She said.
The older lieutenant took a deep breath and pulled aside a heavy plastic tarp hanging on the wall as if concealing something, a secret that it wanted no other to see. As the tarp gave way, an awful metallic stench filled the area. The Empress was surprised by this, and was almost blown over. She recovered herself and pulled out a dainty silk kerchief, seemingly out of nowhere, and held it up to her nose. The smell was so bad that one couldn't speak, but to find that they tasted the nocuous fumes. The opening had been blown out with dynamite and lasers, behind it lay an enormous cavern. The lieutenants bowed their apologies and stepped into the inferno of warmth and odor.
The Empress came to the edge of a platform with reinforced steel bars and looked down into a deep pit with sides diving strait into the abyss. It truly was a horrifying sight, but what was in it would make any normal human being's blood run cold and their heart stop.
Down in the precipice there was a dark midnight blue cocoon shaped pod with crimson streaks of flame flying across it now and then. The colors seemed like they were flowing over the pod, like swift moving stream water gliding across a round, smooth pebble. Every couple seconds though, the pod would shudder and convulse in a grotesque scene of forced evolution.
The Empress quietly laughed triumphantly to herself and smiled, her pale, cold eyes shining malevolently in the light. She turned on her heel and trotted off, her shoes clicking sharply on the hard ground as her paced quickened to get out of the disturbing display. Her party followed her without question, suddenly timid from what they had just witnessed. The Empress spoke once out of range of the smell and heat and back in the cool dampness of the cave, "Well done gentleman, we shall be sitting on the throne of the universe very soon, and to think she wasn't supposed to wake for at least another million years! Ha! Those crazy scientists working in secret to try and find her before anyone else, good thing I had my secret weapon."
The Empress gave a malicious grin. The very air there hung a curtain of tenseness, and fear. From behind her, seemingly materializing out of the shadows was a tall, slender, well-formed woman with the most extraordinary, piercing eyes.
The guards and officers were startled and recoiled a little. One of them actually reached for his gun, but took his hand away immediately as he saw whom it was. They had heard of this "secret weapon" as the Empress so plainly put it, and they feared her more than the monster in the pit.
When she spoke they cringed as she kneeled to her mistress. "What is your bidding, Your Imperial Highness?" She said slowly, her very voice dripping with the cold spite of an assassin. The Empress smiled and patted her groveling servant on the head like a loving mother rewarding a child for a good deed.
"Yes, 'Dangerous Beauty', Bit Cloud? I'm sure you know him, being an old team mate of yours."
The Empress watched satisfied as the woman teetered on her knee a bit. "Dangerous Beauty" felt an icy cold fist grip her heart for the shortest of moments. She bit her lip until blood rushed and closed her eyes tightly, she was afraid of this, it was the one thing she dreaded most, but knew would come in the end. She had nightmares. It was the last thing she wanted to happen.
The Empress gave another one of her malicious smiles and knelt down next to her drawing a dagger she always carried with her. It was much more lighter than a pistol and more practical. She held it to the woman's neck, she pressed it hard, "Dangerous Beauty's" eyes snapped open at once, and she swallowed. When she did so, the dagger pressed to neck, drew blood. Blood came trickling down her neck from the tiny pinprick. She remained motionless, her breathing normal and controlled, she looked strait ahead with hard, expressionless eyes. The Empress put her mouth to her ear and whispered, ever so quietly, that it seemed like only a breath of warm wind, "Kill him."
Her smile broadened as she stood up and left the stunned girl on the cold, damp cave floor as she walked back to her transport with her guards and officers, just as bewildered as the woman.
"Dangerous Beauty's" eyes darted from side to side as if searching the stone for some solution to her problem. She felt like crying, falling on her knees and breaking down into helpless sobs. She had almost reached her breaking point.
Almost.
Her whole world was caving in on her, it started with her very first step out of the Touros Base, and now it was a total, full-fledged landslide. 'No,' she thought fiercely to herself, 'I am heartless. I am a killer.' She told herself.
And with a cleared mind and set heart she turned back from her past life.
For the last time.
She was now a true, cold-blooded assassin. It happened just that quickly. As she walked to her hidden gun sniper, waiting patiently, like a faithful dog, she had only one thought on her mind: Kill Bit. And no one was going to stop her.
{Whew! *mops brow* I HOPE this is my last draft, it should be, but I can't make any promises just yet. I changed the beginning, because I wanted to capture your attention. I thought the old beginning was too boring for you guys to really pay attention. Heh, anyways.. I hope you liked it, I hope you were able to stay awake, and I hope there are still some unanswered questions, I LOOOOOVE to keep my readers in suspense. One thing you got to learn with me is that I'm not going to give you all the answers up front. I'm not gong to hit you over the head with them, like "Hey! Here they are! Take 'em!" Nope, I'll torture you a bit, get you interested and thirsting for more. Tease you a bit! It's a good tool, you should try it! Maw ha ha ha ha! I'm evil! Well, so long folks! R+R! I'll continue once I have hmmm, let's say three reviews. I won't even start writing the next chapter until I got 'em. Of course, I already have, like most of it done already.. Meep! Pretend I didn't say that..
Cheers! ^_^
Take wings (contact me): CuTiEpie94800@aol.com
PS: No brownie points for guessing whom the assassin was..
Author's Notes: {**Scratches back of head nervously** Heh, Look guys, I know that this is my third time altering it, but hey! I'm a perfectionist, what do you expect? It's the same plot and everything, I just wanted to edit it (some more), and make it a bit more interesting and not to mention sensible ^_^;; I know, just hang with me here! I have it all down! I have this little schedule/plan thing that I'm going to try my best to follow so I can do this with no problem. I hope. Now, I'm not going to go any further since you guys are already preparing to strangle me rite now.. *Runs away*}
Disclaimer: I like the show, therefore, in order to keep me and other fans entertained while the folks back in Japan make new episodes, we have to indulge ourselves by stealing other peoples' work and using it for our own sick pleasure. Hmmm.. kind of reminds me of my friend.. uh, never mind. Point is don't sue me, I admit, this isn't mine, I'm not THAT smart. Geeze! What do you expect?
Summary: **Bit left the Blitz Team, three years now he's been gone. Working as a traveling mercenary. When a mysterious Zoid appears on the side of the Gygolous Empire his wild ways are thrown, and he suddenly finds himself in a Lieutenants uniform for the Helic Republic. What can he do when an experienced Imeprial Assassin appears and her target is himself? How can he stop this monster of destruction?**
Chapter one: The Monster in the Pit
A gun sniper, colored the deepest shade of black, made its way up a mountain, on to a fateful mission, that would change the Zoid's pilot's life forever.
The pilot was an Imperial assassin. She was a tall, slender, well-formed woman. She had beautiful yet cold, piercing, violet eyes, eyes of a true killer, with hair at waist length of the same color. It used to be short once, but she had let it grown out. She was dressed in a long mauve coat, a black leather shirt clung to her like it was painted on, and gloves the same shade of jet-black reaching to her elbows. She was strikingly beautiful, but she had a look of someone you did not want to mess with, kind of like prodding and teasing a sleeping cat.
Her name was "Dangerous Beauty". Well, her code name was, nobody in the Imperial forces knew what her real name was. Other people knew though. People from her old life, people from her forgotten past, and those people were her old battling team, The Blitz Team.
Three years since leaving that team. It had been too painful for her because one of the team members had left just three months before she stepped out into the world. She also wanted to get out of her father's shadow. She was sixteen at the time, now eighteen, she needed to get out, live her own life, make her own rules, she wanted to get into trouble, to be wild and adventurous, wreck less and carefree, to be free.
Only now, she was a prisoner.
~~~
The landscape rolled onward, to what seemed like the sky. The mountains reached up to touch the heavens like pleading children grabbling at the cookie jar on a high shelf. The mist floated in milky tendrils, swirling and circling in a never-ending dance, as the winds whipped the scrubby plants and rugged trees of the mountains into its command. The overcast hung heavy in the air, as the strong breeze slowly started to die and the crickets stopped chirruping and the birds stopped their singing. A storm was brewing.
In a dark, dank cave, tucked into the rocky crevices that tore from the greenery, another storm was brewing.
In the gloominess there came a faint glow, shouts of aggravated voices, and much more noise that could not be identified. The wide cave-mouth eventually opened up to a vast cavern, filled with floodlights to light up the area, tents and sleeping bags, two Saber Tigers, ten Darkhorns, eight Molgas, and two Redlers. About twenty men and women, garbed in the dark blue tunics of the Imperial Army uniforms, were being assembled by two Lieutenants, their panther insignias embossed on their caps, shining in the brilliance of the harsh florescence of the floodlights. All of the troops were ordered to formal dress, with swift and strict formation. The Empress was coming to wake the beast.
A tall, young, blonde Shouted at the two Redler pilots. "The Royal Empress needs an escort, we tried to explain where this place is to the Royal Guard, but we must be cautious. Now go!"
The Redler pilots saluted, a stout brunette woman, and rather skinny young man. They ran to the massive, pterodactyl like planes while putting their helmets on. They jumped in the familiar cockpits, amidst the milling crowd of troops. They looked down as a couple of ground crewman did preliminary checks and repairs as the engines whirred and buzzed slowly into life. The troops backed off against the wall of the cavern to allow room as one of them waved them clear for take-off. The engines roared as they sped out of the cave in perfect formation. The creatures took air and did a cork-screw, opening their wings wide, and a giving a piercing call as the two pilots did some dives and barrel rolls to warm up, and sped off into the seemingly impenetrable clouds.
Inside the cave the rest of the troops assembled quickly and precisely, their officers giving them a shout of haste or a call to a mistake here and there. After ward, the blonde conversed quietly with the other Lieutenant, a dark haired, squat man, with sharp, dark eyes. "Lieutenant, she was supposed to be here over thirty minuets ago. Do you think anything has happened?"
The older man opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a horrendous clap of thunder, he flinched, he never did like storms; he had a bad experience once. He continued, "I don't know. With a secluded location such as this, and the storm, a decent conversation with a rock is difficult." The squat man chuckled at his statement. The younger one gave a very forced, weak laugh while looking fiercely at the troops who were trying to snicker as heartily as they could, while he wasn't looking. The old man was known to make bad jokes.
After the chuckles had subsided the old Lieutenant looked at the troops with such scrutiny that they shifted a bit. He nodded his approval and rushed into the Officer's Quarters, which was no more than a mere alcove closed in by stiff canvas, with a scrubbed metal table sitting in the center, and two sleeping bags on either side of the tent. The table was scattered with topographical maps and compasses, a small communicator and receiver, and the remains of a meager lunch, lit with the harsh glow of a methane lantern. The two Lieutenants sat down in bare metal fold-up chairs across from each other.
"There is no need to worry. The Empress' Royal Guard may be thickheaded and conceited, but they are loyal and wouldn't let anything happen to her. Besides if they got lost they could go to the Fornayak Air Force Base. It's only about twenty miles from here. They'll be able to pick them up. Believe me Lieutenant, nothing's going to happen to the Empress while there's a military like ours." The old Lieutenant said wearily with a smile of pride.
The blonde nodded, not knowing what to say, and peered at a map of the mountain where they were located. It was part of a large mountain range on the southern tip of Gygolous. Fornayak, they were called, hence the air base's name. Many bands of rovers and drifters made their home here, and throngs of fugitives and bandits established their hideouts in the many caves and caverns in the mountains.
Some even said there was a whole city of them in the center of some unknown mountain in the wilderness, with highways of granite and houses of stone. The Gygolous Empire allowed these mountains to be widely unexplored and unsettled. There were also "The March Castles" as the military bases for the Republic on the border were called, located nearby since the mountains were near the boundary. This was the entire reason why they were so careful in their ways.
This whole mountain range was what is marked on a map as "disputed land", either though it belonged mostly to the Empire. They had to keep hidden and be extremely careful. They would never be found atop the high mountain, right in the center of the range, where storms always seemed to hang and the terrain rugged and inhospitable.
In the silence, the Lieutenants heard a low droning that was immediately dismissed as thunder. As they listened closer it had a metallic touch to it, it was also long and unchanging, it also became more and more pronounced. The Lieutenants looked at each other from across the table, ripped from their reverie. The younger one grinned, jumped up, and rushed out, eager to meet and please the Empress. The older Lieutenant stood up more calmly and composed and strolled nonchalantly out of the stiff canvas alcove.
The blonde was a rush of words as he ordered rifles at ready and the soldiers standing attention. He was also rapping out commands to the front rank for the unloading and passage of the Empress, and also on how to go about the overseeing and observation of the project. He gave himself a small smile of pride as he galvanized the troops into action.
The older officer stood just outside the tent, hands folded neatly behind his back as he watched. He yelled out to three troops to take their Darkhorns and oversee the safe landing of the escort and ordered two more in their Molgas to act as sentry the whole while the Empress' stay and keep a weathered eye out for danger. He and the blonde then strolled out to the mouth of the cave to see five fuzzy figures in the mixture of overcast, rain, and quickly fading mist.
The procession was supposedly low key, to keep as much attention as possible from the Empress. Usually the Republic would help in the transportation of the Empress and track her wherever she went on the borderlands, but the Empire didn't want them to find out where she was going and grow suspicious. There were the two Redlers they had dispatched and the Royal Redler that carried the Empress and her specified pilot. There was also two Zabats of the Royal Guard. This seemed to perturb the blonde, "Damn! Zabats! They never said Zabats were going to be used! They need special landing equipment!" The young officer ranted.
The older smirked and looked up at him, for the young Lieutenant was extremely tall. "You've been in the air force too long, the Royal Guard has specified landing gear to help with that. That's why they look kind of lopsided. Honestly, Lieutenant, I thought you would have known that."
The blonde looked to the ground embarrassedly. She cuffed the loose gravel of the mouth of the cave with his boot watching the mud splash and fall in ripples in the quickly filing puddles. He looked up as the procession stole closer and closer to their destination.
The wind whipped and roared as the Empress drew nearer. It practically engulfed the whole cave in noise as it echoed and rebounded off the walls. First the Redlers landed, then one Zabat, then the Royal Redler, and then the last Zabat circled around to check for intruders and flew in after.
The Empress was unloaded with extreme care and was guarded all the while by her two guards, her pilot stayed with the Royal Redler to oversee repairs and maintenance. She stood tall and proud, with long blonde hair that reached to her waist, and a dark indigo dress reaching to her dainty feet. Her pale blue eyes and fair skin shining in the harsh glare of the light. She approached the two Lieutenants and allowed them to salute her and address her reluctantly before waving her hand airily and saying, "Please, gentleman, there is no time for formalities. Now, I want to see her."
The Lieutenants gave each other an uneasy look. The Empress looked at them severely. "I can assure you, gentleman, that whatever you are about to show me I can handle quite well. If you wish to keep your positions in this army, that is." She said calmly.
The officers finally gave in and bowed low.
The little procession made it to the end of the enormous cavern, where only a couple of floodlights stood lit, making it dark and gloomy. The Empress showed her distaste by coughing weakly and looking to her Commander of the Royal Guard. "With the technology of this time, you'd think we could get proper lighting." She said.
The older lieutenant took a deep breath and pulled aside a heavy plastic tarp hanging on the wall as if concealing something, a secret that it wanted no other to see. As the tarp gave way, an awful metallic stench filled the area. The Empress was surprised by this, and was almost blown over. She recovered herself and pulled out a dainty silk kerchief, seemingly out of nowhere, and held it up to her nose. The smell was so bad that one couldn't speak, but to find that they tasted the nocuous fumes. The opening had been blown out with dynamite and lasers, behind it lay an enormous cavern. The lieutenants bowed their apologies and stepped into the inferno of warmth and odor.
The Empress came to the edge of a platform with reinforced steel bars and looked down into a deep pit with sides diving strait into the abyss. It truly was a horrifying sight, but what was in it would make any normal human being's blood run cold and their heart stop.
Down in the precipice there was a dark midnight blue cocoon shaped pod with crimson streaks of flame flying across it now and then. The colors seemed like they were flowing over the pod, like swift moving stream water gliding across a round, smooth pebble. Every couple seconds though, the pod would shudder and convulse in a grotesque scene of forced evolution.
The Empress quietly laughed triumphantly to herself and smiled, her pale, cold eyes shining malevolently in the light. She turned on her heel and trotted off, her shoes clicking sharply on the hard ground as her paced quickened to get out of the disturbing display. Her party followed her without question, suddenly timid from what they had just witnessed. The Empress spoke once out of range of the smell and heat and back in the cool dampness of the cave, "Well done gentleman, we shall be sitting on the throne of the universe very soon, and to think she wasn't supposed to wake for at least another million years! Ha! Those crazy scientists working in secret to try and find her before anyone else, good thing I had my secret weapon."
The Empress gave a malicious grin. The very air there hung a curtain of tenseness, and fear. From behind her, seemingly materializing out of the shadows was a tall, slender, well-formed woman with the most extraordinary, piercing eyes.
The guards and officers were startled and recoiled a little. One of them actually reached for his gun, but took his hand away immediately as he saw whom it was. They had heard of this "secret weapon" as the Empress so plainly put it, and they feared her more than the monster in the pit.
When she spoke they cringed as she kneeled to her mistress. "What is your bidding, Your Imperial Highness?" She said slowly, her very voice dripping with the cold spite of an assassin. The Empress smiled and patted her groveling servant on the head like a loving mother rewarding a child for a good deed.
"Yes, 'Dangerous Beauty', Bit Cloud? I'm sure you know him, being an old team mate of yours."
The Empress watched satisfied as the woman teetered on her knee a bit. "Dangerous Beauty" felt an icy cold fist grip her heart for the shortest of moments. She bit her lip until blood rushed and closed her eyes tightly, she was afraid of this, it was the one thing she dreaded most, but knew would come in the end. She had nightmares. It was the last thing she wanted to happen.
The Empress gave another one of her malicious smiles and knelt down next to her drawing a dagger she always carried with her. It was much more lighter than a pistol and more practical. She held it to the woman's neck, she pressed it hard, "Dangerous Beauty's" eyes snapped open at once, and she swallowed. When she did so, the dagger pressed to neck, drew blood. Blood came trickling down her neck from the tiny pinprick. She remained motionless, her breathing normal and controlled, she looked strait ahead with hard, expressionless eyes. The Empress put her mouth to her ear and whispered, ever so quietly, that it seemed like only a breath of warm wind, "Kill him."
Her smile broadened as she stood up and left the stunned girl on the cold, damp cave floor as she walked back to her transport with her guards and officers, just as bewildered as the woman.
"Dangerous Beauty's" eyes darted from side to side as if searching the stone for some solution to her problem. She felt like crying, falling on her knees and breaking down into helpless sobs. She had almost reached her breaking point.
Almost.
Her whole world was caving in on her, it started with her very first step out of the Touros Base, and now it was a total, full-fledged landslide. 'No,' she thought fiercely to herself, 'I am heartless. I am a killer.' She told herself.
And with a cleared mind and set heart she turned back from her past life.
For the last time.
She was now a true, cold-blooded assassin. It happened just that quickly. As she walked to her hidden gun sniper, waiting patiently, like a faithful dog, she had only one thought on her mind: Kill Bit. And no one was going to stop her.
{Whew! *mops brow* I HOPE this is my last draft, it should be, but I can't make any promises just yet. I changed the beginning, because I wanted to capture your attention. I thought the old beginning was too boring for you guys to really pay attention. Heh, anyways.. I hope you liked it, I hope you were able to stay awake, and I hope there are still some unanswered questions, I LOOOOOVE to keep my readers in suspense. One thing you got to learn with me is that I'm not going to give you all the answers up front. I'm not gong to hit you over the head with them, like "Hey! Here they are! Take 'em!" Nope, I'll torture you a bit, get you interested and thirsting for more. Tease you a bit! It's a good tool, you should try it! Maw ha ha ha ha! I'm evil! Well, so long folks! R+R! I'll continue once I have hmmm, let's say three reviews. I won't even start writing the next chapter until I got 'em. Of course, I already have, like most of it done already.. Meep! Pretend I didn't say that..
Cheers! ^_^
Take wings (contact me): CuTiEpie94800@aol.com
PS: No brownie points for guessing whom the assassin was..
