Fugitive
A Zoids-NC0 FanFic by Negative (aka a lot of other things)
Beginning Author's Notes
Of course I don't own Zoids. Those stupid disclaimers on every FanFic annoy the snot out of me. If you really thought for one second that I owned Zoids, you must be some kind of idiot. With that said though, here's the boilerplate…
This FanFic is actually a totally rewritten version of an earlier one called Zoids: Dark Forces. I now consider that FanFic to be a steaming pile of crap, but the basic idea lives on here.
All of the characters in this FanFic that weren't in the Zoids Anime are either mine (Stevan, Rebecca, etc) or used here with the permission of their respective creators (Calypso and Leah). You may NOT use them without permission.
Thus endeth the boring part. On to the story.
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The sound of the truck's wheels grinding on the hardened, pebble-strewn track that passed for a road was the only sound. Not even the whisper of a breeze could be heard, because there was no breeze. The sun beat down oppressively, its rays coloring the desert an even brighter shade of golden-yellow than usual.
Stevan Jonathan, the driver of the truck, pitied anyone stupid enough or unlucky enough to be caught outside in those conditions. He had heard people say that it was only "a dry heat," but they always meant it as a joke. Even in the truck's air-conditioned interior, the temperature bordered on uncomfortable. Brown haired and brown eyed, Stevan wore a green shirt, jeans and boots, having shed his leather jacket much earlier because of the heat. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. They would be on time.
The town was called Sol. The word has its origins in the personal name used for the sun on Earth, thousands of years before the first humans had come to Zi. The town was very small, just a few streets worth of buildings put together to form a rough rectangular shape. At the far end of town was the water processing plant, where the huge pipeline that was Sol's only source of water arrived. Most of the businesses were clustered at that end of town, and that was where the truck was going. Aside from the plant, the town's only sign of technological advancement were the solar panels on the roofs of all the buildings.
"It's just a wide spot in the road," said the woman sitting next to Stevan. "Why does this rag have their offices here?" Calypso Siyna had red hair and violet eyes that grabbed attention in any setting. She wore a black jumpsuit, in defiance of the burning sun.
"Because it's close to the action," Stevan replied. The better part of Zi's central continent was wilderness, desert where the only civilization was little towns like Sol scores of kilometers apart. Stevan had spent so much time in those deserts that at times it seemed difficult to believe that there was any part of the planet that wasn't desert. It was in these stretches of wasteland that most Zoid battles took place. There was much less risk of collateral damage that way. Nothing out there to damage but hopes, dreams, reputations and bank accounts, Stevan thought with a small smile. And Zoids and their pilots, of course.
Zoid Horizon wasn't one of the more highly esteemed publications covering Zoid battles, and there were a lot of them, from the Commission's official ZBC Weekly to Horizon, with many more in between. Horizon almost cultivated its low-class image, rebel image. It covered the lower-ranked teams, Classes C and B, and had actually become pretty good at picking which unknowns would rise to prominence over the past few years.
Stevan looked into the truck's back seat. "Wake up, Leah. We're here."
It was several seconds before the girl in the back seat seemed to realize he had spoken to her. Leah Carlburg was the youngest member of the team, in her mid-teens. Dressed in an indigo tee shirt and tan denim pants, she had gray eyes and blond hair that partially covered the headphones she was wearing.
"I wasn't asleep," she said, taking the headphones off.
"Asleep with her eyes open," Calypso interjected.
"…and I knew we were here," Leah finished, her.
"Glad we were able to bring you out of your trance," Stevan said, slowing the truck to a stop and cutting the engine in front of what was, surprisingly, the least dingy-looking building in town.
Calypso opened her door and stepped down to the ground. "Explain to me again why we're doing this."
Stevan frowned slightly as he got out of the truck. "For publicity." Publicity. He didn't like the word.
"Oh, yeah, now I remember," Calypso said, grinning. "What do we need publicity for? All we have to do is win a lot of battles and the world will bow down before our super-powers of awesomeness. Right?"
Stevan smiled at her sarcasm. Most aspiring Zoid warriors thought that things worked pretty much the way she had said. Every new warrior entered the league sure that they would be one of the best. You have to. None of them knew how harsh the world of Zoid battles could be. Most of them learned pretty quickly. Others went broke. The ones who were left kept going, and most of those spent their entire careers in relative anonymity, their struggles un-noticed.
Not us, Stevan thought. He, Calypso and Leah were the Chimeras Team. They were ranked in the middle of class B, but had managed to string a few wins together here and there. Horizon wanted to include them in its Team Profiles section, and Stevan wasn't about to tell them no. Put some good victories together with a little name recognition, and all sorts of doors start opening for you. That was the theory, at least.
Still, Stevan wasn't entirely happy with the idea of the magazine piece. There were too many higher-ranked teams he considered little more than media whores and corporate lapdogs. But Zoid battling was a business, just like anything else. Weapons, strategies, tactics, rankings…none of them made any difference if the bottom line wasn't what it should be. The more people who knew about the Chimeras Team, the more recordings of their matches would be sold, and the more bets would be made on the outcomes. And they would get a cut of both, though making money off other people's gambling bothered Stevan a little, too. He had seen more than a few lives ruined by gambling, families torn apart and careers wrecked by people playing the odds, looking for the big score that would make everything alright again.
"Now remember, Leah," said Calypso in a tone that told Stevan she was up to something, "we can't let Stevan do all the talking. You know how he loves to brag: team leader, Zoid Academy grad, etc."
Leah laughed and Stevan rolled his eyes. He was used to his teammate's jokes and didn't mind them. The truth was he never talked about his time at the Zoid Academy, and at times he wondered if he was team leader in name only.
He reached for the handle of the tinted-glass door of the Horizon office, only to have the door fly open and nearly hit him in the face. A young woman in her early twenties, about Stevan's age, came walking briskly out of the door, blowing past Stevan and nearly barging into Calypso. "Watch where you're going," the woman said.
"I could say the same to you," Calypso responded icily.
"You should slow down," Stevan said. "It's too hot to move quickly."
The girl turned and looked at him, seemingly noticing him for the first time. Her clothes were a notch above the locals' in quality. She had striking silver hair that flowed down her back in a long tail, and her gray eyes reminded Stevan of rain clouds. Their message was just as clear. Watch out, take cover.
She looked him up and down in a critical way. She stared him in the face for a second, then spun on her heel and walked away, leaving the Chimeras behind. No angry words, no cutting comebacks. Her attitude said I don't need to waste any more of my valuable time on you.
"Well, she was nice," said Leah, watching the stranger walk away.
"I just love meeting new people," Calypso agreed. Calypso made no secret of the fact that she preferred Zoids to people, and Stevan often felt the same way.
"I'm just glad you didn't start a real fight over that one," said Stevan, happy to have an opportunity to return Calypso's earlier teasing. "Like that time a couple weeks ago."
Calypso wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of being annoyed. "You mean those punks in that restaurant? They wrote the check and I cashed it."
"The proprietor didn't care about who started it," Stevan reminded her. "He threw us all out."
"Still, they were asking for it…" Calypso said as they finally entered the building.
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A couple of hours later, they were done with the magazine and were walking down Sol's main street. "We might as well get something to eat before we start back," Stevan suggested. Calypso and Leah agreed, so they started taking a better look at the shops they were passing. They had already passed the town tavern, where the din of loud music and many voices could be heard from across the street. Stevan already had a headache, so he was more than pleased to pass the place by. They chose the best looking of Sol's small selection of restaurants.
"Now remember," Stevan said, imitating the tone Calypso had used earlier, "try to avoid causing any property damage this time, OK?" He opened the door to the diner, and this time no one almost bowled him over.
"We got the message, leader-boy," said Leah.
The diner wasn't appreciably different from similar ones they had stopped in many times over many months of traveling Zi's wilderness. There were booths along the window-lined front, more along the sides, with tables in between and a bar at the back. The Chimeras made for one of the front booths and began looking at the menu.
"Like I said," Leah announced, "all of the food falls into the 'grub' category."
"Well, choke it down," said Stevan. "Let's get in and out quick, so we can head back to-" he stopped in mid-sentence. His companions followed his gaze up to the bar. A woman with unmistakable silver hair was sitting there, her back to them.
"Oh, great," said Leah.
"Ignore her," Calypso said, turning her attention back to the menu. "We've got as much right to be here as she does. And if she wants to make trouble, we'll be happy to oblige."
Stevan gave his redheaded teammate a hard stare. "Property damage…"
"Enough already!" Calypso said, finally losing her temper. Stevan smiled, pleased to have finally scored a point in his ongoing battle with Calypso, and then glanced up at the bar again.
He thought for a moment, and then slid out of the booth. "I'll be right back."
Calypso did a double-take as she saw him take a step in the direction of the bar. "What, are you going to go start a fight with her now?" Stevan saw that they were attracting attention from the restaurant's other patrons, and wished the place weren't so quiet.
"No," he said. "I was just…"
"Don't you want anything to eat?" Leah asked.
"Yeah, sure. Order something for me," he said, leaning forward with his hands on the table.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, whatever!"
"Are you sure you want to do that?" said Calypso with a devilish smile. She was the team's resident vegetarian.
"Leave him alone, Calypso," Leah said reasonably. "I'm just glad he's trying. He hasn't had a girlfriend in a while."
"You're right. When was the last time?"
"I can't remember…"
Resolving to kill his teammates later, Stevan turned away from the table and started across the room. The silver-haired girl spun her stool around and regarded him frankly. So much for the element of surprise.
"Hi," he said, sitting down on the stool next to the girl's. She continued to stare at him, daring him not to tuck his tail between his legs and retreat. He took the dare.
"I think I was supposed to ask if this seat was taken," he said.
"I take it you're not a fan of the unscripted, wing-it approach," she responded.
"I tried it once. It didn't turn out well."
Well, I came through the first volley undamaged.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" she asked him.
"Frankly?" he responded. "No." Thinking quickly, he pressed on. "Sorry about the noise my teammates made earlier. It was my fault."
He thought he saw a flicker of interest in those raincloud eyes. "And what team would that be?"
"The Chimeras."
She smiled cruelly. "Oh, the same Chimeras that pushed my Spirit Cats out of Horizon's Team Profiles?" She put her elbow on the bar and rested her chin on her palm, staring at him and waiting to see what he would do next.
"Um…" he stammered. Not a good start, but better than the first thing that had popped into his head, which was a curse. "I guess so," he said finally. "Horizon didn't tell us we were pushing anybody else out."
"Would it have made any difference if they had?"
He thought about that for a second. "Probably not."
"I didn't think so." She stared at him for a few more moments. "I suppose you think you're good."
"Yeah, I suppose I do."
"Care to prove it?"
He was surprised, and wondered how much it showed. "You're challenging us? Just like that?"
"I don't have anything better to do, either." She slid off her stool and stood up in one fluid motion. "You'll hear from me."
And with that, she started walking towards the exit. "Hey," Stevan said. She turned back to look at him. "I'm Stevan Jonathan. You never told me what your name is."
"Rebecca Rall," she said, and continued out the door. Stevan watched her go, then blew his breath out in a long, tired sigh. He made his way back to the booth where Calypso and Leah were sitting.
"Well?" Calypso said. "How'd it go?"
He frowned as he sat down. "I think I got more than I bargained for."
