[I do not own Zoids or anything of the likes. I own my own characters and that's about it. ]
[Prologue]
Aleks hadn't seen snow since she was a child. The memory of snow that she recollected most was the when trains came in. The ground stirred under them. Ice long formed and frozen over the rails shattered under the weight of their cargo: soldiers and Zoids.
The trains were primitive machinery, out of service since before she was born. They were adapted in recent years for military use. The girl watched them wide-eyed from her front porch as the doors to the cars hissed and cracked open. The swarm of soldiers that filed out seemed never ending.
They built small camps on the outskirts of the town. During the night, Aleks could see the flickering of their fires burning brightly and a number of men huddled tightly around the flames to keep warm as snow drifted downwards and blanketed the small town.
The military occupation of the town confused the town members as it was a time of peace. Nonetheless, the town folk enjoyed having a few extra hands to help out with things. The Zoids they brought, like the Shield Ligers and Heldigunners, came in handy for small construction jobs. When the town dug a new irrigation canal for the coffee bean fields, four Dibison pulled the plow to work the land.
Aleks herself just liked watching the Zoids work. Her parents, however, were coffee bean farmers and told her not to get her hopes up: she would inherit the family business and have no time for the luxuries of being a pilot. Being a coffee purveyor excited Aleks as much as watching a snail move across the ground and disobeyed her parents rule of staying away from the Zoids.
The young girl would wander around the soldiers camps after school, spending hours making tracks in the snow beneath the Zoids as she explored each of them from the ground.
"One day," she whispered, her emerald eyes illuminated in the sun as they rested on the sleek cockpit of a Lightning Saix, "I'm going to have my own Zoid." She promised herself, no matter what her parents expected her do.
An announcement came on the news late in the evening of Aleks' seventeenth birthday. The girl and her parents had settled in to the living room to watch a program they regularly viewed and the news broadcast had taken it's time slot.
The Emperor of the country appeared standing in front of a podium, the country's bright green flag displayed as the background behind him. He was a stout man with a full gray beard, the hair on his head a slight shade of gray lighter. His face bore many lines, caused by the years of stress being a political official would mark one with. He cleared his throat, a look of deep unease glimmering on his eyes and only made more apparent my the quiver in his lip.
"Citizens of Aneca," he was addressing the whole nation. Aleks saw her father sit forward in his seat, his absolute attention now focused on the words the Emperor was about to deliver. It had to be serious, the girl thought. "At 1800 hours, the country of Ursas declared war on us. Their supply of Zoid Magnite has been dwindling for many years now, and as of today, their mines have run dry. And they now want our supply." The Emperor paused, taking a deep sigh. "This is why for the past eleven years, many towns close to the border of Ursas have been occupied by the military." Aleks' mind clicked. The military had been positioned in her town because they were only a few hundred miles from the border of Ursas- the capital not much further. Growing frightened, the girl looked to her parents for reassurance, but they were glued to the television, looks of anxiety furrowing their brows together. "We will do everything in our power to protect each and every citizen of Aneca. Ursas shall not pre-" The television screen flickered from the image of the Emperor to static. Aleks' heart froze in her throat as she sunk her her chair.
She did not know much about Zoid Magnite or how large Aneca's supply was. All she did know is that it was what gave life to new Zoids.
The girls father stood quickly, going to the kitchen. She could hear him pull open a drawer and began rummaging through it. Her questioning eyes moved to her mother. The woman gave the girl a weak smile before she rose as well and moved to the arm of the chair next to Aleks. Her mother touched her shoulder gently.
"Sweetheart, there is something your father and I never told you. Your father-" her mother began speaking softly, her voice fading as she continued as if she didn't know how to explain. "Your father and I met while he was in the military. I was young- just nineteen. We fell in love. And then you were born." her mother need not explain the details. Aleks was well aware of them. "But while he was in the military, he was a Zoid pilot." her eyes held a smile that her lips were not.
"And a damn good one at that." her father's voice rang from the kitchen as the rummaging noises stopped. He returned to the sitting room, a silver key in his hand. He crossed the room and took Aleks' hand in his own and placed the key in her palm. It was cold and slightly rusted. Already confused by the message they'd just heard on the television, her parents behavior unnerved her even more.
"What's- what's going on?" The girl finally spoke, her voice seeming to have disappeared during the whole situation. Her father's eyes softened, a feat Aleks did not see very often. He was a stern man who put work before everything else except his family. His brown hair had started to turn ashen when Aleks turned thirteen, the hair on his mustache following shortly thereafter. But rarely did she ever see his hazel eyes look so unsure in her life. It probably frightened her most of all.
"This key will unlock a garage behind the Rumstead Coffee Mill. Go and retrieve what is in it." Her father nodded. The girl looked from the key to him.
"How will I know what to get?" She was unsure what she was to get. A tool, a gun, a supply of food?
"There is but one thing in that garage and I am giving it to you now, Aleks. Go and get it. But be swift and be careful." His tone was instructional, just a tinge of pride now sparkling behind the unease in his eyes. The girl was so befuddled, but she obeyed her father's order.
She tossed her yellow bomber jacket on and left the house, keeping her head down and her hands stuffed deep in to her pockets. Aleks' parents had never acted this strangely before. She wondered what could have set them off.
"Could it have been the Emperor's speech?" she mused quietly to herself, walking briskly to her destination across town. The girl sighed. Whatever was in the garage possibly held a clue to their peculiar behavior.
The walk to Rumstead's took Aleks a good twenty minutes.
She rubbed her eyes as she stopped momentarily in front of the establishment. She'd been to the place numerous times when helping her father bring their harvested coffee beans in to be ground and packaged. But she'd never thought to look behind the building where this garage was. And when Aleks rounded Rumstead's, she was astonished she'd missed something of that sheer size.
The garage was huge. It was older, weathered a rusted but still sturdy. The moon cast a soft glow across its metal roof. Aleks slowly approached the structure, withdrawing the key from her pocket as she did. The doors looked heavy. An even heavier looking chain and padlocked snaked around the handles to the doors. She grumbled quietly to herself, raising her hand with the key to the lock and inserting it in to the keyway and twisting it. She had to twist it forcefully a few times as the lock was even more rusty than the key or building from years of neglect. It was almost if the lock had not been used since it was initially put on the door.
As it finally clicked open, she pulled it from the chain and dropped it to the ground, followed by the unnecessarily thick chain.
"Who are they trying to keep out of here?" Aleks exasperatedly sighed, wrapping her hands around the door handles. She braced herself and then pushed forward with her entire strength. At first, the door didn't budge. Her footing began slipping in the soft earth. She sucked in a deep breath of air and threw her whole being against the door and it creaked open, slowly but surely.
Aleks paused, taking a moment to collect herself and her breath before turning to see what lie in the garage that was so pertinent that she couldn't wait until tomorrow to collect.
A single sliver of pale moonlight filtered in the door and reflected against the red armor of a Command Wolf. Aleks would have gasped loudly enough for a person passing by all the way out in front of Rumstead's to hear, but at the same second, a edifice across from where she stood exploded.
The war had began.