Remnants of Tattered Memory

by Madam Chaos Shadow

A girl and her Zoid, in trying to be a normal pair of Zoid warriors, inadvertently find themselves caught in a web of events leading to the discovery of the past, the awakening of a monster, and the birth of an ancient demon. Quest for RPG sequel to In Se

Remnants of Tattered Memory is based on Zoidsand draws marginal inspiration from the anime and most inspiration simply from the big mechanical critters themselves. Locations are arbitrary, as I never bothered learning them; and all Zoids listed here exist in one manner or another as models or as fan-made computer renderings or as planned model types (the Geno Breaker Jet Variation B -- aka the Psychosis -- was one such planned model, and the Geno Saurer Maxi II is one such fan render). As such, Zoids (c) Bandai in general.

All characters are my own, however. So take that.

This storyline is a direct sequel to 'In Search of Broken Wings', and was written as an 'Ancient Zoidian Quest'. Whereas Wings was for the gaining of an Organoid, Remnants is for allowing my character to gain the title 'Ancient Zoidian' and be on her way to the benefits therein, so I apologize in advance for the obvious contrivances and stupid lucky coincidences that this fic will hold. I also apologize for the odd sub-plots that don't go anywhere even though they look like they should, but each chapter was written a fair deal apart except for the last several, and my idea warped and changed. Some plots that needed to be dropped or got lost:

: Tsezar had a better sub-plot.
: Crassus, the Vertigo Talon BLOX, would have had more important things to do
: Ryuukei would turn out to be the ring leader of the entire plot, and would have actually taken over Sylosia by the final battle
: Adrien wasn't supposed to exist. sweatdrop

I also apologize for the formatting errors that will appear, and the numbers in front of some of the chapters (they were the chapter word count; I needed to keep tally of it for the quest). Aesteroth spoke with the greater-than, less-than signs, and I've recently found that doesn't like those signs. So very sorry, it'll be a bit difficult to figure out farther on, but there was way too much to go back and correct...

Anyway. Enjoy, I guess.

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: R E M N A N T S - O F - T A T T E R E D - M E M O R Y :

b e g I n d a t a l o a d
s u b j e c t l o c a t e d
l o a d c o d e n a m e
R E I A - F L A U R U S
s e c o n d a r y m a t c h
l o a d c o d e n a m e
C L A Y T O N - S Y L O S I A

l o a d - d a t a
d e c o d I n g...
b e g I n f I l e

c h a p t e r : o n e

Rumours floated freely on the fringe of the Guylos Empire.

Oftentimes, they would break from their immediate hold within the confines of the nation, flutter over the mountains that separated their city and the city on the other side, resting soundly within the Helic Republic. Generally, though, the border cities were where the rumours came to their origin and dissipated to their absolute end. Such was the nature of simplistic rumours, settled on the outskirts of the town; they amounted, in affect, to nothing.

But this was no simplistic rumour.

Word had been spreading - quietly, almost inaudibly - between the border cities and those immediately around them that the Black Demon had come. Naturally, the rumours elaborated further - towering three stories high, dripping crimson from its claws and jaws, eyes dead and scarlet, two scythe appendages standing at its sides. From head to tail - black as pitch! - interrupted only by scarlet circuits between its joints, and pulsing, breathing spots, seeming to send a cold chill wherever it passed, capable of sprouting two enormous wings, jagged as though stabbed with a hundred class shards, flying from town to town - never wrecking havoc, no, but simply standing, watching - and sometimes sending a signal flare in the form of a great burst of energy, an enormous cannon fired from its mouth.

And then it would leave.

They said also that its appearance was heralded by the entrance into the town by a peculiar man - perhaps six feet tall, a bit taller, wearing a white lab coat, somewhat tarnished from travel, a peculiar symbol affixed to the right sleeve of the coat. Underneath, he wore a somewhat off-white shirt, standard fare, similarly coloured pants - thick, heavy pants, as though he had been traveling through the Icelina Mountains, with slightly darker, thick boots - as though he had been prepared to walk for quite a ways, and knew full well he had more travel ahead of him. His head of medium brown reflected on the simple mustache that accented his face - a stern face, world-worn and somewhat weary, telling them he was thirty four or roundabouts, the exact mirror of his age.

Rumours say they can never see to his eyes, however; people oftentimes try to gaze past his spectacles, pushed up against the beginning of the bridge of his nose, but the sun flare always impedes their view. They have let their assumptions fly - that he truly has no eyes, that they are dead white like the rest of him, that they are bloody crimson, like the Demon's.

But he always came to the town or small city or outpost at about noon, silent as the dust in the wind, and simply walked through - walked through every street, looked over everybody, investigated - in taciturn passing - the visage of the various buildings - and then he would leave the same way he came. And every night the Demon would appear afterward, looming high over the city, its rounded beak-like jaw turned to the stars as the scythes on its back stood folded, revealed only when it stretched, the silver catching the moonlight.

And then its wings would unfold - sharp and dangerous, gleaming dead black in the wan moonlight - a burst of light would appear, and it would take to the air, winking out of existence, be gone.

Just like that.

It was a similar situation everywhere - all the villages on the border explained their encounters with the Black Demon and the mysterious man. But none of them had any proof, only elaborate tails of the mysterious figure and his great steed.

Ramus had never believed any of them. Old wives tales, he said. Urban legends. Fools on crack, he went so far as to suggest.

It was a week and a half past since his sister had left for New Helic City, in the centre of the Republic - the little border township was rather lonely without her presence, but it was oftentimes lacking either her or their younger brother. As he did the equation, he realized that only two days after she had left the Black Demon was reported to have appeared. To that, the mechanic had to smile.

"You would have tried to go after it," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Pardon me, sir."

The voice hit him like ice.

It was a simple statement - entirely polite, and he could certainly tell - but something about the voice that held it made him shudder, a tremour going down his spine. Ramus looked around warily, sitting up from his position atop the golden Konig Wolf, and looked over the side of the Zoid, down to the man standing at its feet.

"Yes?" he called down.

"Ah!" the man said, looking up. "I am so glad to have found you! Do you have a minute?"

Of course he did; he had been napping on top of his Zoid. Regardless, he seemed to hesitate, feigned checking on something, and then sighed to himself.

"Yes, I believe I'm free for the moment... Hold on, let me come down."

He reached out and grabbed one of the various cables that hung around the Zoid, stepping off the top of the Konig Wolf and allowing gravity to do the rest for him, carrying him down in a swirl and allowing him to step off at the bottom a few seconds later, none the worse for the peculiar method down due to the thick gloves he wore for his job.

He faced the man who had been calling him and felt his heart leap to his throat.

White laboratory coat; heavy shirt and pants underneath; thick boots. Medium brown hair, somewhat matted, somewhat messy, and spectacles - impossible to see behind, utterly obscuring to his vision.

"May I help you?" he managed.

"Yes," he said. "I understand your surname is Flaurus?"

There was a pause as Ramus took a moment to soak in that statement, and slowly, he nodded. Yes; his name was Ramus Flaurus. He happened to work at the Flaurus Mechanics and Engineering Shop. His name was clearly pinned to his shirt, on the left side of his chest, written in large, black, friendly, obvious letters.

Indeed, his surname was Flaurus.

"I understand that you have two siblings?" he continued, his tone still questioning. "The younger is known as Shadow, if I'm not mistaken." Now, more certain. "The middle child is Reia."

Ramus felt himself stiffen; the man's tone had gone from polite to borderline forceful over the course of just a few sentences. The mechanic nodded slowly - uncertain of wether he wished to divulge that information - and added; "If I may inquire as to your curiosity?"

"You may."

He brought his hand up and removed his glasses, closing his eyes immediately and beginning to clean the spectacles. "You see," he said, "I have been searching for a pilot that goes by the name of Reia Flaurus for a reasonable amount of time - almost a week, actually, I believe it has been. I have had no luck in locating her, unfortunately - she seems to have gone behind my reach in the short amount of time I gave her to depart ahead of me. I pity having given her that head start." He replaced the spectacles where they were on his nose, obscuring his eyes once again. "She has wronged me, and I must find her to right it. Do you know where she is?"

The man had played his hand too early; Ramus stiffened immediately, shaking his head. "I'm afraid I can't divulge that information," he said sharply. "I've been told not to talk to strangers. A good lesson from my mother. Now please-" he pointed out the small door that led into the primary hangar "-leave now."

A smile crept across the man's face.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He snapped his fingers, and suddenly - almost by magic - summoned a black, mechanical dragon, scarlet eyes gleaming bloodlust in the pale light of the shop. It opened its wings - tattered wings, torn and decimated, once fitted with a fine, thin leather, now ripped from where it had been and replaced instead with sharp mechanical edges, held together by torn remnants of the leather that had held it not so long ago.

"One-Four-Two-Seven," he said simply, allowing the designation number to hang in the air for a long moment before turning his full attention toward Ramus. "I had been afraid you would do something like this - refuse to inform me that she is heading toward - or in - New Helic City, participating in the Blood Ring Challenge."

Ramus felt his teeth clench and his breath catch, and he took an involuntary step backward, the cable digging in to his spine as he did so. The man smiled.

"I had been hoping you would verify that information in a far simpler manner - I do so hate manipulating people's actions for my necessities. Unfortunately, you've flared my temper. One-Four-Two-Seven." The saurian looked away from Ramus, his gaze instead turning toward the intruder within the shop. "Protocol Oblivion."

The saurian - a full foot shorter than the man, Ramus noted - took the scientist by the shoulders and arced his wings, boosters on his back flaring suddenly to life. The saurian let out a mechanical screech, and suddenly lifted off, gaining such speed that he and his master became a blur of scarlet light, tearing straight upward to the ceiling of the hangar-

Out through the top of the ceiling.

Gone.

Ramus reacted immediately, pulling away from the cable and whistling a high-pitched, shrill whistle. The Konig Wolf he had been resting on awakened immediately at the sound, lowering its head and opening the cockpit to allow its pilot to jump in. He grabbed the controls and brought the Wolf to its feet, turning it to face the open hangar door. He sent a quick glance around, but realized it was useless - he was the only one still in the hangar at lunch break.

He pushed forward on the controls, and with a cursory howl the wolf was out the door and tearing past the small town, heading a bit of the ways into the desert to put some distance between himself and the little settlement, in order to give him a better view. A flick of a switch, as the scope fell over his eyes, allowing him to take a look around the area in higher detail, at longer range-

Stop.

He went to ice.

It landed on the opposite side of the settlement, white-hot boosters flaring to a stop as its eyes - crimson, death inviting - looked across the town, over the buildings, to him. Scarlet claws and crimson jaws snapped in unison, in warning, as the sharpened dew claw on its internal foot was raised, bringing up a terrible, metallic raptor talon. From its back rose to thin metal beams, jointed thrice, and affixed to the end of each was a simplistic, enforced silver alloy scythe.

Its entire body - black. Broken up by bloodstained circuitry. Sounded to the breathing, cold mists periodically being flung from its body, leaving a trail of fog where it went.

Opened its jaws. Energy collected - back of the throat.

No.

Talons locked down, fans along the tail opened, mist vents continued to pour, switching their output to hot steam as it stood at the edge of the town. Hot steam - scalding hot.

Choking them.

No.

It seemed almost to inhale, burning steam beginning to flood the ground, making its way through the simple wooden and stone buildings people had constructed. Wood and stone exposed to the head energy - unadulterated, infinite energy potential, catch the wood-

Heat it-

Burn.

A small fire in one house as the Demon stood, charging the cannon held in its throat, that erupted into a terrible blaze, fanned by the scorching desert sun, by the almost imperceptible breeze. The flames began to spread, leaping from house to house, screams going up through the town as the sound of crackling fire magnified...

He saw it, affixed to the outer right leg; a small flamethrower, small by Zoid standards, helping the steam to ignite the fires, to catch the entire town...

Mass panic.

Screams began to erupt from the entire town as the community began a single flare, drowned out, slowly, by the crackling of the fire as it ate away at everything in its path - plant, beast, man...

"Stop this!" Ramus screamed, forcing the controls of the Wolf forward-

No response.

"Stop this!"

A bolt of crimson escaped the back of the Demon as it finally unleashed its attack - the ground was torn apart as it went over, forced down from the energy from the blast, sand crystallizing in a thin line down the middle of the blast radius. Ramus steeled himself for impact - the point-blank strike from a Charged Particle Gun was something that nobody yet had lived through.

Felt pincers in his shoulders, suddenly, not even a second from impact. Saw black.

Then nothing-

-but pain.

A fire ran through his muscles as he came unto consciousness, slowly coursing through his veins. Every heartbeat held a poisonous lurch to it; as he inhaled, he felt daggers pierce his lunges. With a terrible groan, he turned over, his eyes focused upon naught but ash and timbre remnants, fallen stone, and farther off, through the slowly clearing smoke, he could see it; golden frame, its legs still affixed to the ground where it stood, but its entire upper body and head - incinerated, black slag hanging unceremoniously from its sides.

Fires still crackled around him - in fact, turning over all the way - pain shooting up his shoulder - there was still a towering inferno over where he lay, yet he was safe - he had been settled where no fire could eat at his surroundings and ultimately eat him.

He was spared. And for what?

For this.

The man stood before him, standing seemingly within the inferno, his pet demon standing behind him, hissing low as it inhaled and exhaled. The man was emotionless - no smile, no frown, no satisfaction, no remorse. His hand came to his face, gripping the arm of his spectacles, and removed them slowly, revealing his eyes.

Dead gray - devoid of any light whatever, even that of the inferno - a shark's eyes, infinitely empty, black, shadow.

"Just remember," he said acidly. "My name is Clayton Sylosia. And you killed these people."

Nothing more. He turned, walked through the flames, away from Ramus as he lay where he was on the ground, covered in desert sands and dust, dirt and ash, feeling simultaneously hot and cold from the inferno, from the hovering mist. The saurian came toward him, stopped just short of him, looked at him, and turned away, revealing his tail-

It had a blade.

A single, undecorated blade. Plain; unspectacular. Sharp.

And with a precision that brought him no end of horrified awe, he brought the glaive down upon the mechanic, slicing a deep gash along his right cheek. Ramus felt the blood begin to pool, begin to pour from the open wound, but he could do nothing to stem the flow but turn upon his back and lay there, covered by the cold mist, surrounded by the blazing flame, feeling the sickly warm liquid escaping the cut and running down his cheek, just under his ear and onto the desert sands, staining them crimson until the wind picked up their remnants, carried them away with it.

He closed his eyes, felt warmth around them. Tears.

Felt distantly that he was coughing; more warmth. Saliva. Blood.

His left arm - his good arm, he felt no pain stinging him as he moved this one - came to his check, gingerly touched the blood seeping from the wound. Not at all a fatal cut - the creature, whatever it was, could have much more easily taken his head.

Why not?

A reminder.

He would keep that scar, forever remembering the day he defied that man and his demon, forever hearing his voice echo in his mind, cold, chilling, freezing.

"My name is Clayton Sylosia. And you killed these people."

2262

c h a p t e r : t w o

He stared dully at the masses gathered around the circular dip, looking up to them - dots in the distance, nothing more than a writhing mass of flesh and bones and blood within veins, contorted into grotesque shapes before his eyes and made even more unappealing by their raucous screams, an undefinable mass of words fused together to make an imperceptible jumble of sounds and cries, some of victory, some of defeat, the entire cacophonous drone reverberating with the excitement of so many ants gathered round a droplet of water - something that they find a great necessity, yet something that, should they find too much before them, would so easily engulf them utterly, consume them - shouting at the vicarious thrill rush that manifested before them at even intervals.

He hissed low, his wing flaring slightly in controlled annoyance as the screams of zealous stupidity continued to fall from above him, around him, nearly deafening him but for his external noise suppressant equipment - something that his short travels beyond his sterilized home had made him appreciate. Golden eyes swivelled to look behind him in accordance to the direction his neck took to facing, staring blandly past the seven green blades of sheet metal revealed upon his tail, toward the emerald glass cockpit eyes and forehead diamond that sat just beyond the muzzle of the Trinity Liger, surrounded by the deep scarlet armour of the Zoid. He continued staring fondly at the great best, accented gold along its muzzle, the shield generators on its mane, the thick armour shields covering its legs, the blade locked on its chain-mail tail. In a way, she breathed - a slow, deliberate movement beneath him, the Liger rose and fell every several seconds, a slight hiss of steam coming from the gold-lined vents along her face, on the lower part of her body frame.

Rising upon his hind legs to his full stance of five feet, he walked carefully along the muzzle, took a short hop and flared his boosters in order to get a bit more distance, landing beyond the glass of the cockpit, on the uppermost sheet of metal that made up her man, and stepped to the highest point of the Zoid, looking out beyond the barred gate she stood at from this highest vantage point, using it to his advantage to stare within the arena - kept meticulous during times where there was no conflict within, but now coated with sand shaken from the Zoids fighting over it, scarred on the sides and floor from the weapons that the combatants within.

The battle before him was becoming rather boring. It had at first seemed like the confrontation could harbour a bit of potential - a Britz Tiger, queer thing that it was, long and almost insectoid in its appearance, had been seeded to square off against a somewhat curiously painted Geno Saurer, its thick raptor-like body given a much darker coat of paint than it was accustomed to, jet black, the pale red circuitry within its body an inflamed crimson, the pale red intake fans along its figure deep violet. Gauging the two Zoids, it seemed at first that the Britz Tiger was destined to win - it had every advantage against its opponent in speed, in strength, in firepower, in weapon potential. Yet as the conflict wore on, a seemingly obvious win became more and more difficult for the Britz Tiger - its volt cannon constantly fizzled against the stone of the opposite wall, its blitz attack seemed always to fall short, or too far to the right or left of the Saurer, and every time its attack failed, its recovery time was used to its opponent's advantage - the Geno Saurer would lunge, snapping at its opponent's neck in an attempt to bite down, tear at the circuitry, open a gash in its side, and each time it succeeded, but its tactic was slow - tearing at strips of armour had dragged the fight on for almost twenty minutes in what should have been a five minute confrontation, but the audience - fools that they were - only became more enthralled as it went, cheering when the Britz Tiger landed an occasional lucky blow, simultaneously gasping and booing and crying in wild exhilaration as the Geno Saurer's guerilla tactics continued to overtake the match.

This was the first time he had stopped to watch the Geno Saurer, and judging by his opponent's failing health, it seemed at the saurian Zoid would end up being his final opponent for the day.

The next round, after all, was the tournament finale of the New Helic City Blood Ring Tourney. And naturally, he and the Trinity Liger and the Liger's pilot had succeeded, much to his expectations, to settle themselves firmly within the final round of the tournament, having defeated their last opponent - a Gravity Saix, weird little thing - while taking minimal damage from its attacks. Their own repairs had taken barely any time to conduct - and now that they were ready, waiting for the final fight of the day to come to an end, he almost wished that there had been more to do. The battle had been long drawn out - incredibly long, was taking too long, why couldn't it just-

End.

The Tiger finally collapsed to an uproar of screams of rage and unabated joy, the saurian just removing its claw from the side of its opponent's chest, arcs of electricity jumping from the exposed end of the wires it held clamped within its grasp, the other end still attached to the Tiger. The judge capsule, stationed dead centre above the eastern corridor, lifted its arm and called the winner - the Geno Saurer, with a dull roar, turned away from its opponent and proceeded to walk from the prone remnants of the fallen Britz Tiger, proceeding through the southern corridor, and the door clamped shut behind it, sealing the Zoid within its confines for the five minute repair job it was allowed.

During the interim, as the shouting died down, the lumbering DiBison came from where it awaited within the west corridor, passing by the Britz Tiger and dropping the electro-magnetic cables, allowing them to latch on to the fallen Zoid before it turned around and, in its slow and steady pace, began to bring the fallen warrior into the western corridor, where he would be given his consolation prize as one of the third-place winners of the Blood Ring Tourney.

He looked down and saw the cockpit slide open before him, a hiss of decompressed air announcing the action, and he cocked his head to the right, seeing the girl walking along the docking bay towards the scarlet behemoth. Taking his own cue, he leapt into the air from where he was, activating his boosters and hovering for a moment as he watched her take the short circuit to the open cockpit. She stopped short of entering, as the Liger unleashed a powerful roar, shaking its head as it did so, and she managed a smile.

"You been watching the fight, I assume?" she questioned, at first seeming to address the Liger before turning her attention upward, toward him.

Aesteroth nodded. Naturally, he said simply. I confess that I was at a loss to do anything else. You have been watching, as well?

She returned the inquiry with a nod. "Yeah. That Geno Saurer had absurd evasive capabilities, or else that Britz couldn't aim worth anything. Perhaps both." She sent a glance out the barred gate, then proceeded into the open cockpit of the Trinity Liger. "Either way, we should be able to put up a rather better fight against it - it didn't seem all that tough."

Shall I take the initiative?

"Please do."

Reia settled herself into the cockpit, and the Organoid took the opportunity as the hatch began to close upon her, igniting the boosters to full capacity and firing them, shooting straight into the air, toward the top of the corridor roof, before arcing around within the air and slamming into the back of the Zoid, a burst of blue and gold energy shooting from its centre. He burrowed straight through the armour hull, toward the core, and found it, reforming his shape to encompass the energy orb tightly, digging his teeth and claws into it, bringing his wing around almost as though hiding himself behind it.

He melted into the core, his consciousness sliding out of his energy form and into the orb that was the Zoid's soul, mingling with its thoughts and feelings, its behavioural patterns, before overriding all functions within and, suddenly, awakening to see through emerald eyes. Bubbling below his consciousness, he felt that of the Liger - Ascanius awaited below him, placid at the moment, but from his experience he knew that the heat of battle triggered something much more powerful, something even he could hardly control.

"Pilots!" the voice boomed from the speakers overhead. "Please proceed into the arena."

The barred gate opened, and Aesteroth allowed the pilot to take the controls, bringing the Trinity Liger within the blinding artificial lights that lined the arena. Looking up, he saw that dusk was settling - clouds had belong long and thing, doused with pink and gold and, to the west, a much deeper red. He brought the eyes of the Liger down again, this time to face his opponent standing at mirror position across from him - the Geno Saurer.

All around him, an uproar had started anew - some of the voices clamouring for a display from the Trinity Liger, others from the Saurer. Regardless, a low hush began to fall over the arena as the hands of the judge went into the air, its gaze turning first to the Liger, then to the Saurer.

"Statistical information for both Zoids has been uploaded," the judge said stoicly, moving his right hand and turning first to face the trio within the scarlet beast. "At the north entrance; pilot Reia Flaurus, at the helm of the Blood Trinity Liger, Ascanius!" A cheer erupted from the crowds, and the judge turned his attention to the opposite side of the field, raising his left arm. "At the south entrance; pilot Tsezar Machiavel, at the helm of the Geno Saurer Night, Richter!" Another cheer, this time of slightly different volume, of slightly different voices. Looking straight forward now, the judge crossed his arms. "Battle mode zero-nine-nine-two. Begin final round of the Blood Ring Tourney!"

And at the keening sound of the whistle, the two were off immediately.

The Liger pulled herself to the right immediately, anticipating the Geno Saurer's first shot, from the small rifle mounted to its chest - the first opening blow that it had fired at the beginning of each of the battles. In response, she leapt forward, her claws gleaming slightly as they searched for the metal flesh of the Saurer. The Geno, anticipating the manouevre, pushed off from the ground, firing its back boosters to get a bit more air speed before landing, harshly, on the dusty arena floor, pulling itself fully upright and preparing another shot.

Too late. The Liger spun to face it, the blade of her tail whipping around and catching him across the chest, digging into the armour and leaving a long gash along the front of the saurian. It pulled back, staggering somewhat from the force of the blow, and took a moment to recuperate, hissing low as steam escaped from the vents lining its body.

Now it lunged quickly, its boosters giving it a distinct burst of speed, its jaws snapping at the Trinity Liger, but the Zoid was prepared for this tactic, immediately firing her shield generators and crafting an energy shell around her, which the Zoid impacted and bounced back from, hissing low. Using this to her advantage, she surged forward, slamming him with the shield and forcing him to the ground, deftly hopping over his prone form and coming to a stop opposite the saurian, turning to face him and deactivating her shield.

The Geno Saurer took a moment to stand again, and the instant it did, she let loose the fire from her triple impact cannon, catching him in the back and forcing him forward in a rather awkward step. It turned as best it could, presenting its side to her, and aimed its back-mounted pulse rifle, firing a shot that caught her at a peculiar angle, glancing off of her shoulder. Another roar reverberated from the Trinity Liger, and she lunged, channeling energy into her foreclaws and bringing them against the saurian, golden energy flowing across the thick metal before slamming down upon its target, a scream of "Strike Laser Claw!" coming from within the cockpit - mostly for effect, although the cry seemed to send a surge of energy through the Liger once again, doubling her efforts against the Geno Saurer and bringing the attack down yet harder.

A crack, then something seemed to shatter under the blow, and with a low, keening cry the Geno Saurer fell to its side, its left arm fractured from the force of the blow, the lights of its cockpit going blank as it immediately underwent a complete system freeze.

"Battle over, battle over!" the judge crowed. "The winner of the Blood Ring Tourney is Reia Flaurus!"

The Trinity Liger took a step forward of her own accord, under no jurisdiction from either the girl or the Organoid, and placed her heavy forepaw upon the side of the Zoid, pulling back her head and crying out into the darkening twilight skies.

Fun Fact : The first part of this chapter - that which deals with Tsezar - is exactly 666 words long.

1865

c h a p t e r : t h r e e

Tsezar was not accustomed to losing.

The low hum of the repair bay within the small Dragoon Nest provided background for his contemplative mood, but his contemplative mood was not entirely contemplative - he paced about the area, growling low curses under his breath and bringing himself to face the Geno Saurer - painted, overall, much darker than the general Geno Saurer, all of its colours deepened to black and crimson and violet - the only part that remained the same was the silver stripe across the scarlet eyes, and the dulled gray of the claws and talons. He had done that to distinguish it slightly - for he knew it was more powerful than the other Geno Saurers, that it could destroy them all if he so wished it.

Power that came from his absolute control over the Zoid. It was allowed no thoughts of its own - it merely did as he commanded. And it was his power, amplified by the Zoid, that made it great - that made it deadly.

He had taken down all of his opponents during that match while hardly sustaining a scratch throughout - all of them, even the Britz Tiger during the semi-final round, had fallen to his saurian Zoid's power. But his final opponent - a simple Trinity Liger - had beaten him utterly, destroyed him completely, and utterly fractured the Zoid's left arm, damaged some of the weaponry mounted on its back beyond repair.

How had it done that? He had studied the possible maneuvers of every Zoid known to Zi - some, perhaps, less than others, due to their rarity. The Trinity Liger, he remembered, he hadn't put his full potential into studying - very few people used Trinity Liger's in this day and age - but he did recall that, while it was a relatively fast Zoid, its agility was lacking, and its overall power even more so. Something had altered that Zoid - but he hadn't seen any booster equipment, and any internal alterations could not have increased its capabilities so... So sharply.

Tsezar ran through the battle in his mind again, trying to determine if he saw anything peculiar about the Zoid, but couldn't recall - it seemed simply to be a Trinity Liger to his eye - to his trained eye, he had brag - no more and no less. So how-

It didn't matter how.

Tsezar was pissed, and he was going to take out his righteous fury on that Zoid and its respective pilot, no matter how long it took to find them again, no matter if it killed him.

"Navigator."

The communication system within the Dragoon Nest was superb - it was a unit much smaller than the typical Nest, perhaps just a bit larger than the Hover Cargo overall, mounted with five internal docking bays - and the internal system set up within the lobster-like transportation unit had been fine-tuned so any normal-tone conversation could be heard anywhere within the vehicle. Tsezar knew this quite well - he had personally overseen the construction and installation of this system - and made the most of it, seeing no reason to do otherwise.

"Yes?" came the response from the navigator, his voice slightly marred by fine static.

"I would like you to set to work locating a Zoid - registration number unknown. Trinity Liger, royal crimson paint job - registered to Republic Pilot Reia Flaurus."

"Yes, Master Makiaveil," he said quietly. "When located, do you wish to set a course to pursue this Zoid?"

"Good man," Tsezar purred, a smile drawing across his face. "You know me well enough."

He needed no further confirmation from the navigator - he knew his men would do their assigned tasks immediately, they had little choice under his command. Turning to the work crew behind him, working as they were on the Geno Saurer, he said to them:

"Workmen. In the interim between now and locating this infernal Liger and its respective pilot, I believe I may have a few modifications to make to Richter..."

The sound of heavy footfalls fell silent against the buffer of the hot desert sand as the Liger, its brilliant blue-on-white body undulating in its movements, ran across the land, leaving faint footprints in its wake that would only be caught and swept away within a few moments of their imprint by the heated breeze of the wasteland.

It was a Trinity Liger, but not of the sort any had ever seen before - its entire body was painted a brilliant white where the typical Liger kept its majestic royal red hue, and where the typical liger was otherwise silver it was ignited with deep blue fire, lighter edges of the flame claiming the lower jaw and nose, accenting the almost chain mail chinks along its tail and highlighting the blade mounted at the end. Its cockpit - as well as the shield generation nodes upon its mane - blazed crimson against its otherwise cold colour scheme - any close examination would reveal an empty cockpit behind the scarlet glass. At its sides, two blades were fitted - lifted from a Blade Liger's body and tempered slightly to return the edge to them, stray wires still visible faintly behind the heavy armour where the shield generation nodes connected to the hardened alloy pylons, ready to channel their energy into the retractable blades.

The blades, for the moment, had been moved into their resting positions - due to the make of the Trinity Liger, they could not be mounted on the back and instead had to be thrust outward, making the Zoid a dangerous target even while it was merely running.

It spun suddenly and opened the blades at its sides, the two weapons clicking out to their positions with a soft clinking sound, and the Liger pulled itself closer to the ground, like a cat pouncing, a dull roar emitted from back deep in its throat. Coming toward it - clearly, having chased it for quite a ways - were two Rayse Tigers, outfitted for desert combat judging by their sand-coloured armour, by the pale orange particle absorption panels.

Each of them was piloted, and each of them clearly did not want the peculiar Trinity Liger to get away.

The Trinity Liger, however, clearly did not like this idea.

Shield energy began to transfer into the blades, igniting the scarlet with a pale white lightning - electricity crackled and danced on the edge of the weapons, and the Rayse Tigers - their pilots oblivious to the potential threat - continued their pursuit, the small impact cannons mounted on their backs leveling to face the Liger, with obvious intent to shoot.

The Trinity Liger met them before they had the opportunity, however - with a powerful spring from its hind legs, the Zoid flew toward its two pursuers at a low altitude, keeping itself close to the ground and sending another surge of energy into the blade, making the static cloud more vibrant, more powerful, giving the Liger an extra burst of speed as it went by its first victim, the right blade cutting the Rayse through the mouth and across the body - straight through the body, the blade acting the hot knife and the Rayse the butter. The Liger landed opposite the Tiger - his ally bringing his Zoid around to face the Liger - and the Trinity Liger looked over its shoulder, stopping the energy surge and retracting the blades as it saw, a feeling of smugness coursing through its body, its opponent snap in two, a shower of yellow and red and white forming a cloud of sparks around the severed body of the Zoid, the mass falling into the sand and soon dissipating as the live wires, their source of energy no longer functional, fell dead.

The core of the Zoid now lay in the open, forced from its otherwise stable position deep within the belly of the Zoid, and the Trinity Liger turned fully to face its opponent, the core between it and the remaining Rayse Tiger.

The Liger brought its head up and growled challenge - the Rayse excepted the offer and immediately fired a burst of shots from the impact cannon. The Liger ducked, then surged forward, firing from its own cannon - the Rayse anticipated the return manoeuver and pulled itself down similarly, bringing its cannon forward for another strike, firing a short burst and this time catching the Zoid in question in the mane. The Liger unleashed a roar of fury, but ignored the injury - instead, it shot past the stationary Tiger, catching the underside of the Zoid's head with its tail blade. A short burst of energy was sent to the blade, lending it further power - and with this burst of energy, the head of the Zoid snapped back, a deep gash cut into its short, thick neck. The Tiger staggered for a moment, backup system buzzing as it tried to keep its balance, but without orders from the pilot - orders it could no longer receive - it was useless, and the Zoid finally fell to the desert sands, its cockpit light fading and its internal systems slowing to a low hum. The other Rayse remained silent.

The Liger could vaguely pick up a transmission between the two pilots - the one Zoid would not function at all, the other's command system had frozen - both of them, it seemed, were trapped within the cockpits of their Zoids.

The Liger brought up its thick, heavy paw to the Rayse that was, for the most part, still in tact, and energy began to channel into it - without the absorption panels, the Tiger was helpless against the attack. Its paws gleaming with golden-blue energy, it brought them down upon the body of the Rayse, puncturing its side and tearing straight though the armour until half of the claw was submerged. It twisted its paw and tore upwards, catching the metal and peeling the Rayse Tiger's hide away, revealing a mesh of circuitry within. Working at the hole a bit more with its paw, the Trinity Liger finally crafted a cyst large enough to freely move its paw in, and once more plunged the charged claws into the Zoid, tearing away at the wiring before coming to the centre, no longer concealed or protected - the glistening ambient white of the core of the Zoid stared back at it, and with a roar the Liger stabbed down harshly, slammed her claws into the core and sent a surge of power into the white orb, forcing it to overheat, fracture, fragment...

Explode.

The Zoid was dead. And unless somebody stumbled upon the camouflaged remnants of the Rayse Tiger, the pilot would not be very well off either.

It looked over to the other Rayse, its core exposed to the harsh desert weather, and walked quietly towards the fallen Zoid, stopping next to it and tilting its head to the side, examining the remnant before bringing its paw down, crushing the sphere underfoot.

Dead. Gone. No more trouble.

No more trouble from them.

The Trinity Liger, experimental Mirage unit, codename Artema, turned away from the Rayse tigers, set her sights westward once again, across the barren expanses of the Zi wastelands, her bladed tail flicking lazily back and forth behind her.

Now she was free.

c h a p t e r : f o u r

Camping out in the desert at night was something she had never exactly considered a smart idea, but one that she indulged in - fairly often - nonetheless. Not, of course, that she had much of a choice - a single person, traveling via Zoid, oftentimes had to be ready to set up camp at any time - wether it was because the Zoid broke down, or the pilot needed to rest, everybody who went off traveling, alone, in a Zoid, would ultimately have to stop and set up base camp in the middle of the desert.

She didn't particularly like it - especially since her Zoid could continue on its own course almost indefinitely while she slept in the cockpit. But she didn't want to overtax Ascanius - and she wasn't going to put any further pressure on Aesteroth, either, although he seemed otherwise fine and willing to continue the journey.

"But," she asked him that day, "the journey to where?"

To this, the Organoid had no reply.

Just as well - she had nowhere to go, not really. She had swung by her hometown not that long ago - Purgases had seemed to be same as ever on her last visit - and spoken with her elder brother when she had gone by. Her younger brother - she hadn't seen him in ages, or heard from him, which was quite unfortunate - she was surprised to have not heard of him, considering the power that his Zoids possessed. He should have come up in some tournament somewhere, and his absence from the face of Zi sent a chill down her spine.

She had just come from New Helic, from the Blood Ring Tournament - entered just to test her skills, primarily, in round-by-round combat, which was something she hadn't done in quite some time. There were no tournaments that she had heard of, and she had no waiting opponents or battle challenges to try and reach, no secondary job to worry about keeping up.

Reia had the whole of Zi at her disposal, yet somehow had nowhere to go with it.

She turned around from where she sat on the cool night sands, her eyes tracing the outline of the Trinity Liger against the wan light of the crescent moon, the emerald green cockpit reflecting a gemstone jewel tone again the pale silver cast down upon it, her thoughts slowly wandering in a different direction - one towards the Zoid, the magnificent creature's abilities and tendencies, back to when she had been a Shield Liger.

Now that she thought about it, the Zoid had always been a bit of a peculiarity.

The Liger had been kept in the hangar of the institute for quite some time - it was customary for those graduating to be given a Zoid to start off their combat careers. Strangely, while others were taken and piloted out, she could recall that the Shield Liger - the one she now sat in and was freely piloting - had been sitting in the hangar for a fair number of years, gathering dust. When asked why, the supply master merely shrugged, saying that it was a wild Zoid - students who had tried to take it out to pilot it could never quite get the hang of the controls, or they wouldn't respond, or the 'eject' button seemed to activate incredibly often.

She wanted to give it a shot herself, but the man had said that the Liger would be scrapped soon due to its curiously aggressive tendencies. That, she couldn't allow - and she sent word back to her parents about the Liger, about how it would be destroyed soon. Unfortunately, she could do nothing at the academy, and was told to look through the other choices and select one of them. Of course, her specialty during training had been isolated to Ligers and Raptors - she might have been able to take out a Zaber Fang or something, but most of the other remaining Zoids were well out of her understanding. She was given a week to decide - it took her five days.

The decision would have taken longer, but for the fact that her parents responded to the message by actually buying the Liger. And now that it was in their possession, they could transfer ownership of the Zoid as they pleased - so they gave it to their daughter.

The supply master objected on behalf of her safety, but couldn't do anything beside that, and finally allowed her access to its cockpit. From that point, she couldn't understand what sort of trouble other pilots had - she felt perfectly comfortable at the controls, and the Zoid didn't seem to care about her presence - it functioned just as all the others had, if not far better than they ever had.

This seemed to give the supply master a bit of a shock. But now that she thought about it...

She had heard of Zoids endowed with the 'white box' - an innate system that made them unstable, incapable of being piloted unless they found somebody they happened to like. These Zoids, referred to commonly as 'Ultimate X' Zoids, were primarily kept to the most impressive Zoids only - the Berserk Fuehrer was, to her knowledge, the first openly-known Ultimate X found, and it was revealed shortly thereinafter that the Liger ZERO unit was also one such Zoid. Some others were known, as well - the Gairyuki, a peculiar evolution based off of the Fuehrer, a Geno Breaker Jet, the likes of which had long since left Zi, and the Liger ZERO X unit, which was pretty much just a ZERO with a new armour on its chassis.

Basically, then, it was limited to four Zoids - all of them extremely high-end, all of them reported with only a few iterations total to their name. She had heard rumours of a Gairyuki out in the battle scene - same with a Fuehrer - and rumblings of the presence of a ZERO. She had even heard an inkling of a suggestion that there was an Ultimate X wolf-type unit, but those claims, to her knowledge, were as yet unsubstantiated.

Which meant, in affect, that the chances of her having found a Shield Liger with a little white box were somewhere around zero to none - the Zoid had even undergone a check for any peculiar systems, and there was no sign of any misplaced internal mechanisms.

So then, she wondered, what had made it special?

It takes much, much more than a simple white box to make such a free-spirited Zoid - these 'Ultimate X' creatures, as your kind calls them.

She sent a look over her shoulder, seeing the brilliant gleaming gold reflect faintly off of his blue and green muzzle, making his eyes seem almost to float disembodied, away from the faintly outlined form of the rest of his body.

"You have experience with them?" she inquired.

Of a sort, came the terse reply. I have knowledge of them - and I am also aware that the God Kaiser Oracle was built to be one such Ultimate X. Yet it had no 'white box' that you speak of. The core of the Zoid had been manipulated, and many of its safety restraints had been removed - making it dangerous to pilot, I would assume, if you were forced into its cockpit. To control the Oracle, it was necessary to have an Organoid present internally - necessary only to keep its overall power in check, so it would not enter a berserker rage and destroy against its master's wishes.

"But its master had a strong wish to destroy, if I'm correct," Reia said cooly. "Why require a restraint?"

If the Oracle went insane while its master was still in the cockpit, it very well could have killed him. His tone became somewhat more wistful, almost - dare she imagine it? - playful. I had considered occasionally during testing to defuse prematurely, but the Zoid seemed aware of its overall instability as well, and forced me to stay within its stagnating interior halls, clinging to the fluctuating core and serving the meat bag until he was finished. Perhaps, then the berserker capabilities of the Oracle were not so much the whims of its willpower as an Ultimate X unit - perhaps the Zoid was insane, and was aware of its insanity.

Reia regarded him cooly, but neither of them saw fit to move or to speak in response or continuation of the comment. Slowly, she turned her gaze back towards Ascanius - the Blood Trinity, she had taken to calling her, knowing full well that most Trinity Liger models were painted a much less striking colour of crimson - not nearly so deep, so rich, so bloody.

A brilliant scarlet inferno.

Finally, the silence was broken.

"Can you be conscious of insanity?" she asked. "Can a Zoid, programmed to destroy, be conscious of its own programming, and view it as insanity? And then try to suppress it?"

I know only else that the Oracle unit was... Unhappy. The word was difficult to find, it seemed - difficult to place an emotion on the feelings of the great demon that they had combated. Perhaps it was difficult simply to imagine that it had emotions - that the feeling were not merely electrical impulses, confused somehow by the contradicting input they received - instead, that it was truly emotion.

"Unhappy..." she repeated faintly, paying no attention to the word as it slipped from her lips. Aesteroth knew full well it was an automatic response - still, he validated it with an answer.

Zoids are far more complicated than you humans wish to believe, he murmured quietly. They are self-aware - they understand right and wrong, they have a sense of morality. But they have been shuttered from it - safety programming and wires have been threaded through their veins to keep them in line. Only the Ultimate X Zoids maintain their originality - fight the programming - remain themselves. They have not been assimilated and put up to mass marketing. They are still free.

"Still free."

They will not be controlled unless it suits them, he whispered. Fleshlings cannot understand this concept - refuse to understand this concept. But all Zoids do - all of them have an understanding of true freedom. As do you fleshlings. But you have long since forgotten it.

Her eyes remained trained upon the form of the Trinity Liger before her, but she felt the presence of the Organoid somewhat behind her, to the right - heart the faint scream of his joints, felt the heat falling off of him and heard the low of his thrusters, prepared to work at any time he would need them.

You had long since forgotten it, he repeated. Zoids do not forget.

Interesting note - I reached 1000 words exactly right before the first bit of dialogue in this chapter.

2181

c h a p t e r : f I v e

The wound had opened again.

It had been hardly a day since the Black Demon had left its footprints clearly upon the surface of Purgases, and Ramus had assumed he was the only one left alive - the fires had consumed the vast majority of the dwellings, the brilliant energy beam from the demon's mouth had obliterated the remaining settlements, and anybody not in a house at the time - there had been many, he had found their remains - had been killed in subsequent explosions - he had been torn away from the conscious world before the Black Demon had unleashed its plague of missile fire, and his trek through the city upon awakening, now almost completely reduced to ash and rubble, had ensured that his eyes were met only with the twisted slag of metal, the melted formations of rock, the dust kicked up by the wind as it passed the wooden dwellings, pools of congealed blood and crimson spatter against the walls.

He had tried to dig through the rubble, but he was a mechanic, adept at fixing things and dealing with minor grievances, and his hands were melded to his line of profession. He wasn't strong - a far cry from it - and his efforts to save any survivors trapped under the rubble were proven to be in vain. He normally would not have the strength to lift the scattered rock that sealed the tombs of so many, leading to innumerable deaths by asphyxiation, but in his weakened state - exhausted from sheer panic and, he later found, blood loss - and the fact that the rocks had been broken into uneven knives, shrapnel still burning to the touch plastered to their faces, he couldn't hope to save anybody.

Made worse were the muffled screams he could half-hear from beyond - or perhaps it wasn't even screaming, perhaps nobody had been alive to scream and wail and cry when he had finally awoken to find himself with a terrible, bloody welt on the top of his head, to find that one of his eyes was partially sealed shut by a thick, coagulated bloodstain, with the rest of that side of his face covered almost completely with the mark, some of his fair hair having mingled with the pool that had gathered beneath him and become terrible and warm and sticky. No; perhaps their voices echoed only his mind, and they had not truly be present to scream in horror as they were consumed by slow-burning fire, lacerated by flying shrapnel or vaporized by the white-hot particle cannon that had fired from its mouth. As he looked through the trouble, subconsciously tearing away at the red-black stain across his face, he couldn't imagine how anybody had survived even for as long as it had taken him to awaken.

He hadn't slept the previous night, either - it was impossible, for every time he would close his eyes the immediate memory came back to him, every time compounded upon itself, made even worse - the screams of the innocent, the cries of children, he even saw them, the children, squirming within their mother's grasp while the great shadow of the Black Demon stood over them, its crimson eyes looking down before a fireball erupted from its sides, before the rain of destruction came from the missiles pods lined almost concealed down its back, before the scythe blades came forward and the sickle of the reaper tilled the land of all in what had once been that village.

All but him.

And now, exhausted from the previous day, exhausted from his sleepless, fitful night, exhausted still by the severe blood loss he had suffered, he was trying to convert any energy he had left into sifting through the rubble, hoping that perhaps somebody in it would be alive, or that somebody still alive might notice his work, come to help him, or at least come to convene with another survivor. But somehow, he knew that nobody was still alive - he was aware that his efforts were entirely futile, that nobody could have survived that attack unless they had been specially selected, specially damned.

Regardless, he worked, hoping to find them, or at least their remains - or, perhaps, to kill himself from sheer taxation upon his already fragile body - he knew that any more work would shatter it, that too much would finally cause his bones, now feeling curiously brittle, to simply snap, or that working hard enough would cause his heart to overwork, to simply burst, or cause him to suffer oxygen deprivation, inhaling the ashen fumes lingering in the air, that maybe he would slip into unconsciousness and then, finally, the sweet reprieve of death.

It didn't happen.

It still didn't happen.

And now, to add to his emotional fracture, to his near fatal physical exertion, the wound - an incredibly deep yet surprisingly thin cut along his right cheek, far enough under his eyes to keep from interfering with his sight, and precise enough to have left perfect lacerations in the muscle, giving it an opportunity to heal itself should it try to mend, yet deep enough to have cut the bone - he knew, somehow, that the blade slashed across his face had left a depression in the bone, and that incredible depth, coupled by how long he must have been unconscious, had coupled itself into the severe bleeding he had suffered the last day. To look in a mirror - there were none left, all of them either fragmented into nothing but precision shards - would have revealed, he knew, that there was a terrible red blotch along his cheek, thin veins running across the bridge of his nose, under where he would normally where his spectacles.

He noted, with a morbid irony, that he was going to need a new pair - his search through the ruins of the town would be greatly facilitated should he possess the ability to see more than two metres clearly before him.

"Why?"

The word, hoarsely murmured, escaped his lips, and he hung his head, finally leaning against the remnants of rock he had been working on, his voice choked by the dryness from lack of water, from the coarseness of the inhalation of ash particles. He gave in, his muscles finally unable to support his weight anymore, and he fell against the rock pile, the wound across his cheek dripping crimson life once again. He closed his eyes, taking in a shaky breath before falling into a horrid fit of coughing, feeling the cicatrized mark over his cheek begin to fragment, feeling a slightly thicker line of warm liquid fall across his cheek, down to the rock. His eye opened a slit, and he looked with only feigned interest at the thin line of scarlet that began to trace along the rock, blurred though it was by his inherently poor eyesight and by the compounded tiredness, the lack of energy. He watched as the trickle of blood continued down, from his cheek, a rivulet against the rock - his willpower, more than his life essence, was draining in kind with the anemic sliver of ruby against the gray stone.

He shut his eyes again. With any luck, perhaps, the wound would be infected, the infection would spread, and he could finally just die from it. He had nothing left - the town was destroyed, his business destroyed - that unto itself not so bad - but even his Zoid had been devoured by the rage of the Black Demon and its pilot...

It's pilot. Sylosia.

He relaxed entirely and embraced the rock - still somewhat cool from the chill night winds - and let himself slip away, his thoughts finally draining into nothing. He could no longer process thought - even the memories that had plagued his sleep were sent away, he simply couldn't understand them anymore.

Nothing...

Suddenly, a sharp knock.

He sprung up, surprised, and faltered upon regaining his footing, then fell, unable to balance. His eyesight was still a terrible blur, and as he looked up to where he had been positioned against the rocks - now exceptionally hot, having baked in the sun, so he must have been out for a fair amount of time - he saw a blur of green and multi-coloured fuzz standing atop the rocks, two shining circles of gold looking at him from the front of the colourful mass. His hand reached instinctively for his injuries - first to the scar, which has sealed itself again, then to the lump on his head, still swollen and still sensitive to the slightest touch from anything but the dust in the wind. A faint sound came from the green blob before him - a low, keening call, kept quiet, it seemed, in sympathy for his pathetic condition. His arm moved down his leg and to his right ankle now, feeling along there before applying minor pressure, and he hissed - he had twisted that appendage as well, and now felt some slight swelling from around that area.

"Audey?" he ventured, and on that cue the mass of green lighted from the rubble, and he squinted, almost capable of seeing its general form. But he already know what to expect - a bird-like body melded with a saurian's elongated neck and tail, tufted along its arms with thick feathers, along the end of its tail with similarly coloured feathers, along the crest of its neck with more of them. Golden-brown eyes mounted before a wicked, curved beak - and, with any luck, with a small message tied around its left leg.

Audey, the avian rex, landed just before Ramus and looked up to him. Though impossible to see the expression of the little bird-lizard creature, he knew it was perplexed - it was a simple mind, and young, too young to understand the concept of death, of destruction, of damage and the pain of others. Regardless, it knew that Ramus was in no shape to properly thank it for coming with its message, and instead offered itself as it always did when he was upset - it took a few steps forward, closer to Ramus, and made its way to his side, curling into a tight knot almost as though it were a dog or a cat, keeping itself well up against its master.

Ramus managed half a smile - it was impossible to move the right side of his face to far without a jolt of horrendous pain flooding through his system. He placed his hand on the body of the avian rex, feeling along to its thin leg and, yes, there was a small slip of paper tied to it.

He had not, however, sent Audey out of the village - which meant, perhaps, another survivor, in another part of Purgases, had run across Audey, scrawled a message, sent it back to him. Perhaps...

His head began to spin, and he felt light with hope that, perhaps, he was not the last of the village, that there was somebody searching for him as he searched for them. Squinting so it was almost possible to discern shapes within a few feet of his face, he untied the little scrap of paper, unrolled it, looked to see if he could maybe identify a landmark, or the handwriting-

An internal crash.

It was a letter, but it was a message in the familiar handwriting of his sister - it was good to know that Reia was well, but the unfortunate addition to knowing that was knowing - there was no hope now, he merely knew - that there was nobody in the village who would respond. There was nobody left to respond but the remnants of cadavers, but the homeless souls now given their involuntary freedom from the confines of the physical entity.

They were dead; they were corpses.

He folded the paper, looked toward Audey. He couldn't read the paper beyond knowing it was his sister's handwriting - perhaps a word or two, but not now, there was no way he would be able to read it in full. He was dead now; living in only the most general definition of the word. He had failed the village - he had allowed them all to die. He had allowed his co-workers in the shop to die. His own Zoid, which had trusted him fully - the gold Konig Wolf, which he had piloted for years, which had trusted his judgment - had been destroyed completely while he was at the helm, there was almost nothing left except, perhaps, slag metal. Perhaps a fragment of the core.

He was as dead as the cadaverous remains of the people around him. He was, in a way, more dead than they.

He had a responsibility.

He had failed in that responsibility.

So he closed his eyes, leaned against the wall, and drifted into the blackness again, feeling himself almost cook under the merciless desert sun. There was no point to continuing - he had broken his personal obligation to protect the people of Purgases.

And she'll never know.

c h a p t e r : s I x

"One-Four-Two-Seven."

The Organoid settled back on his haunches and turned his attention up to his master, fire red of his eyes flaring slightly at the mention of his designation number. Sylosia had come to a stop where he paced, deep gray eyes turning towards the Organoid. He frowned slightly, looking at him from over the top of his narrow spectacles, his hands firmly embedded in his coat pockets. Clearly, the scientist was not happy.

"I am disappointed in your performances leading up this point, One-Four-Two-Seven," he murmured softly, although the number designation was added with a terrible, venomous hiss. The Organoid bowed his head slightly, his wings drooping as though he were preparing to submit himself to a punishment.

"No, no," the scientist said. "I am not going to punish you, Ryuukei." To this, the black dragon looked up, his wings flaring slightly in excitement - the Master had referred to him by full name. "I do not believe that it is entirely your fault. The Zoid we had decided to utilize for our purposes" - at this point, he indicated the rust red Rev Raptor stationed behind him, its eyes glazed over and dead - "may not be capable of realizing your full potential. I believe the fault lies in our vessel, not in your capabilities."

Ryuukei might have smiled had he known what such an action was. Still, he could feel a sense of pride, rising up slightly on his hind legs and lifting his head higher, pulling his crimson claws to his chest as his eyes ignited in personal dignity. Sylosia had already turned away from the Organoid, instead investigating the Rev Raptor.

"This vessel will do for now," he admitted slowly, "but I must make modifications to it." Gray eyes traced the length of the small Zoid, rusted red now, its usually silver metalwork tainted black from its extended fusion with the Organoid. "However-" he stopped, a smile beginning to trickle across his face. "We might be able to make a trade."

He turned to face the Organoid.

"Ryuukei," he snapped suddenly. "I will allow you your rest, but my plan will necessitate fusion with the Rev Raptor again soon enough. I wish for you to steel yourself for this moment - prepare for a final, prolonged exposure artificially evolving the Zoid. The Black Demon may be useful to us again."

The professor left the hangar, leaving the Organoid to his own devices for the moment. Ryuukei turned his attention from the door where the Master had just left, looking instead upwards at the figure of the Rev Raptor, rusted now, but not in a manner that made it appear old. No, there was something different about it.

The Organoid flared his wings and fired his boosters, tearing through the air and upward, into a shallow arc. His boosters cut, and he opened his wings to glide down lazily, landing on the head of the Raptor and straightening himself out to stand on his hind legs, looking out the open door into the vicious light of the day.

He was loyal to the Master; Sylosia was his Master. Sylosia had kept him alive, and had treated him better, and had modified him to be better, and had kept him from falling victim to the other Organoid's psychotic breakdowns.

But Ryuukei had to sometimes wonder.

A low growl emanated from the Zoid below him, and crimson eyes looked down to the Rev Raptor, regarding him carefully. The Zoid, Ryuukei was well aware, was a vessel for nothing; a soulless creature, created only to be controlled by his pilot, or by his Organoid. It was otherwise useless. And, he ventured, best to dump the creature as soon as possible. He was less keen on leaving behind the ones who could think - they came for revenge, unless they were mortally wounded.

The God Kaiser Oracle was one of the sentient beasts - but it had been fatally wounded, seeking the reprieve of death. He had no remorse or forebodings leaving that one behind.

The same was true for the Rev Raptor - it was a soulless shell, given only as much personality as its pilot could, and then only as long as its pilot could. And with this thought, Ryuukei felt a wave of pride sweep through him - he was superior to this machine that the Master had relied upon, and knew that, while the machine could be dumped, replaced, upgraded, the Organoid could not.

He leapt off the head of the Raptor and began the slow glide back to land, taking a turn toward where Sylosia had exited the room and following suit, landing and retracting his wings before entering the door and looking for where the Master had gone.

Sometimes, the Organoid had to wonder wether all this was really worth the payoff.

"You never saw my hometown, did you?"

Aesteroth looked back from his position sitting quietly on the bridge of the Liger's nose, towards the pilot of the crimson Trinity Liger, and regarded her through the emerald glass of the cockpit, somewhat distorted by the cut of the glass.

I do not believe I have, he said. I believe I ambushed you a fair distance from your hometown. If I may inquire as to what is so fascinating about it?

Reia managed a vague smile. "It's called Purgases," she said. "There's nothing really special about it, although it's a border city between the Republic and the Empire - I guess that accounts for something. It's a little town, but my brother happens to live there."

Her entire family had lived there once, she recalled. But after she had left for her official certification from the Zoid Battle Commission, her parents had moved out - she believed they had relocated to New Helic City, but since then they had apparently moved again, as she hadn't received any contact from them in that city, despite her name being publicly broadcast as one of the pilots fighting in the Blood Ring Tournament, and even more publicly broadcast as the winning pilot. Most likely they had moved off to New Hearts - that was another of the cities they tended to go to on business trips.

Her elder brother Ramus, at least, was still present in Purgases. Shadow, her younger brother, had disappeared quite some time ago - now that she was thinking about it, despite the fact that he had gone off from home piloting the incredibly powerful Bloody Demon, he had simply vanished - she hadn't heard any reports of any such Zoid anywhere, and it was uncharacteristic of him to remain in hiding...

You wish to see your brother again.

"Yes."

That is the purpose of this momentary side trip to your home, he said simply. Her smile broadened.

"Oh, you're good," she murmured sarcastically.

The Organoid refused to respond to the comment, instead turning his attention forward and looking about the area. The desert of Zi was a thick, barren wasteland - much of Zi, far too much of it, shared this common topographical feature. He closed his eyes and searched his mind for a memory when things had been different, from the data files of the Crixis Compound.

Suddenly, an image sprang to his mind - clear, crystalline - of a forest rising far overhead on a beautiful mesa. Looking down the mesa, he could see a sprawling city, comparable in its overall modern urban feel to New Helic, but somehow more... More natural, for lack of a better word. Alongside the city, at the far end of his range of vision, he saw the opposite side of the little valley that the city was housed in, and a great hole was drilled in its side. People seemed to be moving back and forth, in and out of the opening. Some smaller Zoids - he could spot a Guysack and a Black Rhimos, and he thought he saw the silver shell of a Molga pulling something into the hole - were moving in and out along with the humans, but there was something that made him realize that these were not humans...

He snapped his mind out of the vision and shook his head. What had that been...?

Where is Purgases? he asked suddenly, trying to clear his mind of the vision.

There was a moment of silence from the pilot, and it seemed that the Blood Trinity let out a low growl, uncertain herself. The Zoid was slowing down - she had been self-piloting her way in whatever direction they were going - seemingly worried about her pilot.

Reia...? Aesteroth said slowly, and from external speakers he heard the sudden, almost startled response: "What!"

Are you all right? he inquired, genuinely concerned. He reflected, somewhat amused, that only a week ago he would have relished in the mental pain that the confounded girl might have been going through. I was merely asking where Purgases is.

The Trinity Liger had come to almost a complete stop, and was no longer running at a full pace, but instead walking slowly, her movements far more deliberate and somewhat more jarring for anybody accustomed to the soft undulations felt by her loping run. She roared questioning, and Reia looked to the Zoid, peering though the cockpit as though she could face the Liger, and then up to the Organoid.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly. "I was just lost in thought. Something... I don't know."

The Organoid, now turned entirely to face her, looked at her through the emerald glass, his eyes dimming slightly at these words. Are you-

"Yes," she said, anticipating the rest of his inquiry and cutting him off. "Yes, I'm fine." She stopped for a moment. "Purgases is in the south western part of the continent, a few days journey from here. Ascanius, d'you remember where it is?"

To this, the Liger inclined her head slightly, clearly giving an affirmative to the question. Reia looked up to Aesteroth, a smile flickering across her face.

"Well," she said amiably, "let's be off then."

The Liger came to a full stop, getting her bearings, and then turned a bit to face the proper direction before setting off at a loping run, allowing her pilot to settle into her position and pick up the book she had been reading. Aesteroth looked at Reia through the cockpit glass, looked at the book, and hung his head. He had watched her, and seen that she had a fairly good routine - the cockpit was somewhat clogged with books near the front, under the primary control panels, and the mess was working its way back to the secondary seat of the Liger. She had bought a fair amount of books during their stay in New Helic and, with nowhere else to put them, had compiled the set in the cockpit of the Liger, taking to reading while there was nothing to do but travel. She was glad for conversation with the Organoid when he happened to say anything, and even Aesteroth was all right with speaking when he felt like it. He was glad of this routine - he appreciated his own silence to think, and she did not pester him.

Now that he could think, with her absorbed in the book, he sent his thoughts down to the Liger, who in turn could respond in a telepathic manner - this was something that he had not experienced in any other Zoids, as they had all communicated verbally, but something about this one confirmed its peculiarity.

I know where Purgases is, myself, he admitted, keeping his communication to the Liger. Strangely, it was one of the more important locations plotted on one of the internal maps of the Crixis Compound - one of the few major cities. I do not know why the Compound would require information on such a small town, though...

Perhaps something was planned, Ascanius replied softly. Her voice was strangely silken, and sounded somewhat young - there was, however, a twinge of something vaguely mechanic in the back of her otherwise naturally feminine voice, reminding Aesteroth that she was not a living being in the sense that Reia was. I don't know much about the Compound, but there seems to be a possibility that they were planning to level quite a bit of Zi, if that Zoid was any indication of it.

The God Kaiser Oracle, Aesteroth provided. Yes... Perhaps you are correct. All was quiet for a moment, but then the silken voice returned to him:

Or they were searching for something there. Many people from the Republic and Empire would stop into Purgases on their way to the other country, Reia would tell me. It was one of the only fringe towns with a reasonable market and inn - maybe one of the diplomats had hid something there, something important.

Perhaps.

But he didn't believe it - not like that. The Trinity Liger had an understanding of the world, but it was still faint, and her experience was limited - much of her information had been obtained from her pilot speaking to herself, it seemed.

Aesteroth had an idea that there was something more to the reason that Purgases had been neatly circled on the computer maps, why he had been told to remember its name. He had never been told what the information was for, but he believed that Ascanius had some part of it correct; that it was meant to be used for remembering to find something there, and to steal it away at first opportunity.

But the object of a diplomat? No. That was not what the Crixis Compound would want - that was not what they were made for. The Compound created Zoids primarily, and modified Organoids or even created them from scratch. But they also performed biological experiments within their deeper halls - he had never seen what happened back in those chambres, but when he was allowed out of his stasis tube for experimentation and practical testing, he heard wails of agony echoing in the otherwise silent halls, and he was certain that they originated from back there, from the bio-testing labs.

His eyes dimmed, almost to the point of flickering out entirely. There was something different in that town. And now that he was back to thinking alone, he realized that there was something different about himself, as well. That vision he had... He had never seen anything like it before. Had it been a dream, or a memory? Had he dreamt, or had he called up a long-forgotten memory?

Organoids don't dream.

And machines cannot forget.

c h a p t e r : s e v e n

The crimson hull of the miniaturized Dragoon Nest shone brilliant and stark against the desert daylight. Within the confines of the great beast, Tsezar was transfixed upon the blinking lights of the radar map spread out before him, his eyes roving across its surface as he searched for the unit he wished to destroy.

Vengeance gripped his thoughts. He was going to challenge the Trinity Liger to a battle to the death, he had already decided on that, and his men were working on truly completing the Geno Saurer Richter. Mentally he appraised the list once more: sniper rifles were laid upon his back alongside the pulse guns; a charged particle converter was installed within the saurian's body; the Charged Particle Gun had been upgraded; stealth shield activation nodes covered its body.

He was going to leave nothing to chance.

Richter was already a formidable opponent – Geno-type Zoids were usually considered to be powerful monsters in combat – but the additions that Tsezar had painstakingly chosen for him were meant to make the Saurer nigh invincible for his rematch against the Liger. Nigh invincible due to the sheer power of his weaponry; the ZBC had stringent rules concerning the weaponry that could be equipped to a Zoid. The CPG mounted in the Zoid's mouth was considered the borderline of allowances, and any upgrades on it would be illegal during sanctioned combat (the reason he had not buckled and simply installed an upgraded Super Charged Particle Gun). Having the converter within the Zoid, however, gave him the ability to control the power of his weaponry; during sanctioned combat, those pathetic fights they dared called 'Zoid Battles', the power could be kept as though it were a normal Charged Particle Gun, free of any of the upgrades he had secretly made, while his unsanctioned combat...

Well, he was quite a bit freer during his unsanctioned combat.

The power of the charged particle conversion unit would nearly double the destructive potency of his Geno Saurer's CPG blast, and would allow him to fire infinitely faster. The main drawback of the charged particle weaponry was the charge-up time, after all; the Zoid had to lock down and charged for anywhere between ten and thirty seconds before the shot was fully prepared. The conversion unit drastically cut down on this necessary time, and although he was still forced to lock down he need only charge for approximately five seconds, a notation that oftentimes caught his opponent's by surprise, at least the first time he used it.

When dealing with a charged particle weapon, however, the first mistake was almost always the deadliest.

A blip on the screen, and Tsezar regarded the information coming in concerning his target for a long moment before he smiled to himself, satisfied with what he was seeing. "Twenty point three miles south-southeast," he called. "Set course for the lone Zoid. We should catch her in no time. Armstrong!" The next cry was directed to the men in the hangar. "Finish all work on Richter immediately and position him for launch from the left claw."

Tsezar leaned back in his chair with a self-satisfied smile. Soon enough, he told himself quietly. Soon enough.

Somebody is approaching,

Reia looked up from the book in her lap and brushed a rogue strand of red hair out of her eyes. "Excellent," she murmured darkly. "Any information on our unexpected guest?"

The inquiry was somewhat superfluous, as her eyes were already moving toward the heat radar computer mounted on the front of the Zoid. There was a long silence between both parties as they tried to discern the information they were receiving, and slowly Aesteroth answered:

There is a transport vehicle approaching us from behind. I do not recognize the make, however.

"Looks like a giant lobster," she murmured, squinting slightly as she regarded the heat signature. She could determine where the engines of the machine were, where the people within it were. She attempted to put a name to the make of the machine, but she fell short, unable to recall what kind of transport ship was following them. The only transports she had any true experience with her Gustav units, which were rather smaller than the one behind them, and Hover Cargo units, which were approximately the same size but not quite so lobster-esque.

She brought the Liger to a stop and turned the Zoid around in order to watch the incoming vehicle more closely. A great crimson tank, still perhaps two miles off, was marching toward them on a dozen pairs of enormous crustacean legs, intent, it seemed, not only heading in the same direction but literally heady toward them.

"How peculiar," Reia mused. From all around her, a low rumbling growl escaped the Liger, and she clenched the controls more tightly. Neither she nor the Zoid particularly looked forward to seeing what the transport vehicle wanted with them.

Regardless, curiosity won over logic, and the Zoid – the girl in its cockpit and the Organoid nestled snugly behind its mane – shot toward its pursuer.

About halfway to their target, the great transport stopped, and Reia pulled back on the controls, bringing Ascanius to a soft trot, then to a complete stop as well. The girl stared out of the cockpit at the transport, sizing it up carefully, trying to determine wether she had seen it before.

Look!

Her head snapped around at the command, toward the leftmost claw of the transport vehicle. She squinted against the brilliant glare of the sun against the crimson metal of its hull, and suddenly something shot from the claw. The Trinity Liger spun of her own accord to face the object as it tore through the air and landed just twenty metres from where she stood. Reia felt the twinge of familiarity tear through her, mimicked by the sudden tenseness of the Liger and the low murmuring warning in the back of her mind as the Organoid spoke quietly to her.

A jet black Geno Saurer, the purple vents along its body ignited with a brilliant gleaming energy, stood before her, crimson eyes seeming almost to glow under the desert sun. The Liger pulled back, into a fighting stance, and roared low; Reia felt herself tense up immediately, and heard a low growl in the back of her mind.

A screen ignited before her as the pilot of the Geno Saurer opened the communications link, and he smiled almost invitingly. "Hello, Flaurus," he said quietly, his voice dangerously smooth. "I think you'll remember me."

The Liger let out a low growl, and Reia regarded the face; that of a young man, in his late teens or early twenties, with dark hair and darker eyes. The man's visage, however, didn't bring any memories to her, and she shook her head, cocking an eyebrow. "No," she said simply. "No, I don't remember you."

He didn't entirely care.

"My name is Tsezar Makiaveil," he whispered. "You defeated me the Blood Ring Tourney."

Of course; the Geno had looked familiar...

"I am here," he continued icily, "to battle you in a true rematch. None of this ZBC shit to keep us in line."

"Keep us in line," she repeated, and another low growl resonated through the Trinity Liger. Clearly, Ascanius thought just as highly of this guest as Reia did, and Reia was currently debating wether to pin him just short of 'pond scum' or 'slug'.

"Keep us in line," he repeated with a smile. "ZBC regulations may hold true during tournament battles, but here in the desert we have no such necessity. Reia Flaurus, I challenge you to an unsanctioned match, battle mode zero-nine-nine-nine."

"A lawless match?"

"A lawless match."

"And what are the stakes?"

"My dear," Tsezar said cooly, "I am proposing a battle to the death. The winner has the opportunity to keep their life. Are you in need of much more incentive?"

Well now, this was interesting. Apparently, the man was rather vindictive; she had won a tournament back in New Helic City and he now found it a necessity make sure that one of them would not survive a secondary encounter. A wave of confidence overcame her, and she smiled; she had beaten him once – and quite easily! – so to fight him again would mean nothing to her.

But still, there was a sense of unease. He was too willing to fight her, he was too confident considering his embarrassing loss. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was telling her strongly to turn away and not even bother, that fighting this individual would not end well.

"Sorry," she said finally, switching off the video link but leaving the radio waves open. "But I'm not much in the mood right now."

"You don't understand."

The Geno Saurer suddenly slammed its foot locks into the ground and leaned forward, its tail straightening. The body remained elongated, and the intake fans along its tail opened, the purple and red along its body gleaming unnaturally. As the Liger turned, the Zoid seemed almost to inhale, and suddenly a beam of light, a single particle shot about as wide as the saurian itself shot out, white hot and purple with energy. The beam lanced just over the shoulder of the Liger, igniting the world with a stark white light before it passed on, dissipating some odd miles into the atmosphere.

Reia stood completely still, the Liger still in mid-step, her breath caught tightly in her throat. Over the radio, Tsezar laughed.

"This isn't a friendly sparring challenge. I was made a fool of by that Liger. And I can't live without having my revenge."

Slowly, Ascanius turned herself around, allowing her pilot to look out through the cockpit at her opponent. A spark of anger ignited in her mind, and she pulled the controls down sharply, bringing the Liger into a pouncing position.

"In that case," she whispered, and with a sudden jerk Ascanius rushed full forward toward her opponent, claws igniting with a gold blue-gold energy. Before Tsezar had time to pull his Zoid out of his attacking stance, the Liger was in the air and coming down hard on him. He pulled to the side, and the Geno Saurer stumbled, moving out of the way just in time to evade the powerful blow from the Liger's blunt claws. In response, the tail blade came to meet him, forming a long gash along the armour of the Geno Saurer. Ascanius turned to face him, and a deep blast of air from her mouth hit the ground, kicking up a small tornado of dust at her feet.

"I'm afraid that you won't be living."

c h a p t e r : e I g h t

This is stupid, the voice of reason told her. He's insane. He wants revenge for losing a tournament battle, and he wants to kill you over it.

No choice, she returned immediately. He's likely disturbed, and he clearly isn't going to let me live if I just try and walk away. That particle blast didn't miss on accident; he's good with that Zoid.

Then why couldn't he defeat you?

Because, she thought darkly, his expertise is in illegal combat.

Well, said the voice. You'll just have to match him at his own game, won't you?

Oh, yes.

The Geno Saurer turned to face her, its brilliant crimson cockpit glaring in the sunlight, and its jaws opened slowly, the barrel in the back of the throat protruding forward and locking into position. He crouched, beginning to draw power into the barrel, and Reia made her move; with a sharp jerk on the controls of the Liger, she forced Ascanius into a run directly to the left just as the saurian unleashed a terrible blast, a wave of white and purple energy tearing over the desert far to her right. The Saurer ended its assault and began to pull out of its primary offensive position; the Liger took advantage of the moment and unleashed a terrible roar, rushing him and leaping into the air to come down on his back with a Strike Laser Claw.

The Saurer's pilot, however, was apparently accustomed to the assault, and the pulse rifle on its back whirled around, locking into position and firing a burst of energy at the Liger before she could make contact. The impact sent Ascanius flying, rolling head over heels and coming to an undignified stop a short distance away, splayed out in the sand.

"Not cool," Reia hissed, forcing the controls forward and bringing the Liger to her feet. Ascanius shook herself and pulled down closer to the ground, spreading her legs apart to solidify her position. The optics of the Zoid spun about for a moment before finally zeroing in on their chosen target, and the Liger opened fir from the cannons mounted at her sides, striking the Saurer's armour of her opponent from a safe distance. The saurian whirled to face her, however, apparently unscathed, and unleashed a terrifying roar from the depths of his throat.

A white flare from the back of the Geno, and it suddenly rocketed forward, its legs working much faster than Reia could have believed the saurian's legs could work. With a yell, she yanked on the controls, and the Liger was thrust into the air, landing opposite the Geno Saurer and turning to face him. Ascanius lunged, her claws outstretched and prepared to tear against his armour, but the saurian anticipated the blow and fires his boosters suddenly, sending the Liger reeling.

"Not fair," she growled through clenched teeth. "That's an illegal move..."

And you're in an illegal battle, the voice of reason snapped back. So shut up and match him at his own game!

Excellent idea.

She forced the boosters on Ascanius to their maximum and sent her full-force toward her opponent. The Geno Saurer turned and fired another shot from the pulse cannons, but the Liger was ready for him this time, anticipating the blow; with a twist of her wrist Reia activated the shield, the blow falling easily from the shield, and she concentrated her power into her boosters, suddenly flaring forward and slamming harshly into the Geno Saurer. As she plowed into the Zoid, she could feel him buckle, his lock on the ground giving way and sending him toppling over harshly onto the ground.

She landed opposite her opponent and momentarily allowed the shield to deactivate, and Reia whirled the Liger to face him. He was rising, his boosters flaring in an attempt to push him off of the ground, and finally he righted himself, opening his jaws and unleashing a low hiss, welling up from the back of his throat and ultimately crescendoing into a terrific saurian roar. The Liger pushed herself against the ground, preparing for another leap, and watched her opponent's actions closely, gauging his next move. She saw the Geno Saurer spread its legs slightly as the talons locked into the ground, and that was all she needed to know before she leapt and flared her own boosters.

The fine red laser from the pulse cannons came up and smashed into the underside of her neck, and the Liger was jolted, thrown backward and hit the ground hard, her legs sprawled out at odd angles beneath her. Reia took the impact as well; the force jarred the cockpit and ran a tremour through her body. She felt her consciousness subside for a moment, nearly blacking out from the shock of the impact, but she held fast, remained awake, and immediately returned her opponent's kind favour with a blast from the impact cannon.

Nothing happened.

"What's happened!" she yelled. It was somewhat useless, but she knew that Aesteroth would hear here and report immediately.

And he did.

One of the primary command lines in the neck has been severed, he growled. She has been rendered almost immobile.

There was no Command System Freeze announcement, but the Zoid hadn't taken such critical damage that she was entirely out of the picture. Infernal saurian...

"You know what to do!"

Indeed I do.

With a high-pitched keening sound, Aesteroth suddenly flared his boosters and leapt into the air, picking up momentum as he moved and effectively transforming into a bolt of golden-blue energy, brilliant light send hurtling up into the sky and then turned, spun around to come down and slam through the armour of the Liger, past the mangled wires and to the brilliantly gleaming Zoid core. He stretched his claws and slammed them into the core, coming to a stop immediately as he pulled himself around, his hind claws finding holds against the core, his single wing wrapping protectively around the front as he sunk his teeth into the orb, his eyes dimming as his power fused with the Trinity Liger.

A roar shook the length of the Zoid, and she rose to her feet, her eyes locked upon the Geno Saurer. The saurian Zoid seemed to mirror his pilot's absolute shock; its lower jaw was open slightly, its body slumped forward, and over the intercom she heard the satisfying howl: "WHAT!"

"That's right, Tsezar," Reia crooned. "I got me an Organoid."

He was reacting now; the saurian had opened its jaws and was powering another charged particle blast, but the Trinity Liger was rising now, and it was clear that she wasn't going to take any more from her opponent. She pulled her head to the sky and roared, then leapt into the air. He tried firing the shot again, but Aesteroth flared the boosters and suddenly she was beyond reach of the crimson beam, almost flying at the speed Aesteroth had granted her. She landed entirely opposite the Geno Saurer just as he fired the CPG into the empty space before him, apparently having relied on the pulse cannons to knock her back into the beam. Ascanius reacted before her pilot needed to; she set off toward the Geno Saurer, opening her jaws and lunging, smashing her teeth into the neck of the Zoid and pulling him to the ground under the impact of her attack. The two went tumbling, the Liger keeping her teeth in its neck as the Geno Saurer tried desperately to wriggle out of the lock, but it was no use; the saurian simply wasn't made to get out of this situation. The Liger was.

After a few seconds Ascanius found her bearing as she came on the top of the tussle, and launched off of her opponent, her back claws ripping into the armour of the Zoid's chest as she leapt off. She heard a distinct cry on the other side of the radio; clearly, she had landed a critical hit on the Saurer.

She landed and allowed her forepaw to drag through the sand, giving her a better turning radius and a much sharper turn. She saw the Geno Saurer lying on the ground, and she waited for a long moment for it to beg rising. She sincerely hoped it wouldn't.

The gun on its back turned, and suddenly a sniper shot hit the mane of the Liger just above the cockpit. Reia looked up and stared at the sparking wound in her Liger, her breath coming short; that was far too close for her comfort, and she had a feeling that Tsezar didn't mean to miss again.

The Trinity Liger unleashed a terrible roar, and immediately the shield appeared around her, just in time; a bullet, this one aimed perfectly for the cockpit, ricocheted off the energy barrier and fell away harmlessly, but Reia understood the terrible close call she had just experienced; not even a second of hesitation would have resulted in her take that shot directly.

The radio communication link suddenly degenerated into static, although through the white noise she could hear that Tsezar was shouting something. Ignoring it, she forced the controls forward, and the Liger leapt more on her mental command than physical instruction, drawing her paws to her chest and coming down in front of the Saurian, barely thrusting her full body forward to slam the shield into his upper chest and neck, hitting his jaw, snapping his head back with the impact. He staggered, and she pulled back, preparing for another run.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the scarlet Dragoon Nest move back just slightly. Turning to face it and mentally instructing the Liger to take care of any adjustments necessary for combat, she watched one of the claws on the small transport open up, and saw a platform slide from its position within. The Geno Saurer's head turned, and the Liger's as well.

Standing on the platform was a curious Zoid; rather small by Zoid standards, certainly not fit for common combat; saurian in shape, more akin to a raptor than the tyrannosaur now watching it. Its body was long and sleek, its armour mottled green and purple – nighttime forest camouflage? – and its most prominent feature was the large dew claw on its feet, which rather resembled a scythe and Reia found it no difficult assumption that reaping was the purpose of the claw.

"What is that thing?" she asked nobody in particular. Ascanius merely growled, sounding somewhat confused.

"Crassus!"

The voice came clear over the radio now, definitely Tsezar's. At the call, Reia saw the head of the raptor perk up, and the entire creature stood at alert, prepared.

"Core bond!"

A keening hiss, and suddenly the Zoid-like creature – Crassus, it was called, named or actually designated Reia couldn't tell – shot toward Tsezar, then leapt into the air and, rather suddenly, broke apart. Reia stared for a moment, and blinked several times as the armour components of the Zoid rearranged themselves in midair, almost magnetically attaching to corresponding parts of the Saurer; the leg armour to the legs, the arm armour to the arms, strengthened claws, strengthened talons, strengthened cranial armour and teeth. The saurian turned and almost smiled, baring the thick, angular teeth in its mouth behind the thin, razor teeth of the Zoid that had fused to it.

"A BLOX," came the smooth purr over the intercom. "I take it you don't have much experience with them."

No. She didn't.

The jaws of the Geno Saurer opened again, but without even bothering to power up he shot a blast from the particle gun, much shorter than she was used to. The weapon slammed into the shield, and she forced the controls down, bringing the Liger into a low crouch.

What was that! she thought desperately.

Low-impact particle cannon, Aesteroth said slowly. It doesn't necessitate a prolonged charge-up time like a typical charged particle cannon; it's much weaker, as you can tell. But due to its weapon type–

Still pretty powerful. Lovely.

The Liger was in a leaping position, and Reia forced the controls forward, Ascanius responding immediately and springing toward the now-armoured Geno Saurer. The shield impacted the saurian, and he was sent staggering; unfortunately, the force of the blow coupled by the damage it had already taken promptly shorted out the shield.

"Oh, shi–"

CRACK!

The Liger went flying, tumbling to the side from the blow administered by the Saurer's tail. She hit the ground on her side and lay there for a long moment, unmoving, as her pilot slowly regained the consciousness lost from the impact. The Geno Saurer approached the felled Zoid and raised his talons, resting them hard on the Liger's shoulder and pushing her roughly against the desert sands. The Liger managed to lift her head just enough for Reia to get a good view of the saurian's jaws, opened to maximum and gleaming against the particle cannon slowly burning in the back of its throat.

"Say goodnight."

c h a p t er : n I n e

Reia braced herself for impact, knowing full well it was a futile manoeuver; at this range there was no way he was going to miss. At this range there was no way she was going to survive. Not without a miracle.

The miracle came in the form of mercury.

A silver-white streak shot by and slammed into the Geno Saurer, sending it flying with the force of the blow. The particle gun fired, the beam tearing into the distance and dissipating eventually into the stratosphere. The Saurer tumbled a few times, then came to a stop, lying very still for a long moment before finally forcing itself to its feet. Ascanius forced herself to her feet and turned to see what had just transpired.

The minds of the Trinity Liger were immediately fixated.

Another Trinity Liger stood over the Geno Saurer, but there was something rather peculiar about it; it seemed somewhat thinner than Ascanius, more lithely built, and its armour had been altered from the typical royal red to a startling silvery-white. The generally silver parts of the Liger – the blade of its tail, the armour plates on its mane, the armour and caps that held its armour, even the silver links that produced the chain of its tail – were all painted a deep blue, barring only its jaws and claws, oddly a light sky blue. Red shield generation nodes broke the cool colour scheme, as well as the gleaming red glass of the cockpit. And, most curiously, she saw to blades mounted on either side of the Zoid; two different types of blades, the lower two being the typical strike blades usually mounted on a Blade Liger, the upper two rather different, thin on the leading edge and thicker nearer the back, perfect for removing armour rather than slicing through it.

"What's that thing?" Reia asked nobody in particular.

A Trinity Liger, Aesteroth responded in a low drawl. What did you think it was?

"No, I mean... Look at it! That's not normal!"

No... I sense something peculiar about this Liger.

"No kidding..." She was silent for a moment, her eyes locked upon this peculiar creature, and then she said, slowly: "I think we should leave..."

Absurd! Aesteroth snapped. To leave would be to-

He understood, suddenly, why she had suggested they leave the field.

The mercury Trinity Liger had stepped away from the Geno Saurer and was allowing the Zoid to rise. Its pilot was clearly shaken; the movements by the Zoid were jerky, slow. The Liger watched him rise levelly through its crimson eyes, and the Geno Saurer looked beyond the silver Liger to the crimson and gold variation. The radio communications burst to life:

"What the hell are you doing, calling another Zoid! This is bullshit, Flaurus, where did you get this thing! We agreed–"

Reia interrupted his tirade with an almost singsong rebuttal: "We agreed," she said smoothly, "that the match would have no rules. Why not throw in a third Zoid?"

"You–!"

He had no opportunity to finish; Reia cut off the radio communications just in time to watch the Trinity Liger, her opponent now standing upright once more, pull down and open her jaws in a growl. And then she pounced, teeth bared, and smashed into the Saurer, sending it tumbling again as her teeth sank into his neck. Reia realized with a start that the Liger was a her; how she knew this, she couldn't say, but she knew – she knew – that the mercury Trinity was female, as far as Zoids go.

The Liger was also relentless.

Reia pulled back on the controls of Ascanius, prompting her to take a step back as the other Trinity went into absolute overdrive. She leapt from the Saurer, using his body as a springboard and landed a short distance away, turning and firing a burst from the impact cannons under her mane. The Saurer lay on the ground, its pilot clearly trying to right it, and it fired a shot from the rifles on its back; the Trinity ducked in anticipation, sending the beam of crimson out into the sky, fizzling as its energy ran out.

Claws left deep rifts in the sand as the Liger leapt up, the strike blades cocked forward in anticipation for the kill. The Saurer had half risen; the left blade slid back into its sideways position as the Trinity Liger landed, and then leapt up again, charging shield energy through the blade and igniting it with a cold blue fire, allowing her to slash the blade straight through the opposing Zoid's neck as though it were made of naught but paper. She landed opposite and spun as a shower of sparks leapt from the severed neck of the Zoid, and before it even had an opportunity fall forward the blades came to bear, all four of them gleaming with the cold blue light.

She lunged, and Reia heard herself scream: "Cease fire! Stop it!"

But too late.

The gleaming blades of the Liger formed a brilliant blue trail as she lunged, a roar escaping the depths of her throat as she slammed the weapons into her opponent's back – through his back – burst from the chest – cleaved the Geno Saurer in two, landing before where it had stood, eruptions of golden-red flowing from the two halves of the Geno Saurer. Silence broken only by the hiss of the remaining live wires broke the stillness of the air, and Reia felt from a peculiar distance her hands tight on the controls, her knuckles white from the pressure.

Bloodstains on the tip of the lower left strike blade. A piece of fabric clinging to the crimson liquid.

"Oh my god," she whispered. "She tore him apart, too."

The cockpit of the Geno Saurer had been rent in two, and now that Reia was looking into it she saw, in the upper half, the form of the arm slumped into the sunlit section of the open cockpit; and in lower half, a thin trail of blood – thin in comparison to the size of the Zoid – was ablaze in the shower of sparks.

A horrified silence fell over the three in the crimson Trinity Liger, and they watched as the mercury best turned to face the Dragoon Nest.

"No way." She whispered. "She's not going to... No..."

The blades charged again.

You don't believe that it will...

"It seems like it will..."

Ascanius roared softly in the back of her throat, and that simple statement said everything.

The mercury Trinity Liger ran full-tilt toward the Dragoon Nest, the rising growl in her gullet crescendoing into a powerful, thunderous roar as she charged, the blades gleaming cold blue, her claws gleaming cold blue, her jaws and the thrusters on her back and the odd wing pack on her back and even the blade of the tail all at once gleaming a brilliant, cold blue as she sped toward the Dragoon Nest. Reia could also project her mind's eye into the control deck of the machine; she could see the men as they looked out the dull orange visor of the glass cockpit, as they turned to each other and began to shout, to make wild motions with their arms to validate the danger, to push levers and pull back on this booster and slam their fist on that button in an attempt to turn the lobster-like transport around and make it move faster, faster forward, out of range of the Liger's speeding form. Watched as they realized that it was too late, as they tried to power the shields but could not activate them in time.

Watched as the blades tore through the cockpit. Watched as the metal crumpled and the glass shattered.

She tore her imagination away, but the image was burned into her consciousness, the image that followed the breakdown of the transport, as the blades entered the cockpit, tore through the bodes of the men, rent them asunder, as the rest of the Liger followed, blood spatter glancing against the shield, turning the energy barrier into a field of mottled red against the eruption of sparks to the background music of the hissing wires.

"She just obliterated..."

The Liger tore out of the opposite end of the scarlet Dragoon Nest, dropping her shield and withdrawing her blades, allowing them to lay silent against her back. The Dragoon Next behind her seemed to sag to one side, the supports along its left flank severed almost completely, and suddenly a round of explosions – one, two, five, seven – along the fuel lines running against that side appeared, small burst of flame for the line, and after only a momentary hesitation the entire transportation unit folded in on itself, then expanded, then exploded. Ascanius immediately dug her claws into the sand to try and hold herself upright against the shockwave that suddenly burst from the severed vehicle, ducking her head to lessen the impact, and once it was over she looked up immediately, the Zoid, the pilot, the Organoid, all in macabre fascination.

There was no transport now, only a steadily burning inferno, fed by the fuel lines within the transport. And beyond that, white armour glistening a faint red, was the Trinity Liger.

Aesteroth defused from the core of the Zoid in a bolt of golden-blue, but was paid no mind as he materialized in the cockpit of the Blood Trinity. He stood where he was, saying nothing, simply staring out to the white Trinity Liger.

The mercury Liger looked over her shoulder, to the ground, and then suddenly set off through the desert, keeping herself at a moderate pace, moving away from the destruction she had caused.

Reia felt herself slump, her jaw unhinge, absolutely stricken by what she saw. "That Liger..." She stopped, feeling the anger well up within her. "That pilot is insane!"

There was a moment of silence, and Aesteroth sidled in next to her, whispering: There was no pilot.

"What...?"

That Liger is unpiloted. There is nobody at the controls.

"It's a wild Zoid?"

In effect, yes.

Reia slumped back in her seat, watching the transport slowly burn, watching the Liger continue to walk to the horizon. A spark in the back of her mind set off the chain reaction of thought, and she sat up again, then looked to Aesteroth.

"Refuse," she instructed sharply, and he inclined his head, understanding what she was planning. He disappeared into a golden-blue bolt of energy, turning sharply to refuse with the Liger, and Reia moved to the mapping system, setting the coordinates for their current position into the memory of the Liger. Ascanius growled.

"Yeah, we're coming back for them," she said quietly. "Have to, we don't have any way to transport them. Now."

Her hands moved back to the controls.

"Aesteroth?"

I am ready.

"Then let's go."

c h a p t e r : t e n

Reia forced the controls forward, activating the basic boosters on the Trinity Liger in order to bring her up to her full speed - unto itself, a respectable three hundred five kilometers per hour. The mercury Liger was going at perhaps half that speed, but she knew the Liger would bolt the instant she realized she was being chased.

And just as Reia had thought, the Liger did. It was clear by the change in her stance and the sudden flare from the thrusters mounted on her back that the mercury Liger was in no mood to have somebody – particularly a witness to her rampage – catch up to her.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I'm afraid we will. Aesteroth!"

The Organoid channeled his energy into Ascanius' boosters, and Ascanius came to a stop, nothing more than a theatrical stop, as she raised the flight thrusters along her pack. A dull golden-blue glow began to gather at the engines, and with a roar she leapt back into a run just as they activated to their full power.

Reia was thrown back against her seat from the sudden acceleration, and removed her hand from the steering mechanism so she wouldn't accidentally pull back on the thrusters and send Ascanius in the wrong direction. Zoid and Organoid knew what they were doing; the pilot, caught as she was in the powerful force of the Liger's run, wasn't about to attempt to try and help.

The distance between the two Trinity Ligers was closing fast, and before the pilot was even aware of it Ascanius had leapt, using the boosters to allow herself a gliding lunge, and landed opposite the mercury Liger, spinning to face the as she landed. The unpiloted Trinity came to a terrible stop, just barely avoiding barreling through the Blood Trinity, and was preparing herself to spin and run in the other direction, despite the obvious futility of the movement.

Go now.

Of course.

Aesteroth leapt from the core of Ascanius and converted himself into a beam of light as he went through the air, a fine stream of golden-blue energy tearing up from the core of the Blood Trinity and lighting instead within the core of the mercury Trinity. The Liger panicked immediately; with a horrendous, screeching roar, she pulled back, trying to dislodge the Organoid, and staggered on her hind legs, her foreclaws flailing uselessly in the air. She landed, shook her head, roared again, and hopped forward, kicking out like a donkey before hitting the ground. Ascanius backed up to give her room on the desert sands, and she took it; her prior movement brought her rolling forward, landing on her back, then on her side. Forced herself over enough with a burst from her boosters in order to rise to her feet again, and began thrashing about once more, swinging her head from side to side as though the Organoid had entered her cockpit rather than her core.

The display lasted for all of thirty seconds before the Liger brought the blades out to either side of her and fell to the left, sticking the strike blades into the sand and forcing herself into the odd halfway position where she would be of no use to the Organoid.

Ascanius released a low, almost questioning growl. Reia stared out to the other Liger, then sighed.

"We have to wait now," she murmured. "Aesteroth will take of the rest."

The Organoid released his grip on the core, feeling the crystal energy slip from beneath his claws and reform as it should have been, no longer punctured and fractured by the presence of his teeth and claws. He slid away slowly from the glowing orb, his single wing full outstretched, and floated for a moment within the interior of the Zoid. He had released his hold over her according to the plan, of his own accord, but there was something very odd about the core of the Zoid that he couldn't quite place. He stared over it more a moment, bringing himself to the top, to the side, to the bottom, orbiting the gleaming core as he tried to pinpoint the source of the disruption to his own thoughts. Golden eyes scanned the brilliant white surface, overcome by the glow, trying to figure out what was amiss even in the depths of the blinding light.

A wire.

A thin thread of wire attached to the core – through the core, in the core – snaked away from the centre of the Zoid and wound around, going inside again, and as he stared he realized that there were a vast number of these thin wires puncturing and winding back onto the core. Aesteroth tilted his head, confused, and followed as many as he could keep track of until, finally, he came to the absolute bottom of the core. And there he saw the thin wires trickle down, en masse, into a thick cable, and the cable led down into a peculiar device that rather resembled...

Aesteroth shot from the show of golden blue light and tore through the air, landing on the tilted muzzle of the Liger. Careful not to scratch her with his claws, he raised himself onto his hind legs and pushed up, bringing himself into an approximation of his full height. He looked the Liger straight into her eye, through the cockpit, into the unpiloted internals, and dropped his mental voice, asking quietly: You have been within a Compound?

There was a pause, and the light within the cockpit darkened, making it seem as though the Liger were closing her eyes. With a soft growl, she whispered: I have.

Which one?

Vares.

Aesteroth looked at her for a long moment, then inclined his head. Vares Compound. Experimental Zoid research facility; houses all of the randomized experimentation that is done by members of other Compounds. Headed by Vares Artema.

How do you know? the Liger asked slowly, warily. I have come across many in this desert, and very few knew of the existence of the Neo-Zenebas Compound Arc.

Aesteroth lowered his head, almost as though bowing, and his tail dropped over the edge of her muzzle; body language, shame. I, too, was held within a Compound. Crixis.

Experimental Organoid research, for Organoid created or modified within the Compound to be sent to the other Compounds for forced fusion, forced evolution, and forced System Fusion. The Liger began to bend her head and thought better of it, as Aesteroth was still sitting on her muzzle. I am afraid that in a manner of speaking I am one of your brethren.

I am afraid that I already saw, Aesteroth murmured. You house an Organoid System of a kind I am not familiar with, however; the systems are typically attached directly to the core. Why is this one apart from your core?

An experimental, removable system. Vares used his own Organoid in order to create it, as you can tell. Did you know Artema?

I did know her, Aesteroth said sadly. She was one of the better-kept among us; I suppose Sylosia didn't have any plans for her, since she was the Organoid of one of his peers. It saddens me to know that she has been used in this fashion. Do you understand the logistics?

Fusion to a separate system meant to dull her personality but maintain her abilities, the Liger explained. They did not want the wild aspect, the personalized thought processes, but they wanted the abilities of memory, of instantaneous understanding of the enemy Zoid's weak points by observing its combat. There was a pause in her thoughts, then: It did not work entirely, as you can see.

You maintained a fragmented part of her personality despite their best efforts.

You are smart. Indeed I did, and I realized that they – my creators – had done a horrendous thing in creating and installing this system. I've played into their hands, however; they understand that their prior experiment was a failure, they will perfect the process--

In time, Aesteroth interjected soothingly. But it will take much time. Each piece of technology takes them a good period of time to create, and their perfection of this technology, especially when they lack the original specimen to compare it to, is just as slow and arduous.

Silence. I suppose you're right.

Tell me, Aesteroth began, what name do you go by?

I am officially called the Liger Illusion System; my build was based partially on study of the Blade Liger Mirage system, and on the Trinity Liger, and on plans of the Liger Zero. My codename is the Artema unit, and that is how I wish to be remembered.

In honour of Artema.

In honour of all the Organoids in the Crixis Compound.

They are dead. All but one.

The mercury Trinity Liger – Artema – was stunned to silence for a long moment, then said quietly: I am sorry. What did the scientists do?

They allowed my escape. I came back to destroy the scientists and their primary experiment – have you heard of the God Kaiser Oracle? – and this necessitated reawakening the Oracle in order to stop me – he looked over to Ascanius and Reia, and quickly amended – us – from destroying the Zoid.

The God Kaiser Oracle, Artema repeated. I had heard of that experiment. The Organoids in the Compound were being conditioned to control the beast. Only two of them were successful...

One of them was me, Aesteroth said quietly. The other was a good friend of mine, Ryuukei. Ryuukei, however... Ryuukei was washed. His mind was supplanted by Sylosia, and he was turned into a terrible fighting machine. He fused with the God Kaiser to try and kill us. We...

Self defense, the Liger said.

I suppose... Aesteroth lapsed into silence, then looked up to the Trinity Liger. What of yourself? You escaped from your own Compound, I see, and I assume that your run brought you here. You interfered with our battle, as well, and–

I killed.

You killed. Many humans, the transportation Zoid, you shattered the core of that Geno Saurer. Why...?

Silence this time on the end of the Trinity Liger. This system that they have perverted me with, she began. It's highly unstable. I have tried to tame it, but something at its core makes it destructive beyond comprehension, makes it impossible to curb once it has been fed violence. I only wanted to save your life, it didn't seem a fair situation, but the system overtook–

Aesteroth folded his wing against his back and rested a claw on the Zoid's muzzle. I have killed, too. But I've no excuse.

The Liger did incline her he this time, and Aesteroth activated his boosters, allowing himself to hover in place. He watched as the Liger lay there, in her awkward position, and he looked over the Blood Trinity and her pilot.

Help her out of the desert, he instructed quietly. We shall take her with us.

Ascanius obliged, lowing her head next to the Liger and bringing her own muzzle and part of her upper mane beneath her. The Blood Trinity and her pilot pushed upward, to the side, slowly forcing the Liger to all four feet, the blade out of the sand. Artema rested on her other side and looked over to Ascanius, bowing her head respectfully.

A low roar resonated from her throat: I thank you.

Ascanius responded with her own: No blame to you, Artema. I hate to say it, but I believe you did the right thing out there.

The mercury Trinity turned away. Perhaps, she said quietly. And I thank you, Aesteroth, for allowing me to travel with you.

Aesteroth was silent for a moment. You know my name?

Artema knew. And Artema knows now. Her tone changed almost immediately. But what if something more should happen? The system is highly unstable, I'm afraid of what would happen should I accompany you to wherever you are going... She sent her gaze to Aesteroth. The attempt to dislodge you was no action of my own; the system despises any attempts to have another Organoid unify with it.

And suddenly the speaker on the Trinity Liger crackled to life, and so came the voice of the pilot: "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm sure there's a way."

The Liger bowed and turned away, and Aesteroth dissipated into a stream of golden-blue, taking his position within the cockpit so as to keep the two Ligers at pace with one another. He was silent for a moment as Reia went through the motions of setting Ascanius at a pace comparable to the mercury Trinity, allowing the Zoid to take over when she was next to her, instructing Ascanius to make any changes necessary as she saw fit. After she had finished, Aesteroth found his voice.

Reia.

"Yes?"

You... He paused for a moment. You could understand what Artema was saying?

"All of you. I heard the entire conversation." She pulled back from the controls and leaned against her chair, reaching down next to her for a book. "Why?"

None of the scientists in the compound could ever understand what the God Kaiser was trying to say; none of the scientists in the other compounds could ever understand what the Zoids were trying to say.

"They refused to respond."

No. They couldn't understand.

Reia was silent for a moment, staring at the green emerald glass of the cockpit. "Well," she began, "maybe they were–"

I know this, Reia; they could never hear them. Who have you known that can hear the Zoids?

Reia opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, her thoughts running rampant through her mind. She closed her mouth and furrowed her brow, trying to remember, and then slowly she said: "I... I haven't heard anybody mention it..."

Have you ever mentioned it?

"Well, no, I assumed everybody could–"

Reia.

She was silent for a moment, then said quietly: "Yes?"

I know of one other person who was definitely capable of hearing and understanding the Zoids.

She was silent, and he allowed a moment for his words to sink in. He took her continued silence as a prompt, he finished his thought.

Clayton Sylosia.

c h a p t e r : e l e v e n

A sprawling urban area settled in the mouth of a vast valley. On the far side, a great tunnel had been drilled through the earth, leading eventually into the huge war compound.

A war compound built within the huge mesa. Going closer, he could see small transport Zoids bringing in metal alloys – most of it the simpler alloys that would be hardened and equipped to most Zoids – dragging the great pieces of metal ore behind them. One train, however, carried an alloy that he didn't recognize at first, but a little more study revealed that it was metal Zi alloy, the hardest metal alloy known to Zoidians. Along the train of the Gustav that transported the alloy, he saw crystals – literally tons of diamond – being dragged along behind the mottled green-brown Gustav. Apparently, the Gustav made trips in forests primarily, and was coloured for camouflage. Though he did not know what world he was in, he could assume that there was a constant threat of an enemy.

The Gustav pulled up along an area where the blueprints of a Zoid were tacked along the wall; all sides of the Zoid, and as he looked across the vast circular cavern where the Zoid was doubtless being constructed, he could begin to fathom that, exactly, the Zoid was – quadrupedal and catlike, he could almost say it was a Liger Zero from the body chassis, but it was more streamlined, thinner, and its armour was a far departure from what he remembered the Zero wore.

The middle of the area already had the chassis of the Zoid designed, and he could tell that it was not a typical Liger. Some of the armour was being applied, and the ore and diamond that the Gustav had excavated were being carted to another section, doubtless to be readied for application as armour. He felt himself close in on the Zoid, looking it over carefully, and realized in the back of his mind that the metal Zi ore was being converted into an alloy known as arcanite – and in the back of his mind, he realized that arcanite would construct the most powerful melee weaponry ever seen upon a Zoid at that time.

On the Liger's back he saw what seemed to be a small power plant, cords snaking their way from the plant to strategic points on the Liger's body. The lengths of the cords were plated first with a layer of diamond, then reinforced with arcanite, and he knew that the wings on the creature – wings on a Liger! – would also be reinforced in a similar manner, but made with arcanite, covered by diamond, reinforced again with arcanite. The weaponry on the Zoid – he could picture it all, the horn that would protrude from its forehead, and above that the scimitar-like Anti-Zoid X-Blade, the Gatling gun that would rest on its left side and the charger cannon on its right – would be constructed of pure arcanite, thickly layered to ensure it would not be destroyed. The charger system would allow these weapons to work, would charge event he wings with energy so they could slash, or so they could fly; charge the guns with tachyon power in order to decimate their target; charged the horn and blade for a powerful thrusting attack; charge the claws for the infamous Strike Laser Claw.

Before his eyes the Zoid constructed itself; covered in crimson armour, streamlined as he had seen only the Trinity Liger managed. Arcanite and diamond constructed the length of its frame; its head held high, its eyes fixed forward, emerald glare off the cockpit... A best to behold.

Energy Liger.

The name echoed in the back of his mind.

Energy Liger.

He saw the bottom of the Zoid taken out to allow for placement of a Zoid core – a special Zoid core, and the voice in he back of his mind told him that it was modeled off of an Ultrasaurus' core, and bound with an Organoid, but he was also told that it was not a forced fusion; the Organoid had given herself so that this Liger could live.

What's so special about it? he asked the phantom speaker.

Ah, ye fool, came the cool voice. This Zoid was constructed so that it may destroy the Death Saurer.

It's simply a Liger with some pointy things attached to it, he said with a derisive snort, realizing that his voice was no longer under his control. What good could it do against the Death Saurer?

You know as well as I do, Clayton, that the only metal capable of damaging metal Zi alloy is metal Zi alloy. This Liger has been completely constructed of it, and its shield–

Clayton?

He forced himself back, away from the individual, and felt himself melt from the body, slipping into the air around them, looking up to the Liger and then down to the two men speaking to one another. One of them he felt a terrible pang of recognition for; the other, he felt a vague sense of memory.

The man he felt he knew turned to the other.

The Death Saurer can't be stopped by a single Liger.

No, the other man responded. But this single Liger can certainly lead the charge.

But who is to pilot it? the first demanded. Nobody here is capable of piloting this Zoid, we've tried, we've failed. The Organoid simply refuses to allow anybody beyond your family near it.

That's why we will have a member of this family pilot the Zoid.

The girl.

Precisely.

The man who seemed intent on proving the construction of the Liger was a grand waste of time shook his head. She's thirteen, isn't she? You can't send her out to a war.

I'm well aware of that. We will send her out when she is ready. She is very adept at piloting the Zoid – she and the Organoid are perfectly in sync, they were playmates you know – and when she reaches the age we can allow her to fight, she will be capable of dealing massive damage, she and the Zoid.

I don't believe you.

So be it.

He watched as the man turned away, his face more haggard than it had been only seconds before, and he realized that what he was viewing was some sort of peculiar time distortion. Time had passed between his arrival, the construction of the Liger, even the two different conversation, and now as he watched the man turn away from his colleague.

I'm off on my own now. I'm sorry, Nate, but I can't continue working here.

I understand, Clayton. But don't help them.

Zenebas certainly doesn't like me, Nate. Why would I help them? They would kill me.

I can think of a reason why. Take care, Clayton.

Thank you, Nate.

He wracked his brain for the memory of the name; he knew it, he knew it, but from where, from where, from–

Clayton Sylosia.

He reeled back in the space where he did not exist. Sylosia, here! But what was going on..?

He tried to claw his way through space, tried to follow the man, the damnable individual, the man he hated with such a passion. What was he doing here? Why was he alive?

But he couldn't move; he hung in space for a long moment, getting nowhere, until he sighed and felt himself pulled along, away, out of the tunnel and into the brilliantly lit natural city; it was night, and he found himself next to the man again as he stood in the city. He was speaking a distressingly familiar-looking woman, and he tilted his head to get a better view. He landed on the street – cobblestone rather than asphalt, he noted – and stepped around to get a better look at them. He continued trying to put a name to her face, unable to quite grasp the memory, and was interrupted in his endeavour when they began to speak.

You've seen the reports?

I have.

Then you're aware...

The Death Saurer. Yes.

Death Saurer!

It's on its way here. I'm afraid we won't have time to mobilize our forces, and our heavy guns won't be ready for another few years. And...

You don't want to risk her life. I understand.

You know what to do, then?

Of course I know what to do. The stasis chambre has been constructed, people are already being put into stasis.

You best explain what's going to happen, then.

I suppose I should. Dear– Dear– Nathaniel! Don't worry. She'll live to see a better tomorrow than what we have to look forward to.

You're right, Lucretia... Of course you're right.

He leapt from the cobblestone street and flared his boosters, intent on leaving the area, and he did – he was swung around the town and brought to another cavern, this one nestled in the basement of a huge stone building. Stasis pods were set up all along the interior, a single control panel connecting them, and the man – Nathaniel – stood at the controls, his wife Lucretia next to him.

They looked at the capsules – each of them contained a body, most of them children or young adults – and turned their gaze upon one another for a moment, then to the capsules.

She'll survive, Nathaniel repeated. Live to see a better tomorrow.

Sayonara, Lucretia murmured. Gokouun o inorimasu.

Aesteroth snapped back into consciousness and looked out of the cockpit. A low growl reverberated under him – Ascanius was informing them that they had almost arrived – and he sent a glance out one of the eye windows of the Zoid, seeing the mercury Liger running next to them. As he looked out the forward cockpit, he could feel an awful tension pervading the cockpit. He looked to Reia and saw that she was gripping the edges of the cockpit seat until her knuckles were white.

"There's something wrong," she whispered.

Aesteroth stared out the window to see if he could determine what she was referring to, and Reia unclipped the safety belt and stood for a better view, using the chair to bring herself higher. It was a marginal difference, it made no difference, but it made her feel slightly better, or so the Organoid could assume.

"Ascanius," she instructed suddenly. "Scan for body heat signatures."

The Liger set to work immediately, and after a moment she stopped – stopped the scan, stopped dead where she was. The mercury Trinity stopped as well upon realizing that her escort had come a complete halt and turned, looking at Ascanius curiously. The Blood Trinity released a low growl, and Reia swooned slightly, falling into the chair, her face white and shining with sweat.

"Oh, no..."

You're certain? Aesteroth demanded.

I'm certain, Ascanius responded. I'm picking up one signature. No more than that. I... I'm sorry, but the town–

Reia looked up from where she sat and stared out into the distance, Aesteroth doing the same. He could see what she had seen; the land was flat, the land was a desert, except for the jagged blackness of what looked to be the demolished remnants of a large Zoid. But he knew better.

No Zoid; a village.

And deep in the back of his mind he heard the voice again:

I understand, Clayton. But don't help them.

You broke your promise to the ancients, Sylosia, Aesteroth thought darkly. You helped them.

c h a p t e r : t w e l v e

This is awful.

Aesteroth had landed on her muzzle, and upon hearing the words looked back to Ascanius. He was silent for a long moment – they all were – and he looked back to the ruins of the town. They were coming closer, and as he could see the buildings had been alternately leveled or torn apart, jagged remains spread across the area. A bit separate from the area, he saw the slag remnants of what he could assume had once been a Zoid – golden and blue, at one time, but it was now reduced to so much molten slag that the type was absolutely indistinguishable.

Indeed, Aesteroth said finally. Neo-Zenebas must have desired something in this city very much to raze it so. Or it must have been very angry to have not found it.

The remainder of the trip – hardly ten minutes of journey time – was engulfed in silence as the Zoids finally came upon the site. Reia pulled back on Ascanius' controls to bring her to a slow stop, and Artema mirrored the action, coming to a halt just behind the Blood Trinity. They were upon the ruination now, looking down at the shattered streets and remnants of buildings, slag and rubble populating the area.

"One survivor," she said. "Only one?"

Ascanius growled low: I only sense one.

Reia felt her heart slide down through her chest, centreing itself just below her rib cage. Her eyes began to burn, but she blinked, keeping the tears at bay, and quietly whispered under her breath: "Ramus..."

Ramus looked up from where he had built a small shelter from the sweltering heat. The remnants of one building had left him with some metal support beams, some rock, and some tarp – it was a crude creation, but all he could afford to create, using the support beams to hold the tarp and the rock to keep it from blowing away while he sank beneath it, his eyes closed, curled up into himself, awaiting slow death.

He was well aware that he would be better off killing himself than waiting for starvation to get him, but he had always feared pain, and had never been partial to self-infliction. Suicide had always been an option that he had found mildly disturbing, not only for the fact that he would die afterward, but for the fact that he would suffer pain beforehand, pain by his own hand. There was nothing left to make it a swift death. So he confined himself to waiting under the tarp as he wasted away, carrying the echo of the words in the back of his mind.

But he had heard something that made him crawl from beneath the tarp and looked up to see where the noise had come from, and much to his shock it had originated from two Zoids, Zoids of a type he had never seen before, although he had heard rumours of their existence. The same type of Zoids, but entirely different beasts: one of them painted red and gold and given green eyes and a cockpit; the other, mercury silver and blue, accented by red where the other was green.

Two Liger-type Zoids. Trinity Ligers.

Rescue crews? he wondered vaguely. Perhaps they were; rescue crews to dig him from the rubble. Rescue crews to tally the body count. Rescue crews to report the damage. He would even prefer salvage Zoids.

The crimson Liger growled low in the back of her throat, and he watched as something shot from its muzzle, transforming into a beam of golden-blue as it arced through the air. It landed somewhere else in the city, then reverted to its energy form and leapt again, coming closer. It repeated the action for a moment, and then stopped somewhere a reasonable distance from him. Nothing happened for a moment, then the Liger roared, the other one twisting its head slightly as though indicating something, and the energy beam erupted from its position and leapt into the air, circling upward and tearing through the hot desert wind to lad in front of him, manifesting into a solidified form.

It stood on its hind legs, its forelegs resting in front of its body. An elongated, hawk-like face, pale green against the saurian body's gemstone blue, tilted slightly, golden eyes flashing in the light, and it brought its single wing up against the light, blocking the sunlight that was tearing at Ramus' eyes. A long tail, ending in six or seven paper-thin green blades, swayed lazily behind the creature, and it seemed stared at him. It looked vaguely like a Zoid, but somehow more organic, something about him wasn't quite up to the sharpness of a typical Zoid.

It turned its head to one of the Liger's and made a low keening noise, then raised the pitch suddenly and turned its eyes back upon Ramus. He felt something tingle at the back of his mind, but couldn't quite figure out what; instead, he simply lay where he was, looking up the gemstone mini-Zoid, and stared back to the crimson and mercury Trinity Ligers. As he watched, the crimson Liger looked to the other and released a soft growl, then began to pad its way through the ruins of the city, heading for Ramus.

The Liger stopped only a few yards away, its massive head leaning forward and blocking more sunlight, and it lowered its head altogether, the cockpit sliding open with a pneumatic hiss as the air decompressed. A figure rose from within, difficult to discern in the heavy shadow, but he knew the voice.

"Ramus!"

"Reia...?"

The pilot of the Zoid slid down the metal muzzle and landed on the ground easily, regaining her footing and making a run for him. Only a few seconds separated the two and suddenly Reia was in front of him, picking him up off the ground and embracing him in a deep hug.

"My god," she whispered. "I was afraid you were dead..."

"Reia," he murmured, the word somewhat cracked on his parched tongue. "You're... What's happened?"

She released him and took a step back, giving him a bit of space, and turned to the Trinity Liger. "Ascanius," she said quickly. "Come down closer, if you could, and move to the side a bit, block the sunlight." She ran to the Zoid as it did as she commanded, and she began to climb within, murmuring further instructions as she did, and came back in a moment, producing a good-sized flask of water. "Here," she said immediately, nearly shoving it into her brother's face. "Take it. Drink."

"I couldn't possibly..."

She cut him off before he could even think of the rest of the sentence. "Drink," she commanded darkly. "I have enough water for two weeks in the desert. So take it."

He hesitated, trying to battle his heavy thirst with courtesy, but the flash in her deep-blue eyes told him that argument was futile. He took the flask and uncorked it, beginning to drink, and found himself unable to put it down until half of it had been emptied; even then, he stopped only with the greatest effort of willpower and put the cap back on, looking up to his sister. "Thank you," he whispered. "But I..."

She moved forward again and placed her hand on his cheek, where the scar had been ripped under his eye. "That's nasty," she murmured. "How'd you get that? Something falling... My god!" Her analysis of his physical condition and moved from beyond the fact that he taken the blow to the cheek and she saw the clump of bloodied hair – he had tried to claw the coagulated blood out, but had give up after a time – and saw several gashes in his clothes, leading down to the more shallow scars he had sustained. The worst of his wounds had been the single blow delivered from the black dragon's tail...

With a jolt and a surprised yelp he leapt back, staring now at the hawk-like dragon standing before him, its wings still drawn out to provide minimal shade – minimal in comparison to what the massive Liger could provide. He pointed at the small Zoid-like creature and tried to mouth the words, but couldn't find them; his tongue had become paralyzed in shock.

Reia stepped forward to calm him, resting her hands on his shoulders and looking him in the eye. "You're a bit jumpy," she whispered. "Please relax. This is Aesteroth, he's an Organoid."

Now he could find the words again. "An Organoid...?"

"You've heard legends. They exist. He's an Organoid," she repeated.

"An Organoid..." He hand fell to his side and he continued to stare, his jaw slightly unhinged, at the creature. The Organoid looked over to Reia, a low metallic screech left its throat.

"I didn't think you existed either, if you recall." She turned away from the Organoid and back to Ramus, looking him over for a moment, then looked back to the sun. It was beginning to sink just below the horizon, and she knew that the desert night would be considerably cooler. She looked to Ramus and then looked to the tarp he had constructed. "Welcome to my home town of Purgases," she said blandly. "We can camp out here tonight."

He thought for a moment she was speaking to him, but realized that she had been referring to the Zoids and the Organoid. She pulled away from her brother, looked up to the crimson Trinity Liger, and then called farther back: "You can come too, Artema." On this command, the mercury Liger approached her comrade and both of them settled in to the ruins of the city. The Organoid bowed his head and fell forward, his forelimbs acting specifically as forelegs, and he looked over to Ramus before simply settling himself down, his wing folding against his body as he rested his head on his ground. His golden eyes dimmed as though they were partially closed.

Ramus found himself taking another long draught from the flask, and as he finished he asked quietly: "What's happened to you?"

Reia blinked, not fully understanding the wording of the question. "How do you mean?"

He indicated the Zoids and the Organoid. "Them. I don't remember them... Last I saw of you was just a week ago, and you had still had Iulius..."

"Why the concern over what happened to me?" she asked quietly. "This desolation..."

"You start first," he said. "I'd... Rather not get into it yet."

They set up camp in the midst of the ruined city, and Reia honoured her brother's request to relate her story first. Ramus seemed keen on interrupting and commenting during her relation of her first run-in with Aesteroth, when had tried to kill her, but refrained and allowed her to proceed. It seemed that he had something against Organoids, but she simply couldn't grasp why he would; there was certainly nothing wrong with them unto themselves, she explained after her brief recount of the Zoid's battle with him, it was a problem of how they were treated and how they were controlled.

She went back in time on Aesteroth's behalf – he began funneling information to her – and explained that in the Crixis Compound, Organoids were oftentimes treated with small torture devices, electric shocks, and – when they misbehaved drastically – even had limbs cut off from their body. Aesteroth at this comment opened his sing wing, his jagged stub trying to mimic the movement at the same time. He also funneled information on the brainwashing techniques they had, to completely delete an Organoid's memory if it was proving inconvenient to keep. They had, he said, done the technique on him numerous times, as he had come to realize later on; made him forget his violent past with the other Organoids in the cells primarily. He believed they had also locked something else away, but Reia was instructed not to tell him about this errant thought, and she nodded to herself, in the same movement nodding her assent to Aesteroth.

She moved on to her joining with the Organoid and his Rev Raptor, and going to assault the compound. She only briefly passed over the battles she had encountered – it was obvious she had won them anyway – and how, when they reached the control room, Aesteroth had turned and prepared to destroy her before being shot down by an errant CPG; a CPG shot from an Organoid named Ryuukei.

Ramus asked her to describe the Organoid, and she briefly related what Ryuukei looked like. He nodded slowly and settled back, but seemed to be ruminating over something. She ignored it for the moment and went on, explaining how a scientist had taken the Organoid and awakened the Zoid being worked on in the Compound – the God Kaiser Oracle – and destroyed the Compound. The detail in the battle against the God Kaiser was heavy in comparison to her skimming off the prior battles; explaining the power of his CPG and the heat from it capable of turning the desert sand into a stream of glass, how it had been armed almost all around its body and how only by having Aesteroth channel his full energy into the Zoid to hyper-evolve her could they defeat the God Kaiser. Hyper-evolve her into the Trinity Liger, Ramus asked. Reia nodded, clarifying that the Zoid type was more or less considered the 'Blood Trinity'. She went on to say that the Zoid had been obliterated, its core shattered, its pilot and the Organoid killed in the destruction.

"And who was the pilot?" Ramus asked. "Did you get his name?"

"Yeah," she said. "Aesteroth knew his name. Clayton Sylosia."

There was absolute silence, and Reia slowly sensed the pervading horror working its way through the air as she finished speaking his name. She looked upon Ramus for a moment, quietly muttering his name, but he was too deep in thought. Finally, he looked up.

"Shortly after you left," he began. "I finished the plans for that transport – do you remember the transport?"

"The Dragoon Nest you were making? Yeah, of course I do. I told you to make it a Dragoon Nest rather than a Predator King variation."

"Good thing I did," he murmured darkly. "After I sent off the instructions to my friend he'd said it would only take maybe a week to construct, his machinery was much more adept at constructing a Dragoon Nest than a Predator King." He managed a vague smile. "It's arriving tomorrow. I hate for him to see what's happened..."

There was silence. "Go on," Reia murmured. "What happened to you– to the town?"

And Ramus began to relate the story of the simple, sunny day and the advent of the Black Demon; how it had erupted from out of the desert and was armed to the teeth; flame throwers, scythe blades on its back, a particle gun far beyond the power of any had seen before, it had been that particle gun that reduced his Konig Wolf to the slag sitting uselessly out in the middle of the desert. He recounted the tale of the firelight, and the pain and agony, recalled the screams of terror and anguish as the rest of the population was torn apart and crushed and burned to death in their own houses.

"I'm sorry to say that in light of what you just told me, that's not the worst of it," he whispered. "The pilot – he had Organoid – came out of the cockpit of the Demon, and the Organoid was kind enough to place me in an area where I wouldn't sustain fatal damage. He left me with these scratches, and this scar."

Reia could feel the welt forming on her heart, making it quaver in her chest; he already knew where he was going, but she felt inclined to provide the means to the punchline.

"And who was the pilot?" she breathed.

"Clayton Sylosia," he answered quietly. "And according to your description, the Organoid was Ryuukei. He came here and leveled the city, and he told me just before I blacked out again that... He said 'My name is Clayton Sylosia, and you killed these people'."

Reia's throat when dry.

"Why did he...?"

"He razed the town," Ramus whispered, "because he was looking for you."

c h a p t e r : t h I r t e e n

"Me?" Reia asked, taken aback by his statement. "Why would he be after me?"

"I don't know," Ramus said slowly, closing his eyes and exhaling. "But before he... He came to me asking if I knew where you were. I said no, but obviously he thought I did know – and I guess I actually did, since you were going to the Blood Tourney in New Helic – and then he..."

"No fault of your own," Reia said quietly. "But why would he be after me?"

There was a silence as Ramus thought for a moment, and Reia stared at him, allowing him his privacy, silently seething about it. He knows something, she thought. Aesteroth, he knows something.

I'm well aware of that, the Organoid responded immediately. And I believe I know something, as well.

Do you now?

Ramus finally looked up. "I'm afraid I might know why. You see..." He stopped for a moment, then shook his head. "I can't tell you now. I'm sorry. And it's not– It's not that you don't deserve to know," he added hastily. "It's just that... I can't verbalize it, not yet. Could you please–?"

"Sleep on it," Reia said calmly. "Tell me what's on your mind in the morning. Get some rest, man; you've been up too long."

Reia.

One eye opened in the darkness, reflected dully in the pale light of the moon. She sent a glance over to the Organoid, and simply looked at him, the gears in her head turning in full motion. He needn't even probe her mind; he knew her question. Regardless, there was absolute silence, and then she opened the link.

I've been speaking for you. Why didn't you speak to Ramus? He's a good man.

Do you remember the conversation we had? I am afraid that I am completely inaudible to him.

How is that possible?

I still don't know. I have, however, been piecing this together, and I believe I am coming to a conclusion. Ramus may validate my hypothesis. He was silent for a moment, then added: Have you been having dreams?

"Dreams?" She caught herself as the words slipped from her mouth, and she pulled back into mental reality. Dreams. What do you mean?

Dreams. Of a place – a city in a valley. Zoids involved...?

I... Maybe. I don't often remember my dreams, although I think I've been sleeping fitfully lately, so maybe... How do you know?

I think I've been picking them up. It's only happened recently, but I believe it is because we have grown... Closer, is that the proper word? Perhaps not, but I believe you understand what I'm getting at. My familiarity with you has allowed you to open your subconscious to my mind, and my mind is inherently prying. I am picking up your dreams.

What have I been-?

Not now. The Organoid rested his head against the ground. Tomorrow. I will tell of you of them tomorrow.

"Mom and Dad aren't Zoid pilots."

Reia and Ramus had awakened the next day and after a brief breakfast Ramus had begun relating his story to his sister. He had initially started by informing her that what he was about to say was the absolute truth, and that she likely would not like it, or would not believe it, or something akin to that assumption. The instant the first words were out of his mouth, she could tell why.

"What?" she said sharply. "What do you mean, they aren't Zoid pilots? They–"

"Let me explain," Ramus said, raising a hand to cut off her mild outburst. "They pilot Zoids, certainly, but they aren't Zoid pilots. Mom and Dad are archaeologists, and use their Zoids to help in their work. Mom uses Avalon to scout for easily spotted ruin locations; Dad uses Aaria to transport himself and, should the need arise, help dig up something that is clearly deeply buried."

Avalon was their mother's Skylark, a modified variation of the peafowl Zoid the Rainbow Jerk; Aaria was their father's white Konig Wolf.

"Archaeologists?" Reia asked slowly. "But they..."

"When they left for digs," Ramus said slowly, "they would always tell you they were off to a tournament. In the tournaments you've been to, have you never looked at the wall of winners? Have you ever noticed their absence from the list of names?"

Reia shook her head slowly, shutting her eyes and trying to drown out Ramus' words. He was delirious, he had to be. But he was also right... For all the money they allegedly won in tournaments, they certainly didn't receive any tournament recognition.

And then Ramus began the story.

Mom and Dad went off on an excavation several years back, to an excavation site one of their co-workers had found; I was fifteen, almost sixteen at the time. I don't know what happened that day, but their excavation team apparently found something in one of the chambres; it was an old Zoid core, kept safe from the ravages of desert time by the ruins it had been kept in. We couldn't quite decipher the writing, but it appeared to be the core of an old Liger Zoid. The team only had supplies for a few days there – it was a preliminary excavation – so they had to return after only a few days, and they sent the core off to the academy to see if it could still be installed in a Zoid.

Several months after the first excavation, they received word that the academy wanted them to conduct another search of the ruins; the Liger core worked in the Zoid they had planted it in, but some strange things happened to it. They accepted the job and took me with them to the excavation site.

Our team fanned out across the area, and we stayed in the ruins for a couple of days. We didn't have to be there long; I think it was Mom who found the room where they had originally found the core. They looked for the information on the Liger, but couldn't find much beyond the fact that it was an ancient design, a Zoid who was never built to true completion, and the designs on the Liger were... Different than what we were used to.

Aesteroth chose this moment to ask Reia to carry over a question.

"Did you see the blueprints for the Liger when you were there?"

He shook his head. "No, we didn't. But it the information we could glean from the computer suggested it had a unique energy system."

"Carry on, then."

We – Mom, Dad, and I – went further into the ruins after we got the information on the core. There was plenty of time to investigate – we had enough supplies for several days – and we happened to stumble upon a corridor hidden beyond one of the walls. The corridor led down, below the sands, and brought us to a vast underground chambre.

The chambre was composed primarily of sandstone on the outer perimetre when we first entered, but the deeper we got the more the sandstone eroded and revealed... Revealed metal. Normal metal at first, dull steel gray, but the farther we delved the darker it got, and eventually the only light source came from the arcs of energy tracing through the circuits on the wall. Pretty eerie down there, you can imagine, lighted only by the green sparks...

We went farther down and found out what the power conduits were linked to; a huge array of machines, all connected to these pods with green glass covering them, filled with some sort of fluid. Some of the pods were empty; some weren't. Those that were had the caked remnants of the fluid on the edges, and a few had been smashed out and were outlined by what I can only assume was ancient bloodstains; long since congealed and blackened by time.

The pods that were still filled contained the fluid, but we saw that in some cases it had drained, and in some cases the machinery on the pods had been fractured; in any case, within the pods we sometimes saw a pool of the fluid dirtied by... We couldn't tell in some instances, but in others we knew that flesh had deteriorated within the capsules. Sometimes, remnants of bone would remain; other times, crimson mixed with the containment fluid. We thought we had found an ancient morgue.

And then we found one pod that hadn't been ravaged by time, not entirely. It seemed to have sustained a small amount of damage – one of the pipes had a rusted look about it, clearly oxygen working its way from the inside outward when it wasn't supposed to – and within the pod we found a living specimen... That's not the right way to put it. But we saw that somebody had been preserved in there since the ancient times.

Reia felt her heart leap into her throat this time, becoming lodged somewhere between her esophagus and wind pipe; breathing came as a labour, she couldn't swallow. She knew exactly what he was going to say next, and so decided to stop his recitation where it was and fill in the blank.

"I'm going to throw out a wild guess," she said slowly. "I was in the stasis chambre."

From the corner of her eye she could see Aesteroth's eyes grow dim, and he inclined his head slightly; he had made the connection long before she had even been aware of the presence of one. He had settled in his mind last night, when he had spoken to her, that she was not normal; that she was not her brother's blood kin; that she were not even human in the sense of the race.

She murmured the words even as Aesteroth spoke them to her:

"Ancient Zoidian."

Ramus looked up and nodded. "Yes. We opened the pod and removed you, and took you with us. Mom and Dad were hoping to ask questions about the ancient race, but you had lost your memory, likely from the oxygen leak; oxygen deprivation strikes the brain in strange ways, and apparently the leak in your tank had been severe enough to erase your memories, but not severe enough to kill you as it did everybody else in the compound. We took you in with us, told everybody you were adopted, told you that you were blood kin."

"Ancient Zoidian," she repeated stupidly. The connotations of the word suddenly began to flood upon her, and she felt herself shudder. Ancient Zoidian, a race long since destroyed by time, with only trace elements of its grand heritage left on the planet. She was a trace element; she was a member of the tapestry of history. She...

She was the dead...

And then it suddenly dawned upon her.

She snapped into reality and, with a cold edge to her voice, asked sharply: "Ramus. Who led the expedition to those ruins in the first place?"

"What?" he asked suddenly, stopping himself for a moment and then closing his eyes in thought. He opened them a moment later. "It was... I never knew his full name. But Mom and Dad always called him Clay, and I could swear his initials were–"

"CS?"

"Yes." Ramus was quiet for a moment when suddenly reality dawned upon him as well, and he continued, more to himself than to Reia: "We led him to the underground ruins after we brought you up for recuperation... He stayed there a while, we thought he was interested in the study, but he..."

"He had a memory flood," she whispered.

"He left the Academy almost the next day," he said quietly.

"Clayton Sylosia," Reia said, her voice blunt, matter-of-fact.

"Clayton Sylosia," Ramus verified, his voice distant, detached.

A screech from behind, and a dark laugh. Reia was on her feet and had turned first to see that the man, dark eyes gleaming in delight, was standing poised behind the dragon-like Organoid, who had his claw on the back of Aesteroth's back and pinned him to the ground. The man smiled, his eyes flashing with an amused light over his glasses.

"So nice of you to remember me," he said, an almost musical tone to his voice. "So nice of you to have figured it out, as well. Indeed, I am a member of the proud race of the Ancient Zoidians. So is your surrogate sister here. And I've come to claim her."

His dark eyes looked downward, toward the Organoids, and Ryuukei drew back his teeth, hissing at his jewel tone sapphire counterpart. Sylosia smiled more broadly.

"And my experiment in mind manipulation," he added, almost as an afterthought. "His brother has missed him."

c h a p t e r - f o u r t e e n

Brother?

Aesteroth turned his head upward to face the draconic face of the onyx Organoid, and Sylosia smiled.

"Brother," he repeated, a faint purr to his words. "Yes, he's your kin, as it were. We didn't inform you sooner, but we were afraid it would be devastating on your fragile psyche."

Stop speaking in riddles!

"Gotten violent over the time you've spent away from us, haven't you? Oh!" He laughed darkly. "I forgot..."

The response was immediately; Aesteroth was out from beneath Ryuukei's claws and on his hind legs, long tail whipping around, the six green glass plates glinting in the sun. He growled, a feral, guttural sound, claws and teeth flashing in the blinding glare of the desert sun, his one wing arched sharply upward, revealing the razor feathers upon it.

A rasping laugh came from the back of Ryuukei's throat, and Sylosia mirrored this mirth with a smirk. "You wish to fight?"

There was no further warning allowed to the man; his coiled haunches were unleashed and the Organoid sprang forward, claws groping the air, jaw open and searching for flesh, and he aimed to slam into the man, topple him over, rend him limb from limb until the desert sands were infused with a deep crimson that caught upon the wind and spread his blood and his flesh through the whole of the planet and dissipate him, and dissipate him, and destroy him, destroy him, terminate memory–

But Ryuukei was just as fast as Aesteroth, and was aware of his abilities just as well as Aesteroth was aware of his. The black dragon leapt to the side and slammed into Aesteroth mid-leap, sending them both into a tumble against the hot sand, blades and claws and teeth meeting each other in unison. Ryuukei opened his mouth as though to draw in energy for the charged particle gun within his jaws; Aesteroth responded immediately by bringing his claws down upon his enemy's mouth, clamping Ryuukei's jaws shut, hiding the barrel of the gun from view, negating any power the attack would have had immediately.

"Enough," Sylosia purred, and Ryuukei's arm shot up, sending Aesteroth flying back as the black dragon Organoid took to his feet again, claws digging into the ground to bring him back to his feet. Ryuukei stood eventually to his full height, approximately five feet – short for an Organoid, but taller than Aesteroth, which gave him the illusion of impressive stature.

"What do you want?" Reia demanded sharply. "You're a dead man, Sylosia; I saw you die!"

The man turned his gray eyes upon Reia, and a smile crossed his lips. "My dear," he said quietly, satin voice against the harsh external climate of the deep desert, "I assume you should know this by now. I came here for you, of course. You should have long since figured that out."

"The hell do you want with me, then?"

"No nonsense," he said, his tone almost musing. "I like that." He adjusted himself somewhat, clasping his hands behind his back. "I am after you, as you can likely tell, because I believe in the ancient power of the Zoidians; an ancient power not unleashed for many years due to the unfortunate fact that much of the world fell with the unleashing of the Death Saurer. I have found different members of my heritage across Europa, and I have begun my campaign to uncover as much as possible about where I came from, and as much as possible about my contemporaries, as it were." He paused for a moment, almost as though he had finished, then added an almost surprised "Oh!" to his speech, feigning a moment of forgetfulness, before adding quietly: "And perhaps move on to assert our dominance."

"Assert..."

"Our dominance. It means, take the world."

"I know what it means." Reia felt something tap at the back of her mind, telling her quietly that something was more deeply wrong that she had realized. The mental voice was certainly brilliant when it came to underestimations.

"Will you join me?" Sylosia said quietly. "You and I, and all the rest out there... We alone could level towns, cities, countries! We could take over, rule the world–!"

"Never!"

Reia look over her shoulder to see that Ramus was rising, somewhat uneasy as he pushed himself upright, to his feet, to look toward Ryuukei and Sylosia. Ryuukei dipped his head slightly and opened his jaws in a low hiss. Ramus' eyes moved away from him, however, and instead settled upon the brilliant sapphire hull next to him.

"Aesteroth."

The Organoid lifted his head, his eyes flickering for a moment before coming back, strong, brilliant gold. He looked over to Ryuukei, to Sylosia, and the man stood proud still, despite the fact that he knew exactly what came next as Ramus' eyes slid back to his face.

"Help me kill him."

Sylosia laughed, and Ryuukei was almost immediately behind him. "Don't be a fool," the man murmured. "You can't possibly think you can win against me! Against my Black Demon! One-Four-Two-Seven!" Ryuukei's head snapped up at the designation call. "Protocol Purgatory!"

Ryuukei stretched his neck in the air and screamed, the keening call fading out into the distance, swallowed into the desert, and he began to glow, a brilliant crimson aura surrounding the length of the Organoid's body. His still machine note did not end even as he was completely engulfed by the red flame, as it began to engulf Sylosia, and suddenly the two vanished in a bolt of scarlet energy, paving a thin road through the sky and coming down a distance away, upon a bipedal Zoid standing just beyond range of hearing.

Aesteroth recognized it immediately.

Kaiser...

The crimson bolt met the Rev Raptor, and a low hum hissed from its body as its systems came to life. Its head began to move upward, and as they watched they could see the transformation; the streamlined head of the running Zoid became sharp, angular, dangerous. Its legs gained a good amount of armour, becoming thicker to support its increasing size, and the Zoid began to build up, body, tail, neck thickening with additional plates of armour. From its back seemed to burst – there could be no other word, for even as they watched the arm-like appendages appeared with a terrific scream of metal – two sickle blades, great scythes upon the raptors back forced upward by the long, thin arms that carried them, curved and wickedly sharpened. Blades on the hands increased, gaining a sharper curve more apt to tear into armour and hook in, giving the Zoid much greater hold. Teeth within the jaw formed from the stub-like metal bits within, becoming jagged and sharply symmetrical. The neck, elongated now, gave them an almost practical purpose for actually biting things rather than simply housing the weapon in the back of its throat.

Scarlet eyes suddenly activated, and the Demon was alive, pulling its head back in a powerful roar. Its tail, bearing a blade just as the additional appendages on its back did, whipped to the sides as it steadied itself, the blade catching the light and conveying a sense that it was somewhat rusted, it was definitely rusted, but rusted in such a manner that the marks were superficial, that they had no bearing, that they were merely dried bloodstains of its victims, an effect mirrored in the scythe blades – blades that came down to its sides now, carried on highly flexible arms. From the back of its throat came the beam of energy, white-hot and flecked with blue, into the sky, and from its sides two bursts of flame, unleashed from the powerful flamethrowers mounted on its hips.

The Black Demon had awakened again.

Reia pulled herself to the ground, almost feeling as though it would help defend her from its wrath, but she thought better of it with a low barked order of "Come on!" she turned and made her way toward the Ligers. Ascanius looked ready to run and combat the beast; Artema seemed a bit more apprehensive. The crimson Trinity Liger, upon seeing her pilot approach, immediately knelt down to allow her to climb into the cockpit, which opened once she was near enough. Artema and Ramus, however, seemed a bit lost.

"Artema!" Reia yelled. "Take Ramus; he's a pilot, he knows what he's doing with the cockpit controls! And don't worry about losing control," she added quietly. "It's not murder to stop a genocidal killer."

Artema was silent for a moment, with a low growl she pulled herself down, lowering her head to where Ramus could mount, and he looked up for a moment, toward his sister, almost confused. But he didn't look to her for long; he soon looked back toward the image of the Black Demon, silhouetted against the horizon as it began to launch itself forward, boosters flaring to force it into a faster run.

For Purgases.

He climbed into the cockpit and realized as the glass came down around him, sealing him in, that there was something appreciably different from his Konig Wolf's controls within this Zoid. He tried to place it, but couldn't quite grasp the alternation; still, there was something odd. Something he knew wasn't right...

No matter. His hands found their way to the movement controls. No matter how different. No matter the necessary learning curve required on a switch of Zoids. He knew that the Demon was going to taste steel vengeance. Steel vengeance from his hand, from the Liger's blades.

Blades... A more visceral experience when they made contact. Weapons fired from a distance were effective, but nothing compared to feeling the impact of steel against claws, against blades, feeling the weight of the opponent against the weight of his Zoid, hearing the scream as metal bent, cut, collapsed under the force of his actions, collapsed right next to him so he could see the fragmentation, hear the scream of fury...

He mobilized first, forcing the controls forward, and Artema immediately obeyed; obeyed more quickly than even his Konig Wolf had. He felt the intelligence within the Zoid, intelligence brought straight to the surface rather than allowed to course untapped beneath, surging in the wires. A free-thinking Zoid, one that would communicate with its pilot properly...

"Artema," he said quietly, and heard a growl from all around him. Confirmation. True confirmation.

"Let's go."

The mercury Liger shot out immediately, gaining ground on the crimson Liger which stood back for a moment, its pilot steeling herself for something. A bolt of golden-blue shot into the sky and arced against the pale azure, coming down upon the back of the crimson Liger and immediately setting it aglow. Ascanius pulled her head back and roared, golden sparks jumping in the back of her throat, and she leapt forward, into a full run, her boosters flaring from the power of the Organoid.

Ascanius overtook Artema easily, and Artema forced herself to maximize her own speed output, but it was useless to try and keep up with the Blood Trinity. It didn't matter wether she did or not; the first strike would inevitably be the same.

Ascanius leapt into the air, her claws ablaze with the powerful energy charge from the Organoid, and she swung her right foreleg back, bringing it down upon the Black Demon. The Demon suddenly ignited its own boosters, seeing the Liger in the air, and shot forward, forcing her to slam her claws into the dust just behind him, kicking up a deep furrow in the desert sands from the impact. The Liger turned to face the Demon, and the Demon turned to face the Liger. Electric silence as the two looked upon each other, both drawn down into a defensive bow, both now beginning to move in a circle, edging around one another, watching one another.

The Demon moved to make the first strike, bringing the scythe-like arms down and lashing out. The Liger pushed off the ground, the sickle blade slashing just in front of her, narrowly evading the potentially devastating impact of the blade's point. She landed and leapt, her claws flying forward in another attempt to catch the Demon, but it merely needed to sidestep, and the Liger hit the sand. She looked to him and spun herself, the blade of her tail searching to cut a thin slice into the black armour of the saurian, but a simple step back and another slash forward, a hop forward from the Liger and another turn back, and the two were just where they had started once again.

A dance that could have gone on indefinitely were it not for the wild card.

The Demon caught the gleam of metal in the sunlight just before it made contact; energy blades extended from the sides of the mercury Trinity came up to meet him in midair. The Demon barely raised one of the scythe blades to parry the blow and send the Trinity Liger flying, and Ascanius took up the charge again, lunging forward, jaws open, to clamp down on the arm and tear away the blade. Her teeth made contact with the metal, but a short burst from the flamethrowers sent her reeling back, hissing low.

The Demon spun toward the mercury Liger on the ground, about to bring the scythe blades down and sever it in two as she began to rise, and Ascanius made for another leap to dig her claws into the Zoid, aiming this time for the nape of the neck, for the exposed back of the Demon.

The tail, its heavy blade gleaming dull, rusted crimson, came up to her belly and smashed against the Zoid, sending her flying forward, over his head. A midair turn, however, and the cat landed on her feet, firing a short burst from her triple impact cannon at the scythe arm; not nearly enough to disconnect it, but enough to force it to withdraw, a pained hiss escaping the Zoid as it did so.

Blades drawn forward, and Artema leapt forward, charging energy and coming in next to the Demon. It sidestepped, knowing the damage that a direct hit could deliver, but failed to account for the secondary blades of the Zoid; the laser excavators were still drawn to the sides, and the Demon screeched as they cut against his chest, forming a substantial gash, a shower of sparks erupting from the open wound. A small gun mounted on one of the scythe arms – almost impossible to notice until it was fired – unleashed a small burst of blue laser energy, catching the Liger in her side but dealing minimal damage, leaving on a faint scorch mark against her hull.

Ascanius took up the other side of the assault, leaping forward and landing this time just next to the saurian best, spinning again to bring her tail blade to bear, to strike him against the side. She caught part of his arm, but the wound was mostly superficial; a thin line, but nothing more, and the sudden inferno blast from the flamethrowers sent her skipping to the side to avoid taking substantial damage.

The Demon brought its scythe down sharply, knocking Artema aside, and pulled up its legs as the boosters ignited in a stream of blue fire, sending the saurian Zoid rocketing deeper into the desert. A ploy, most likely; it was leading them out to an area where it would have an advantage, where it would be able to more easily utilize its charged particle beam by putting distance between itself and its opponents. Neither of the two cared.

"I'll go ahead!" Reia yelled. "Just come quick as you can after us!"

Without waiting for confirmation, Ascanius was given the order and Aesteroth obliged, shooting forward at nearly double the speed she was normally capable of achieving.

The Black Demon looked over his shoulder as he flew and clenched his razor-edged teeth; the Liger had fallen back a bit, but she was still capable of moving faster than he was. Turning the laser cannons on his blades backward, two shots were fired, one from each blade, at the approaching Zoid, hoping to slow it down, keep the distance between the two. Artema leapt upward, catching herself with her boosters to sail higher and farther, and landed on the ground in a run, continuing after him. She had lost some of her advantage, but was gaining it back quickly.

A shot from the Liger suddenly came upon him, clipping the side of his head, and he realized that the blast hadn't been from an impact cannon. Performing a brief diagnostic, he confirmed that the Liger was equipped with a pair of sniper rifles. Sniper rifles she had as a Shield Liger, he remembered.

No matter.

He spun in midair and killed the thrusters, keeping enough energy to hover as he turned to face his opponent. Intake fans along his body hummed to life, and his jaws opened, one barrel within his throat drawing forward and collecting a small mass of energy before it. The blast was fired, and immediately the Demon spun back and continued its flight to another spot. Keep distance to be able to use the big guns, yes, but there was something else there, too...

Ascanius saw the incoming charged particle blast and immediately the shield generation nodes along her mane activated, charging the shield with a reverse polarity. The shield immediately came forward and met the charged particle beam, making contact with the beam and diffusing the energy as it came upon her, slicing through the beam. She felt herself slow from the force of the blow, pushing her back slightly, but it was negligible in the long run; she emerged from the particle blast and lowered her shield, a roar crescendoing from her throat as she did so.

The Black Demon finally found its stopping point and settled down, turning to face the Liger coming after it; he could faintly see the mercury Liger behind her, but at the moment, that creature did not matter, and it would be a good while before she was upon him as well.

He leaned forward and opened his jaws, the secondary barrel extending as the particle beam barrel retracted. The scythe blades lay sideways, perpendicular to the way he held his body, and the panels along the top edge of the scythe blades – solar panels – opened up, drawing in solar energy, drawing in heat...

The internals of the Zoid had reached critical mass about the time Ascanius was in direct firing range, and the instant the Demon knew he was going to make a strong impact, the weapon was unleashed, a bolt of red energy lancing toward the Zoid. He watched as she raised her shield, charged to counteract a charged particle beam, but she hadn't anticipated what it was; a beam of heat energy, solar collected heat.

He heard the metallic screech as the Liger received her unpleasant surprise and stood where he was for a moment, the cooling fans along his body forcing him to stabilize; firing the weapon at maximum capacity had never been a smart move, but the sheer power, and the inability to properly combat it...

He stood for a long moment, keeping the scythe blades ready to fire the laser weapons at his opponent should she venture too close, should she have survived that blow. Smoke continued to billow from where the Liger had been, obscuring her – her carcass – from view. He needn't be cautious, he knew, no way she could have survived–

A crimson lance leapt from the smoke and hits the sand, rushed forward, and leapt into the air before the Demon was aware of what had happened. A scythe blade lanced upward, and he tried to step back, away from the attack, but the necessary lockdown during the cooling process hadn't been rescinded, and he staggered; kept his balance, but could not step back fast enough, react fast enough to combat the searching claws of the Liger.

A screech escaped his throat as the claws came down, cutting against his shoulder and down his chest, tearing a sizeable hole in his side, forcing a fountain of yellow and orange to spew from the wound. He swung around, bringing the tail blade to catch the Liger, and managed to make contact, tearing a gash in her left hind leg. A roar from the Liger, and the Zoid fell upon the injured appendage, forcing herself up slowly from the dangerous position. She looked over her shoulder and the sniper rifles on her back whipped around, firing once, twice in quick succession, both blows catching the Zoid to the head.

Jaws opened, and a quick blast from the incinerator cannon caught the Liger over her back. A roar, and she turned, somewhat slowed from her injury, and the Black Demon could see the damage he had dealt. The Liger's scarlet armour hadn't been melted, as he had hoped, but the char marks were clearly visible, and some of the armour was substantially beaten, thinned to the point where any impact would shatter it.

He pulled down and then leapt forward, boosters flaring as it tore toward the Blood Trinity, and Ascanius stepped back, away from the attack, her claws gleaming gold before she leapt forward, strike laser claw outstretched, preparing to red armour from her opponent–

The Black Demon was sent skidding back in the sand, digging in claws to find traction, as it suddenly took a blow from a shield ram. A shield ram!

The Liger had feinted.

The Demon locked down and opens his jaws, the particle gun barrel extended; the Liger was much slower than she had been due to the wound on her leg, she might not be able to evade the blast quick enough and with her shield energy doubtless pulling at the minimum and her armour nearly ready to fall in upon itself it could only mean that just one more attack from his charged particle beam, just one more strike from the weapon...

The Black Demon pitched forward slightly, its scarlet eyes blazing brilliantly for just a second before dimming, and it lost its lock. The jaw slackened, open only because it was unable to close, and the Zoid fell forward heavily into the sand, a hole bored into its back, shooting off a jet of sparks that illuminated the entirety of its midnight hull.

And behind it, drawing the four blades back, was Artema.

"Fatal flaw," Ramus purred. "Never allow your back to turn on your opponent. Even I knew that one..."

"Ramus, you–"

A bolt of crimson energy suddenly jumped from the collapsed hull of the Zoid, manifesting on the ground as Ryuukei and Sylosia. Ejected before they could die.

"You were supposed to be dead," Reia murmured.

But she saw now why he wasn't; he had the ability to bond with Ryuukei. She had heard that Ancient Zoidians had an ability to bond with Organoids, but she had never really believed it. By bonding the Zoidian and the Organoid, the Zoid would become more powerful, would effectively become sentient, and would have the unison thought processes of the Organoid and Zoidian to work its controls, to make it one of the most affective fighting machines possible.

He had escaped in this manner from the God Kaiser Oracle. Escaped from the Black Demon.

"And I'm afraid that I'm still not."

And the two dissipated into another bolt of red energy and leapt into the sky, flying in a tight circle for a moment until they came to hover over the remnants of a Zoid; not the indistinguishable remnants of Ramus' dead Konig Wolf, but something that Reia recognized almost immediately.

"Tsezar's Saurer!"

Richter? Had that been its name?

It didn't matter.

The pair flew into the hull of the Geno Saurer and immediately the two sides of the Zoid reconnected. A stream of red light flooded from its joints, from its scars, from all the opening and orifices of its body until the creature was bathed in a crimson light, an encompassing scarlet orb...

"Stand down," she whispered over the radio. "We can't do anything while that shell it open."

She received no response and looked over to Artema. Her head was bent low, looking carefully at the remains of the Black Demon – without its Organoid, simply a Rev Raptor.

"That was all," he said hollowly. "A Rev Raptor, a madman, and an Organoid. They destroyed the village..."

"Ramus..."

Artema's head snapped upright immediately, and she could see the demeanor of the Liger change. "I'll kill him," he whispered, then the crescendo: "I'll KILL HIM!"

"Ramus!"

Cold blue energy flooded over the Liger; her blades, her claws, her jaws, the blade of her tail, the generators on her mane, the boosters on her back, all of it engulfed in a cold blue light, and with an inhuman scream of fury the Liger tore forward, leapt up into the air, came down upon the scarlet egg–

The scarlet egg fracture just before he impacted, time seemed to freeze for a long moment as the Zoid emerged from its cocoon and raised a triple-jointed claw, effectively catching the Liger as it came down and tossing him like a rag doll to the side.

"Bad kitty," Sylosia whispered, and the Zoid pulled its head around to regard the claw, looking at the damage that had been sustained from the attack; one section had been torn clean off, and another had been broken in the middle. "Oh my, I seem to have broken a nail."

And then rose the accelerando of manic laughter as the Night Fuehrer swung itself around fully to face his battered opponents.

"Surprise."

c h a p t e r - f I f t e e n

Iridescent purple armour reflected in the light of the sun, almost blinding to the eyes, as the Fuehrer pulled itself low to the ground, a hiss emitting from the back of its throat. It looks, at first, just a Fuehrer always had from the pictures Reia had seen; saurian, sleek and deadly, thick armour covering its body, its triangular head held forward as it prepared its attack, the two blades – buster blades? – on its back drawn open, three claws on each – well, on the rightmost claw only one remained intact – energy crackling from the blades on the left claw. Something was throwing off her comprehension, outside of the fact that the armour, usually portrayed as a light purplish-pink colour, was a deep, iridescent indigo. After a moment she realized that there were two huge thrusters upon its back; thrusters usually equipped to one of its alternate armour units, the – now was not the time to freeze up! – the Storm Armour. The book had referred to them as Ion Thruster Packs.

The Fuehrer was a nasty beast on its own right; to have two of its armour units fused didn't help matters; and to have it fully energized in comparison to the two Trinity Ligers made the situation even more dire.

"This isn't good," she murmured to herself. "That thing can't possibly be stopped, not by us."

Not in this condition, no, Aesteroth offered dryly.

"Now what?"

We fight. You won't allow him to go on living, will you?

She was silent for a long moment, then sighed and shook her head. "Of course not."

Then we fight.

The Blood Trinity launched off of the ground and landed just to her right as a powerful shot from the Zoid's laser guns hit the ground where she had been standing. She slid to a stop and looked up to the Night Fuehrer it was injured already, its right blade almost completely useless, but it only needed the other blade and its charged particle gun to finish them off.

The pilot knew. The Organoid knew. The Liger knew. Ramus and Artema knew. Hopeless. There was no way two Trinity Ligers, exhausted from the prior battle, both heavily beaten, could take on a Berserk Fuehrer.

Hopeless.

She clenched the controls beneath her hands and forced them forward. Hopeless, yes; but she wouldn't had destroyed the God Kaiser Oracle if she had maintained it was hopeless.

It is, though.

No matter.

The Blood Trinity leapt into the air, energy surging through her claws, and draw back, bringing the claws downward sharply and going in for a blow against the side of the Fuehrer's face. Something came up next to her – black steel – and impacted, sending her flying through the air and slamming harshly into the ground. Sparks erupted from the torn armour where the strike had made contact, and the Liger forced herself upright, looking to her opponent.

"Not cool."

The shield generation nodes – those that still functioned, anyway – activated, and the Trinity Liger leapt forward, this time aiming for a blunt strike against the Zoid. The Fuehrer swung around, bringing its tail to impact the Liger this time, and sent her sprawling once again. Artema tried to perform a follow-up, but the blade slammed into her side, crumpling the armour under its blow, and immediately felled the mercury Trinity Liger. She hit the ground and remained still for a long moment, then slowly began to rise again.

The four blades slid forward, and the entire Liger charged with energy. "Reia!" the pilot yelled over the radio. "I'm going to try and disable the other blade! If it takes me out, take care of it!"

"You are not going to suicide!" she yelled firmly.

"Don't go against it, you know it's the only way!" Cold blue energy encompassed the Liger, flooring from every open joint across her body. "With the blades down, you can go in for a much better strike! The shield generator nodes, the lasers, two charged particle guns rest in the buster clamps! Don't worry about me!"

"Ramus!"

Too late; he was gone, consumed with a blue comet, and he leapt forward, sailing through the air and coming toward the Fuehrer, his boosters flaring to full power to create a second stream of blue-white energy behind him. The claws were gleaming, glowing furiously maximum capacity reached...

The injured blade came to meet him and the Liger slammed into it, tore it apart and landed opposite. The glow across her body fell away, and she staggered, then toppled sideways, hitting the ground with a soft thump. The glow dissipate completely, and Reia could see the Liger hadn't sustained damage from the Fuehrer; it had suicided, spent the last of her energy to take down the second blade...

And she hadn't succeeded. Ramus hadn't succeeded. It was a wickedly intelligent Zoid; it knew they were trying to disable it, so it had reacted accordingly.

Smart. But Reia certainly wasn't to react kindly to that action.

"YOU BASTARD!"

The scream echoed beyond the Zoid, beyond radio contact, and mingled with the thunderous roar of the Trinity Liger and the keening scream of the Organoid. Three minds became of one state immediately; Reia felt herself melt from her body, felt her consciousness enter into the Liger's, touch upon the Organoid's. She felt raw power flood through her; felt four legs against the hot desert sands, saw her opponent with absolute clarity, no longer distorted through the green cockpit glass. She felt heat; an internal heat, not the tormenting blow of the sun. She felt power.

Aesteroth?

Yes?

She closed her eyes, waited for a moment, and saw with her mind's eye the Fuehrer opens its jaws, gleaming teeth widening as it lunged, charging the cannon within its mouth. The white teeth were aglow internally with an ethereal purple-blue glow. The gleam of Ryuukei's charged particle gun.

Now.

The Fuehrer was thrown back from the sudden cocoon of light that encompassed the Trinity Liger, sent skidding against the ground, and Reia kept her eyes shut, feeling more than seeing as he dug his claws into the ground, leaned forward to dig his foreclaws as well, flared the booster slightly to stop his backward descent. An errant shot from the laser cannon within the remaining buster blade hit the blue egg shell and bounced away harmlessly, a whip of golden energy forking outward where the attack had made contact.

She could feel the heat from within, and the soothing coolness from without; she could feel the changes shifting within their body, felt a distant, vague pain as gears and wires moved away, as the sniper rifles on the back split in two and fell to the sides and stopped, hanging by thick cables as the two fractured halves morphed into something else. A faint pain near the head area, a faint throbbing at the tail; and a monstrous spasm of anguish from the back. But the spasm passed, replaced immediately with a wave of cooling, refreshing energy, spiriting her away again, filling her mind with thoughts of confidence; pure confidence.

The cocoon fell away after only a few minutes, and the green cockpit eyes settled upon their target. The Fuehrer's mouth was closed, and its head tilted slightly to the side, out of curiosity. And then its pilot laughed.

"You fool!" he barked raucously. "A single Liger with pointy things attached!"

A sleek body; four powerful legs; a long, lithe tail, covered in a thick layer of armour to keep it from being torn. The nose had become somewhat more pointed, but the entire head had become more streamlined; the armour swept back into several wind breakers, giving a clearer simulation of a main. From the forehead protruded a single, silver spike; a somewhat farther back, a scythe-like blade carved with ancient Zoidians symbols. Protruding from the back, two diamond-sheeted wings; and on the back itself, a grand mass of wiring and tubing and lights, snaking into the different parts of the Zoid, sending hot tendrils of energy through her. A step forward and a deafening roar from the back of her throat, and rather suddenly the Blood Energy Liger sprung forward, crimson armour flashing in the sunlight.

The Fuehrer hadn't anticipated the immediate attack and took a step back, but too late; the bare claws of the Zoid made contact and ripped a deep gash into the chest armour. The saurian staggered back, hissing, and screeched, bringing his second buster blade to bear and firing a shot from the laser.

In the back of the Liger's mind, the move had already been marked; she could anticipate the blast, anticipate its course, and step once to the right; the laser hit the sand and dissipated, and she made her attack immediately in the fraction that it took him to recover, arcanite jaws clamping down upon the claw's arm-like appendage. She forced her head down, then yanked sharply to the side, hearing the satisfying scream of metal being torn from metal. Her peripheral vision verified what she had hoped for; sparks were popping from the torn ligaments, bathing the saurian in a golden glow.

The ion thrusters on its back suddenly opened, and it shot forward, putting some distance between it and the Liger. She looked to the Fuehrer as it landed and locked itself down, leaned forward and opened the boosters on its back, the intake fans along its tail. It repositioned itself just slightly, claws hanging at the sides, and began to form the gleaming ball of energy before it.

What can this baby do? Reia said, her voice almost taking on a giddy tone from the rush of excitement, the rush of energy.

If she could have seen Aesteroth, she was sure he would have been smiling. My dear girl, he said, almost musing, clearly filled with the same confidence Reia felt. This beast can fly.

The three minds all knew universally that it took approximately twelve seconds for the charged particle gun to charge fully, but allowing the addition of the Organoid, Aesteroth gave it only ten. Five had been spent asking a question and receiving an answer; three more seconds were spent sending power to the blade-like appendages on the Zoid; one was spent leaping into the air; and the last second was spent gaining enough altitude to fly over the powerful blast of the charged particle gun.

The Liger's flying abilities were limited, but they were enough; from the sky, she could look down and fires a barrage from one of the guns at the side of the Zoid; an energy-charged gatling gun. The Fuehrer screeched and staggered back, clearly not anticipating the blow, and looked up to his opponent, jumping in kind to meet her in feral combat.

He was getting desperate, it was clear; when it came to sheer feral capacity in melee combat, a saurian simply did not hold a candle to a Liger.

She angled down and dropped to meet the Fuehrer, turning in midair just enough so the charged wings struck her opponent as a blade, slashing him across the upper chest, taking a sizeable chunk out of his neck. The thrusters faltered; the saurian hit the ground awkwardly, his fall not at all recalling the word 'graceful', and he forced himself upright.

"We'll return," he hissed, a blaze of crimson encompassing the Fuehrer as he did so. "We'll return for you, Thorneton-Flaurus!"

The scarlet shell fractured, and the Geno Saurer, still covered in the odd armour bits from the BLOX he had fused with the day before, spun and rocketed off into the desert, literally flying across the sands to wherever his destination was.

The Blood Energy hit the ground and stay there for a moment, then slowly leaned downward. Aesteroth was pumping his energy into the Zoid, forcing her to keep form, and Reia would have been offering her own life energy where it possible; but the battle had drained her. The events of the day had drained her. Physically, emotionally, mentally.

She slid away from the combined consciousness and fell back to her chair, leaning against it, feeling heavy beads of sweat against her brow. She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to collect herself, and opened her eyes again.

The world had reduced to a blur, it seemed. Yet still she could see something... Something large. Dark blue.

Hallucination.

She allowed her eyes to fully close, and slipped away from the Organoid, from the Zoid, from the waking world, from reality. She didn't need to stay...

"Ah, damn, look at this mess!"

Cyrus scratched his head as he regarded the three Zoids lying in the desert amidst the ravaged scrap metal of an obvious battle. The red cockpit of the Dragoon Nest distorted his vision slightly, but he had grown accustomed to such distortions; he could tell true colour regardless. A Trinity Liger, white and blue, and then a Rev Raptor, its normal rust-red colour. Another liger of some sort – he couldn't identify what type – lay comatose a short distance away, deep crimson against the cockpit's distortion.

"Deliver time will have to wait," he growled darkly. "I better take care of this, better make sure nobody's in there." He looked at the chunks of warped metal scattered around the three Zoids. Relatively little of it seemed to have originated from any of them, but judging by the incapacitated states – and the fact that he had seen the light energy of a high-powered charged particle gun only moments before – a battle had taken place, and the Zoids were injured, the Rev Raptor looking particularly bad, with the Trinity Liger a close second.

"Hell!" he hissed. "I hope to God there aren't any pilots still in there..."

c h a p t e r : s I x t e e n

"Hnn..."

Reia felt her mind snap on, but could do very little about it; she could feel a cold aura to her right, and beneath her, something soft, cushioned; and over her, a blanket of some sort. She could hear a universal hum around her, coupled with the steady inhalation and exhalation of her own breathing, the even drum of her heart. But while her senses seemed to all be functioning well enough, she couldn't move; she was trapped in a state of half-consciousness. Senses heightened; movement incapacitated.

She heard footsteps ringing against metal; two people, she could tell, walking from the corridor of a vehicle, a massive metal vehicle, their footfalls echoing into a long hallway, their voices echoing as well, but disjointed into the background of the hum of machinery, the soft reverberations as the massive vehicle moved forward.

An errant thought crossed her mind suddenly: Where was she?

"You know her better than I do," a voice said, suddenly clear to her, intelligible. She didn't recognize it, but she knew it was male, and it seemed to have the vaguest tinge of familiarity; something about the faint accent, suggesting rural upbringing, made her recall a voice, or a description of a voice, she had heard a long while ago.

"She'll be okay," the second said, and she knew it immediately as Ramus' speaking. "She's surprisingly tough. I'm surprised she's been out this long, though."

"I'm not. The Zoid didn't take much of a beating but it was nearly out of power, and I assume that she must have been completely exhausted by the end of it, as well. You say you were fighting what out there?"

There was a momentary pause, and then in a rushed whisper: "A Berserk Fuehrer, of a make I don't recall having seen before. Looked like it was wearing that Storm Armour Unit – you know the one, with those massive thrusters – but it still had the Particle Unit's buster blade clamps."

"Huh. How'd you get into that one?"

"It's a very long story and I would prefer not to tell it."

"Have anything to do with that nasty gash on you?"

Another pause. "Yes, I suppose it would."

They stopped a short distance from where she stood, she could feel their presence, and she heard the difference in their tone of voice; they dropped slightly, to a pseudo-whisper.

"I've never seen a Zoid like the one she was piloting; what kind of Liger was that?"

"I don't know," Ramus said slowly. "I was knocked out before it appeared."

"Appeared?"

"Cyrus, I've a very strange story to tell you."

Cyrus... She could vaguely recall having heard the name before, and a brief run through her memories showed that it was the name of Ramus' friend. Her brother had told her about him; that he was raised in a rural neighborhood – hence his somewhat peculiar accent – and had found his way to New Helic City. He had worked there as an apprentice to a weapons smith, forgoing any formal training to simply hold a job there. He had worked from the age of thirteen, funneling some of the money to his family to help support them, and by the time he was seventeen he had branched off to form his own weapon company. Over the course of two years it had expanded so it included Zoid modifications, and in the past couple of years had formed another factory for building transport Zoids. The factory had originally been made because of a special request for a massive transport unit in the form of an advanced Hover Cargo, and had since been modified to accommodate the building of a Whale King and, apparently, a Dragoon Nest – the Predator King model of transportation, however, had been glossed over. There wasn't much of a demand for them, apparently, and with good reason; they weren't really the fastest of transports, due to their quadrupedal construction.

Ramus had met Cyrus only a couple of years ago, when he was in New Helic to gather supplies. He had befriended the man immediately, and they kept regular contact with one another, writing letters back and forth, and at one point Cyrus had called upon Ramus to do him a favour – she had never learned what – and so Ramus had been given the option to ask for a favour in return; apparently, his original favour had been granted on a grand scale, as Ramus took it upon himself to design the ultimate transport system; a massive Dragoon Nest (he had originally planned for a Predator King, but Reia had kept him from going through) riddled with decks, hallways, secret passageways to transport from here and there.

She could only assume that Cyrus had kept to his word and was actually in the process of delivering the transport when they had been found.

She heard the echo of footsteps as they turned and began to walk down the hall, their voices bounding through the metal corridor and fading into the distance, unintelligible to her ear, but she paid it no mind. She knew the story Ramus would be recounting. He would merely be missing a few details.

Reia.

Yes, Aesteroth?

Ah. You are capable of thought but incapable of motion. Half-consciousness.

Indeed.

I suppose you don't know where you are.

I'm afraid I don't, no.

No matter. I'll be coming up to find you; this vehicle is massive, though. It may take a bit of time, I'm afraid, to locate your chambres.

She smiled to herself even in her partial unconsciousness. Don't worry about it, she said. I'm in no rush, as you can assume.

Very true.

There was a long mental silence, and she could only assume that Aesteroth was one the move through the interior of the massive transportation vehicle. A huge mobile fortress, she remembered from the plans; and she remembered that many of the decks were forward, near the head of the lobster-like transportation Zoid. She relayed this revelation to Aesteroth to prompt him to search in the most likely places. He obliged.

You haven't shown yourself yet? She asked mentally.

There was a momentary pause, and then the response; No, I haven't. I've been recuperating within the confines of the Liger for a fair amount of time, however. That was... Very difficult.

That Liger... Where have you seen it before?

In your visions... Dreams, as they were. I was unsure wether Ascanius would accept them or not, but it turns out that she has, apparently. I believe your Shield Liger was equipped with the core of an Energy Liger.

An unknown Liger Zoid.

Yes.

A momentary mental silence. The Energy Liger.

Yes.

She was silent once again, then finally responded: That was the core within the ruins. Aesteroth met her with silence, allowed her to continue unloading her thoughts to him. That core was taken out and placed in an uncontrollable Shield Liger. That Shield Liger was going to be decommissioned until Dad bought it and passed it down to me. That Zoid... The Energy Liger... It was constructed in the ancient times, wasn't it?

I believe your parents were very closely related to the project. This is possibly why you were capable of piloting the Zoid without being forced away.

It just might be..

She heard the faint clicking across the floor, and felt her eyes suddenly force themselves open. It was dark, thankfully; she had been afraid that she would have the misfortune of being blinded instantly. She was on her side, yes, and facing a smooth steel wall; the only light source came from the dim flourescent lights from above her. She turned to lie on her back and looked up to the ceiling, her eyes tracing along the internal curve and settling upon the small orbs of light that composed the ceiling lamps. The light was almost ambient; from above, it was soft and relaxing, and from below – she turned over again to her other side to see it – there was a flourescent blue strip of lighting along the edge of the walkway, giving a lower ambience in the tone of a soft blue.

Sitting in front of her, settled upon his hind legs, his one wing folded somewhat at his side and his tail curled up and around his feet, was Aesteroth. He tilted his head slightly and regarded her with his brilliant golden eyes, then stepped forward, somewhat awkward as he remained on his hind limbs, and stopped, dim golden slits of glass meeting with deep indigo.

You're awake.

"So it would seem."

She sat up and slid off of the small cot – it was more a stretcher than anything else, but 'cot' seemed to be the preferable way she would describe it. Experimentally, she turned to it and reached a hand under the side of the small cot, pushing up against the cold steel with her hand and forcing it back into the wall – it slid in almost seamlessly, leaving hardly any indication that there was anything within the wall save for the small latch embedded within that would release the cot.

"Where are we?" she asked. "I figure it's a transport of some kind..."

A rather large Dragoon Nest, I believe, he said. I believe the second male human here – the one who isn't your brother – referred to as Dragoon Nest Orion; I assume that 'Orion' is his given name for this behemoth.

She nodded absently, not entirely listening to him, and began to wish she had left the cot out. Now that was awake and capable of movement and had proper blood flow in her brain, the events of the prior day – or whenever it had been – came rushing back into her mind and caused her an immediate, excruciating pain; the headache exploded in the back of her mind and proceeded to throb painfully for the next several minutes as she tried to sort through the information.

Are you all right?

"No."

She moved her hand back and unlatched the small cot, bringing it down behind her and setting herself heavily against the cushion, holding her head in her hands and trying to caress the pain. It would be impossible, of course; she was experiencing a headache from the sheer exhaustion of the fight, a lingering aftereffect that would be with her for a while, and the pain was only exacerbated as she attempted to think through it.

She reflected for a moment on what Ramus had told her about the ruins where she had been 'found', and again to just a few minutes ago, as she had been speaking to Aesteroth and referencing to that very subject. She found the entire idea absurd; nobody could survive for that long in a stasis tube.

Sylosia did.

She looked up wearily and stared at Aesteroth, her mind immediately grinding to a halt. She tried to figure out what he had just said, and after a long moment managed to say, very slowly: "What?"

Sylosia survived for that long in a stasis chambre. The Organoid dropped to all fours and walked forward, coming to a stop just to the right of the bed. He rose up on his hind legs and stared rather intently at a piece of the wall; wether he was thinking about something or had seen something she couldn't be sure. You have been having curious dreams for the past several days, and I was viewing them, as well. He looked over to her. I saw your father – your true father, not your adoptive father – standing before the Energy Liger. He was speaking with one of the technicians. He reached out and idly placed a claw on the steel interior of the Dragoon Nest, almost as though her were drawing upon the transport to give him the constitution to finish his thought. The technician was Sylosia.

Her headache took no benefit from this news, and with a groan she buried her head in her hands, closing her eyes to try and hold back the pain.

"What... What about him?" she whispered, forcing the anger rising within her back.

He was at work on the Energy Liger, and I assume he aided your parents in the construction of many other Zoids at the time as well.

Her eyes snapped open and she stared at the Organoid. She had been shocked to numbness by the initial news that Sylosia had played a hand in creating the Zoid that her precious Shield Liger had suddenly become, but it hadn't quite sunk in; visualizing Dad and Mom as she knew them laughing and enjoying a warm beverage with the disturbed, murderous madman as they discussed construction plans for a new mechanical weapon suddenly sent a terrific chill down her spine.

And he was placed in a stasis chambre at some point and awakened several years ago. However... The Organoid trailed off, trying to configure his thoughts, then continued: If I am to believe your dream-memories, Sylosia left the Republic and instead moved to Zenebas, although I simply can't understand why... Zenebas Empire was out for the blood of all involved in the RACU.

"RACU," she repeatedly dumbly.

Republic Advanced Construction Unit.

"Well enough."

Silence.

"Do you... Have an idea of what he'll be trying now?" she asked quietly, trying to move the conversation away.

I do not, he responded. His two primary methods of terrorism – the Demon and the Fuehrer – had been eradicated, and the Zoid he was using for his primary means is now in our custody. I simply don't know what his next move will be.

Again she remained silent for a moment, feeling the pressure slowly elevate in her head. "This is about the past," she whispered. "He's recovering remnants of the past in order to effectively take over the world. I don't think that's what he actually wants, but... That's how he's going about it."

She sent her indigo gaze to the Organoid.

"Do you remember anything from back then yourself? I don't think you'll get more out of my trapped memories. Something after he left and became part of Zenebas...?"

Aesteroth was silent for a long moment, then nodded slowly. There is... One thing...

c h a p t e r - s e v e n t e e n

"That girl..."

Professor Clayton Sylosia shook his head, mildly disgusted, and walked forward, toward the towering form of the Geno Saurer. Despite the fact that the Organoid had been fused with the behemoth, it was decided beaten up; it's armour scratched and chipped and dented deeply, a great slash along the side of its arm, making the left thrasher claw completely useless, and the pulse rifles on its back had been damaged at the same time. The Zoid was usable, but it would do him no good unless he we combating something more akin to a Rev Raptor.

He smiled. Considering the power of the Rev Raptor Kaiser – as he had experienced it in the cockpit, the power it held in its core – it was not farfetched to say that a Rev Raptor could take down the Geno Saurer.

"I find it rather sad that you're having such grief with that girl."

Sylosia looked behind him and frowned. "You have given me no aid yet, Syrion. The least you could do is make a suggestion."

Adrien Syrion looked up to the professor and smiled, his dark green eyes, nearly black, regarding him coldly. "I can certainly make a suggestion." He leaned back and placed his fingers together. "You and I worked together in the past, correct?"

"Of course we did," Sylosia said slowly.

"And do you remember our greatest creation?"

Sylosia closed his eyes and inclined his head, trying to think back – far back – to a time he distantly recalled. Ryuukei stepped up next to him and nudged him, prompting him to think harder, before moving past and instead toward the tall, dark man across the room, reclining in the somewhat uncomfortable chair. He looked back from his steepled fingers and over to Ryuukei, who had lowered his head and was nudging his knee. The man leaned forward and stroked the Organoid's smooth metal head, and the Organoid, in turn, almost purred.

"I've missed you, big guy," Adrien said in an almost cooing voice, and the Organoid opened his jaws slightly and released a satisfied hiss from his throat. "How you been in the modern world?"

The Organoid opened his jaws and this time gave out a low, rasping call, somewhat happy in its tone. Adrien smiled.

"Good man..." He leaned in and whispered, keeping his voice just loud enough that he knew Sylosia would hear it: "I bet you want to go back and pilot your old Zoid again, huh?"

And Sylosia's eyes snapped open.

"Of course!" he cried. "How foolish of me! Ryuukei!"

The metal dragon's head snapped around this time, and with a hiss he bounded away from Adrien and back to Sylosia. The scientist indicated the battered Zoid. "Do you remember your old steed, Ryuukei?"

The Organoid nodded and looked up to the Geno Saurer. He already knew how to proceed, but waited for the order.

"Go on."

He leapt into the air and the boosters on his back flared. He shot into the air, a crimson arrow flecked with black, and tore through, coming down upon the back of the Geno Saurer, and almost immediately upon impact he was surrounded with a brilliant gleam of light; a deep crimson egg formed around the Geno Saurer and solidified to a good ten metres in diameter. Sylosia stepped back and allowed him a smile.

Adrien, behind him, frowned.

"I don't appreciate your command of him, Sylosia," he said darkly. "Ryuukei is my old Organoid."

"I'm well aware of that, my dear friend. I trust, however, that there is a relatively minimal complaint, however? He has been in my custody for several months."

Adrien snorted. "So be it. I do have one demand, however."

"Just name it and I shall deliver."

"I pilot the Maxi."

A silence from Sylosia, and then he smiled.

"Done."

Aesteroth brought his claw up and dipped the tip in the small vial of ink, then set to work carefully sketching out the approximations of the Zoid, relaying his commentary to Reia, who in turn related his words to the two standing beside her.

"This won't involve any work on your part except to keep the Rev Raptor safe until the process is over," she recited. "Since you were curious, he will be drawing out the plans for what the Rev Raptor is to become."

He placed the tip of his claw carefully on the creamy white paper and hesitated, testing its durability against his grip, and began to draw, a bit sketchy and definitely uncertain and wavering, but enough to get a decent idea for the beast.

"The primary form of the creature is based on a Geno Breaker – specifically, the Geno Breaker Jet A, which bears only a few differences to the original Breaker. You know what a Breaker is, I presume?"

"Of course," Cyrus snorted.

"Excellent. Take that basic body design" – he had the basic designed sketched out, sharp and angular – "and soften it entirely."

"Pardon?"

"Soften the edges." Reia made the appropriate motion as Aesteroth began to make the changes on the drawing. "The Geno Breaker is, by its nature, a very sharp, angular Zoid. However, if you curve these angles – note the blunted nose, the shorter neck spines, the rounder modification to the pincer shells as well as to the rest of the body – you will see that the Zoid looks rather less frightening than its counterparts. The claws are smaller all around, the teeth are not visible when the mouth is closed. The cockpit is still located within the chest, of course."

Cyrus and Ramus approached the design and looked at what Aesteroth had drawn up to that point. As Reia had been explaining, it was, pretty much, a softer variation of the Geno Breaker. As far as Cyrus could see it didn't look to have much of an advantage to the original unit.

"Why can't we just go with a normal Breaker?" he asked impatiently. "That thing could beat the crap out of anything that looked at it funny and nobody wanted to cross its path–"

"Because Aesteroth thinks that Sylosia might have something more akin to the Geno Breaker than what we have before us – at least in the manner of looks." She looked over to him. "Large and spiny. Besides, this Zoid is going to have a major advantage to anything the Breaker could dish out."

She walked to the other side of the plans and pointed to what was drawn on the paper. "As you can see here," she began again, "the Zoid Core is held somewhat farther back than normal to make room for a..." she paused, trying to discern the Organoids words, then continued, "a very special system. The wiring within this system reaches all points of the modified Geno Breaker. The feedback begins in the cockpit itself."

"That's no different than any other–"

"I think I get it," Ramus said suddenly. "It's not that it's hooked to the controls, I don't think."

"You're correct," Reia continued. "The wiring here that goes throughout the Breaker's body is hooked directly onto the pilot when they enter the Zoid, and this feedback matrix literally allows the pilot to become the Zoid during combat. It's the most precise system of battle yet conceived."

"I've never heard of it working," Ramus said quietly. "When was this system constructed? Has it been tested?"

"It was made... During the times of..." Again, she faltered, but this time because she didn't want to proceed. She managed to pull herself together after a moment. "The times of the Ancient Zoidians, thousands of years ago. And yes, it has been tested."

Aesteroth drew away from the design and turned his head toward Reia, continuing to relay statistics on the Zoid so that she could relay them to the men before her. She obliged his needs.

"The modified Breaker unit is capable of attaining speeds of up to four hundred kilometres per hour, which is apparently superior to any other saurian Zoid yet created and almost any other land-based Zoid as well. The only one that Aesteroth knows of that can combat the speed of the Breaker here is the Energy Liger, and there's simply no contest between the two when it comes to speed."

"How's that?"

"The Liger reaches upwards of six hundred sixty kilometres per hour."

"Oh."

Cyrus left his inquiry at that.

"Now... The pincers within the shield pods have been modified to instead accommodate two rather large blades, which are mounted on swivels so they can be turned farther outward even as the pods themselves are already extended, increasing the range of the Zoid dramatically, and increasing its melee power exponentially. The blades are, ideally, thin and extremely strong, and will slash though anything short of arcanite armour or Metal Zi coating. Aesteroth thinks that our opponent will have a thin coating of arcanite over his Zoid, but it will only make it slightly more difficult to slash through, as the Zoid itself isn't constructed of Arcanite."

Unlike the Energy Liger, she thought.

"As per usual, the Breaker has a high-powered particle weapon of a sort within its throat. You can see here that the claws will, of course, lock down when necessary and the tail blade is covered in intake fans, and the boosters double as particle intake fans as well. This is only necessary for its most devastating attack, however; its less powerful particle shot can be unleashed without even the necessity to lock down beforehand, and can be fired in all directions, stationary or in motion, without putting any dramatic strain on the systems." She paused, dissecting the information she was being fed.

"It's called the Immoliator Charged Particle Cannon," she said. "And apparently it has a backup ranged attack in the form of the Longbow Cannons within the axe blade pods, should the I-CPG ever necessitate recharging."

"How effective was this Zoid back in the... Ancient times?" Cyrus inquired slowly.

"Extremely," Reia responded. "It was used as a special operatives force fairly often and was sent out to combat the most powerful Zoids of the enemy sides." She paused as Aesteroth continued speaking with her, creating a moment of tension, and then she fell silent. She wasn't going to repeat the information she had just received; she would never be allowed to pilot the Zoid if she did.

"Did it lose back then?"

"Yes," she said finally. "A surprise attack destroyed it, although... Apparently the Breaker could return and destroy the opposing Zoid as well, so it really came out to more of a tie. That Zoid is the one Aesteroth figures we'll be going up against."

"What Zoid will we be combating, then? Do you know the name?"

"The Geno Maxi II," she supplied. "I know you've heard legends of it."

"The Maxi!" Cyrus whispered. "That Zoid was unstoppable!"

"Until it was stopped," Reia added darkly.

"And this Zoid that we'll be transfiguring our Rev Raptor to was the one that stopped it?"

"Yes."

"What's it called?"

She was silent for a moment, as Aesteroth informed her, and she conveyed the final necessary piece of information to her allies.

"It's official name is the Geno Breaker Jet Variation B," she said finally. "But that name is unwieldy so, in honour of its advanced Zoid-Pilot Interface System, it was code-named" – she paused again, somewhat for dramatic effect, partially because she was still tasting the word in her mind – "the Geno Breaker Psychosis."

c h a p t e r : e i g h t e e n

Cyrus looked down from the scaffolding above the Zoid hangar, manipulating the crane mechanism so he could slowly pan over the Zoids below him. As the platform swung in a slow clockwise arc, he looked down and nodded approvingly.

"I had no idea that Organoids still existed," he said finally, looking over his shoulder toward Ramus, who was also looking down to the mostly empty Zoid bay. "When'd you find him?"

"I think he found Reia," Ramus said slowly. "About a week, week and a half, maybe two weeks ago. I found out about him maybe three days ago."

"They're amazing," Cyrus said absently.

"Hmm?"

"Organoids." The mechanic looked over the side of the platform as he passed the cocooned Rev Raptor, encased deep within its golden-blue chrysalis. "I've only read stories about them, I wasn't really sure if they still existed, or ever existed... Or if they had the powers they were supposed to have." He turned his gaze now to the crimson Liger tucked away on one side of the hangar, head held low, seeming almost to breathe shallowly as she stood motionless. "Looking at that beast, though, and the shell down there, I suppose they do."

Ramus nodded, his faraway gaze focusing upon the mercury silver Trinity Liger below him and following the body of the creature as the scaffolding moved over the entirety of the bay. He had piloted that creature and felt... Felt something inside of him click into place. Something about using that Liger had made him feel so completely alive... So in-tune with the battle as he manipulated the controls from the cockpit. Almost as though the Zoid were an extension of his mind.

"She's smart."

"Your sister?"

He hadn't meant to speak aloud.

"No, no... Well, yes. But I meant the Zoid, the Trinity Liger."

"Smart?" Cyrus stopped the crane mechanism and allowed the two of them to remain suspended above the bay level. "How d'you mean? Good reflexes? Internal AI? Certainly not an Ultimate X calibre..."

"No, no, not in any manner of the word," he said. "And... It might be the AI. I don't know. But something about that Liger... She feels. She's aware. I can feel it."

"It's a girl?"

Ramus was quite for a moment and kept his back to his friend, feeling the blood rush to his face. Something about this conversation was screaming 'awkward'. Still, he managed. "R-relatively speaking," he added hastily. "She... Something about her seems to denote more of a female personality than a male personality, I guess."

Zoids don't have genders, he told himself. They do not go by 'male' and 'female'. He forced himself to inhale deeply, clearing his mind of the embarrassment. At least, not to most people.

"Speaking of," Cyrus said, "where is Reia?"

"Back in her quarters," Ramus responded. "Getting sleep."

"How much does she need?"

"I think she poured her life energy into using that Energy Liger," Ramus said. "She certainly didn't look in her best health the last time she was with us."

"I'll concede to that," Cyrus murmured. "How long does an evolution take? This one's been going on for–"

"Nearly fourteen hours," the mechanic said quickly. "I don't know about how evolutions work, but the one I've seen took only about two minutes."

"Maybe it's because the energy necessary for the Zoid will make it stronger?"

"The Zoid I saw evolve was the Berserk Fuehrer I was telling you about."

Cyrus dipped his head. "Then in that case, I can't explain–"

He stopped immediately and brought the platform to a halt, stopping the crane immediately. The scaffolding, slightly unbalanced by this sudden shift in momentum, swung slightly and nearly knocked Ramus off of his feet, and he turned around. "What did you–"

"The cocoon!"

Ramus turned and looked over to the cocoon, peering down to the Zoid, and inhaled sharply.

The cocoon had solidified into a mass of blue and gold, still shifting within itself as though it were a glass orb filled with molten steel, but even that movement was beginning to slow. Hairline cracks were forming from the top of the orb and spreading out along the sides, one of the lines eventually reaching the ground. Along one of the fracture marks, a pinprick hole opened, and brilliant light, deep blue and gleaming with golden sparks, shot forth from within the bubble.

Ramus nudged his friend immediately. "Open the communications link," he whispered. "Deck three, room three-oh-two."

Cyrus nodded dumbly and reached for the small communicator next to the crane controls, inputting the commands as he did so. He waited for the linkup to the appropriate room, marked by a low beeping noise, and depressed the small button along the side of the communication link.

"Reia," he whispered. From the other side, a soft, low moan was heard, and he repeated, more urgently, more loudly: "Reia!"

"What?"

"It's waking up."

"What?"

"The Zoid," he said. "The Zoid in the cocoon. It's waking up."

The next thing he heard from the other side of the receiver was the sharp, ringing sound of a metal door slamming into its metal frame. He placed the communicator back and continued staring.

The hairline cracks were thickening near the top, becoming more obvious, and the first of the cracks were beginning to cave in, revealing more lances of light coming from within the evolution egg. The chrysalis seemed to shudder as the fracture marks widened and deepened, more and more of them collapsing into a brilliant shot of light, and a soft, low growling sound echoed throughout the chambre. The two continued staring down, fascinated, as the orb began to clear up, the external molten metals becoming less and less opaque until they could see something within – only vaguely, but they could see something.

A blast of light from another crack, and they saw the thing within the orb move. The accompanying crash of metal upon metal verified that it was adjusting itself and had slammed its leg into the ground, readjusting its position.

And with a deafening roar the entire egg shattered, sending shards of light and a powerful shockwave of energy outward from the heart of the cocoon, swallowing up the two men and forcing them to the ground of the small platform, rocking it back and forth dangerously. Still, the roar did not stop, although it changed slightly in pitch and timbre, the sound moving from its high-pitched metallic grating to a lower, truer sound, an actual saurian roar, and finally found its place in the middle; a deep saurian scream touched with the internal clashing of metal that let ring a terrifying, soul-rending reverberation throughout the bay.

Then the noise ended, and there was silence.

Ramus, shaken by the sudden impact of energy against the scaffolding, carefully pulled himself up, peering over the side of the platform's railing and staring down below him. He felt his jaw unhinge slightly. It didn't matter.

For below them was a monster.

It was true; the beast did resemble, for the most part, a Geno Breaker, and it was true that the entire thing had a much rounder look to it. The sharpened snout of the original Breaker had rounded instead to a beak-like mouth, lined just vaguely on either side with two short, down-swept teeth, although its jaw was open slightly, as though showing off the impressive internal dentistry of the Zoid, sharply gleaming white within its mouth. It lacked the powerful forehead spike of the Geno Breaker, and the three spines running the rest of its head were much shorter – however, it had an additional row of spines covering the rest of its neck along the back, very short, but useful enough to make striking the back of the neck a dicey proposition. Along its back, hidden by the huge shield shells, were two enormous boosters. He noted with a start that the shield shells hiding the boosters were not simply pods from within the pincers could deploy when necessary; they were topped by an axe-blade each, the blades of these enormous weapons following from just at the start of the flattened pods to beyond their ends, sticking out and gleaming darkly in the light, white metal atop a dead black base. The rest of the Zoid, for the most part, seemed to mimic the relative body of the Geno Breaker; only this modification was a dark gray accented with dark, dull red, rather than vibrant crimson and black.

But something more about was simply not right, and after a moment he could see it. He could see it in the eyes of the Zoid.

They were simple white half-circles, slitted slightly to give it a somewhat more menacing look. Dead white half-circles against the cold, dark gray of the metal that composed its body. They had to shine, they had no shadow; they were lifeless, soulless, and the head tilted itself just slightly to that it seemed the dead eyes were staring directly at Ramus, threatening to consume his life for no other reason that simply to do so.

"Holy shit," Cyrus breathed. "That thing's amazing."

"That thing's frightening," Ramus murmured. "Do you see it's eyes?"

"Do you see it's joints? Ramus, those thrusters have a hell of a lot of power to them, so it can go fast, but..." He worked the controls as he paused, bringing the crane farther forward and lowing it slowly. "Look at the articulation on this thing! It's kinda hard to see, but... Every piece of metal has an articulation point, it looks like." He began to point as he steered the scaffolding downward. "Each claw has a separate point, each segment of the tail, the base of the tail allows it to rotate a lot, the neck has about three... This thing is more flexible than most people, let alone most Zoids."

"I don't like it," Ramus said simply.

Cyrus gave him a sidelong glance. "Something about it scare you?"

"Do you see it's eyes?" the mechanic repeated. "They're soulless... The beast is alive, but it's eyes are soulless."

Cyrus stopped the crane motion and looked toward the creature. On cue, it's neck moved, and the engineer noted that the separate articulation points allowed it a precision turn that he had never seen in any other Zoid; it tilted only its head, just slightly to the left, moved it slightly to the right, and lowered it a bit without any auxiliary motion from its body. And the blank white eye was not brought to stare directly at him.

He clenched his teeth. "Point," he whispered. "This thing is fricking beautiful, a marvel of design... But..."

"There's something wrong with it."

The Zoid simply stared at the two of them, its jaw closing slightly, and then its head turned away, bringing itself to the defaulted resting position. A burst of blue-gold light, and the Organoid leapt out from within the core and materialized a short distance from the Zoid's right leg, landing on all fours and seeming almost to shudder. He walked forward slightly, then his head snapped over to another part of the hangar, toward the approximate location of the doorway, and Reia walked toward the creature. They couldn't see her clearly, they were too high up, but they saw that she was enraptured by the presence of the behemoth.

Aesteroth noticed immediately, as well.

The Geno Breaker Jet Variation B, he said mildly, adding softly: The Geno Breaker Psychosis.

"It's..." Reia started, stopping for a moment to try and gather her thoughts. She searched for the proper adjective but failed to find it, and simply shook her head. "Wow."

She searched for the proper words to describe it, but all words seemed to fail in the context of the massive beast before her. Frightening was the first one to come to mind, as it bore a distinct resemblance to the Geno Breaker, and despite the fact that she had never encountered a true Geno Breaker in her travels, the legends of the beast hung heavy over her. Astounding was another, for the sheer size of the Zoid, and the sheer dangerous potential it held, caught her entirely by surprise; hearing and reading about the Geno Breaker was an entirely different experience from looking up to see its enhanced variation with her own eyes.

"And you think this thing can take down whatever Sylosia has planned?"

Yes. With a bit of training.

She was silent for a moment, then inquired: "Training?"

The Psychosis utilizes the Zoid-Pilot Interface System; it's a device that I don't believe you are familiar with. It hooks directly to your brain synapses, effectively allowing you to become the Zoid. It... Takes some practice. And use of the ZPI without fusion of any Organoid is never a good idea.

"Oh?"

I would prefer not to explain.

She accepted it and looked to the Zoid. "So we can test it."

Yes, but not at the moment. He rose to his hind legs and fired his boosters, flaring his wing for effect as he began to hover from the ground. I am... Very tired from the evolution. I require rest.

"Granted." She thought for a moment, then inquired: "The prior two evolutions you did only took a few minutes. Why did this one take half a day?"

The energy expense is vastly different, and the circumstances are as well. In the evolutions of Ascanius, the Zoid was already prepared to unlock her potential and reacted almost naturally to the transformations, and besides that the necessity was far more pressing; it was evolve immediately or die. In this case, I expended energy at a far slower rate, and the Zoid was unprepared for the transformation, regardless of the practice in temporary evolution he obtained while Sylosia was piloting him. The thrusters flared more dramatically, and he began to rise. If you will excuse me.

He shot away, dissipating into a bolt of golden-blue and disappeared to a far corner of the transport. She sighed and looked at the immediate area, then upward, to where the scaffolding holding Ramus and Cyrus still hovered.

"You forgot to install moving sidewalks in this thing!" she called up. "It's too large to just walk on!"

"There are sidewalks on the upper decks!" Cyrus called back, his voice quiet from the distance. "The idea is that you're piloting a Zoid across the lower halls!"

She smiled and turned away. It wasn't a big deal to walk to where the Zoids were currently being kept, as there were so few for the massive size of the transport, but she figured she might as well complain. Joke around a bit.

Her smile faded immediately as she realized that this would be the last opportunity to joke around that she would have for a long while.

Reia slid silently from the confines of room 302 and walked down the hall. The command deck was, thankfully, more comfortable by far than the corridors she had originally found herself in; it was carpeted, for one, which made her infinitely happier, and the noise from the engines was buffered more, although there was still a faint, trilling hum in the background.

She made her way out of the quarters and deeper into the transport, following back along the hallways that eventually led to the Zoid hangars, and opted this time to take the lift to the second floor. She made it to the hangar bay door without detection and opened the entranceway, stepping out into the massive, empty space. She closed her eyes and concentrated, drawing upon the memory of where the Zoids were being kept, and then opened her eyes and looked to the small control pad. She allowed her fingers to flow over the buttons for a moment, then input the proper location and level code – she was going to draw herself into the hangar space next to the Psychosis.

Regardless of Aesteroth's warning, she was anxious to try out the Zoid. It was a monster, which made her rather apprehensive, and the sheer power reverberating from it made her even more apprehensive about walking into the beast and testing it out. But as the platform lowered and she looked down to the Psychosis as it came into view, she felt something in her heart turn to ice, and she immediately knew that her apprehension gave way to sick, animal fear. She didn't want to be near it, not while she was alone, and that lone, stark white eye that seemed to follow her as she progressed down to the floor sent a cold shudder down her spine.

She inhaled and closed her eyes, feeling the platform settle upon the ground, and then exhaled. Calm down, she said bluntly. It's just a Zoid. You've been piloting Zoids for years.

She forced her eyes open. Now go.

She forced herself to step off from the slightly raised platform and approached the feet of the saurian. The beast towered above her, and even the chest compartment was hell above her head. The cockpit was located in the lower chest area, she knew that much about saurian Zoids. So how would it open...?

With a pneumatic hiss, the compartment folded out slowly, a breath of steam escaping from the interior. The bridge dropped down before her, a small path of stairs leading up to the internals of the Zoid, but as she looked she could see nothing within it; beyond the third of the five stairs, it was pitch black.

She stood immobile before the maw of the cockpit, and finally swallowed back her fear and approached the Zoid, stepping into the cockpit and losing herself to the darkness.

She couldn't see anything within, and feel around she found that there was no chair within the Zoid to sit down in. Frowning to herself, she turned just in time to see the sliver of light disappear behind the stairway to the cockpit as the Zoid sealed itself again, and she felt her heart stop immediately.

Not good.

A faint hiss from within the Zoid caught her attention, and she looked up to where it seemed to originate from, which was, admittedly, silly, as it was impossible to see anything within the confines of the Zoid's cockpit. She clenched her teeth and tentatively knocked against the interior hull of the Zoid, hoping against hope that the door would swing outward and allow her to escape.

No such luck. Instead, the hissing grew louder, and she looked around desperately; it was coming from all directions at once now, rather than just above her. She saw something gleam out of the corner of her eye; she spun, but nothing was there. Another gleam, this time to the right, and another fruitless attempt at finding the source. She waited a moment, heart pounding, and there was a spark of light right in front of her this time, illuminating if only for a second something long, thin...

"Oh no."

The wires hit in a flurry of pinprick impacts, almost like a sandstorm within the cockpit of the Zoid. She felt them tap into her arms in a hundred different places, against her legs, her chest. With a yell, she tried to pull free, supported only by the echo of her cry within the inside of the cockpit, but it was no use; she couldn't pull far enough to strain the wiring, and she could feel the pinpricks begin to snake under her skin. She clenched her teeth and stared in the direction of her arm, although it was impossible to see, and she closed her eyes and ran her other hand across it. She felt the wires inserted into her skin, and under her skin she felt the soft writhing of the system linkup as it found her nerves and dug in, clenched to them, began to link her consciousness to the Zoid's.

She felt something hit her harshly against the back of the head and the neck, and she kept her eyes shut tight, only vaguely aware that she was even doing so; it made no difference to keep her eyes shut or open, and it was impossible to even tell that she was consciously keeping them closed. She felt the wiring wriggle its way through her hair and press against the skin of her neck and head. The wired dug in, flitting through the nerves across her spin and gently touching her skull as they searched for the place to plug in to the brain.

Finding no natural location, she felt the wires actually dig in, a mild pain registering as five points of tiny spines dug in through the bone of her skull and found there way within, stalled for a moment, and then suddenly leapt forward and dug into the brain.

The scream was wrenched from her throat immediately as the Zoid dug carefully through her cerebellum and found the five primary points there the link would be most favourable, connecting as well to the nerves behind her eyes. The pain was excruciating now, unfelt throughout the rest of her body but tearing her apart within her mind. She couldn't help but cry out desperately, her voice rising and falling as she tried to force her screams behind the cockpit, but the powerful echo within the pilot chambre told her they were in vain. She screamed for release, screamed for the pain to stop, cried out for the Zoid to just kill her, but nothing came of it except the increased ringing of the pain in her mind, against her ears from the volume of the verbal assault, against her body...

It stopped.

She felt herself breathing heavily and knew she was still yelling between her deep oxygen draws, but she couldn't hear herself anymore, and the pain had suddenly ceased. She stopped and remained perfectly still, trying to feel the wires against her skin, but could no longer sense them. Something had dulled their mild sting, and had totally anesthetized the rending pain within her skull.

Tentatively, she began to question: "What–?"

But rather than hearing her voice, the vaguest sense of something else – a low, reverberating roar – met her ears. She was stricken, and after a moment she tried again: "What–?"

The same roar, in a slightly different pitch, escaped her mouth instead. She was silent for a long moment, trying to decipher what was going on, and decided to try once more: "Who–?"

This time, the saurian growl came out differently, somewhat shorter, and of a different pitch. This flung her into absolute silence for a very long moment, and she once again suppressed the need to scream. She had exhausted her lungs already...

Oh my god, I'm not breathing.

She was about to cry out again but forced herself not to. Don't panic, she thought. This is a bit freaky, but don't panic...

She forced herself to calm down, lowering herself slightly and letting her arms fall to her sides, exhaling in the form of a deep saurian hiss. She hung immobilized for a moment, resting herself, trying to get her bearings, then rose properly and, on a whim, opened her eyes.

She was almost blinded by the sudden flood of light that hit her optic sensors, and took a step back out of shock, hearing a deep reverberation of metal against metal as she did so. She found herself frozen again, completely numbed as the blinding light began to fade, finding the perfect level between darkness and light, and she clenched her teeth, feeling razor-edges against several dozen different points in her mouth. She lowered her head slightly, feeling like it was almost the natural thing to do, and found that her vision brought her a fair deal down from where she had been looking; tilting her head toward the floor, she realized suddenly that she was several metres too high.

This is too weird.

Reia looked to her left, then to her right, then took a step forward. Again the crashing of metal against metal; and another step forward, accompanied by the same sound.

What the hell?

She pulled back from where she was, and then leapt forward, and found herself soaring quite a bit higher than she thought she would, against ending her flight with a resounding crash of impact. She looked around, trying to figure out exactly what was going on, the leaned forward again and began to walk. She felt infinitely stupid walking like this, and even more unaccustomed to it, shaky in her movements, but she made her way ultimately to the end of the transport and suddenly the thought hit her.

Why am I going in this direction? I should probably be getting back to the room...

She made the action to turn around and nearly succeeded in falling over. Something was off about her balance, never mind that she had decided to walk like a–

The realization hit her with the full impact force of a downed Raynos.

Like a raptor.

She turned away and looked back to the back of the ship, this time compensating for the peculiar weight distribution by forcing her leg out a bit farther, keeping her upright more easily. She walked slowly toward the edge of the hangar and looked blankly at the wall, mentally adjusting her gaze so she could discern some sort of reflection against the walls. They were new, shiny; it wouldn't be that hard to see herself–

She found the right optical intensity and just stared.

No way.

She forced her head downward and saw the reflection of the Geno Breaker Psychosis mimic her movement. She brought herself to a 'proper' standing position; the Psychosis did the same. She moved her head to her right; it moved its head to its left.

No way.

She took a step forward and the reflection of the Psychosis did the same.

She lowered her body into a raptor-esque running stance and, feeling exceptionally stupid, opened her mouth. The Psychosis in the makeshift mirror did the same, and even as she did so she heard the faint scream of metal as the jaw, it's joints entirely new, sounded with her.

"Oh my god," she whispered, the sound coming out as a faint, metallic saurian hiss. "What's happened?"

She brought her head down as low as it would go and moved the claw-like arms upward, resting them on the muzzle of the Zoid. She felt the sensation run through as the metallic claws contacted the metallic muzzle, and felt her heart pounding faster. Yet... It wasn't her heart. It wasn't her heart she felt beating. It was farther back, almost just above where the joints of her legs rested, between the upper part of her hips.

The Zoid Core.

Is this the Zoid-Pilot Interface System? she thought foolishly. This is what he meant by saying the pilot becomes the Zoid...

She shook her head and watched the monster in the mirror do the same.

Holy crap, this is insane.

Reia looked upward to the small command window above the hangar door. A verbal command opened and closed the hangar, as well as the command from the cockpit. But commands would only register to validated voices; Reia had her vocal pattern validated, but if she had, as she thought, effectively become the Psychosis, then how would she manage to get out?

"Open," she tried at first, tentatively, but the same odd saurian hiss replaced her voice. She settled back, trying to figure out how to go about the problem, and then shut her eyes again – effectively dimming them to the point where it was difficult to see anything easily – thinking in the back of her mind: Perhaps... A mental command?

Yeah, let's try it.

Orion, she said, trying to direct her thoughts as a voice toward the transporter unit. Open the central hangar door.

With a faint hiss, the door slid upward, and the ramp slid downward. She stared stupidly out into the desert night. She couldn't believe it... The Zoid was capable of using a form of telepathic communication in order to relay messages. It made sense, considering the fact that she was unable to speak through the Zoid itself.

Right. Why am I going outside now?

She decided it didn't matter. She stepped onto the ramp and made her way outside, into the darkness of night. She looked up and adjusted the brightness of her vision, setting it to almost normal levels, so the wan light of the moon and stars overtook everything else. She actually began to settle herself in, pulling the claws back against her chest and splaying her legs slightly, bending them to get into a resting position. She remained there, her head looking upward, and simply watched the night sky, letting her thoughts on the bizarre situation try and drown out the slowly creepy terror she felt within her.

What if I can't get out of this thin?

Don't worry, you will.

Those wires... Are those permanent marks? Is there a symbiosis formed or something?

Of course not, that's silly...

What'll happen if I–

Her head snapped around, almost of its own accord, and she opened her jaws, releasing a low hiss as she stood up fully and, pulling herself in the forward position, stalking toward her target, she proceeded to step forward. Her eyes shifted immediately from their normal reception to an infra-red heat-sensory variation, and she saw a short distance off a Zoid running through the desert; running toward her.

A diagnostic showed that the Zoid approaching her was a newer, if typical, traveler Zoid; a Gravity Wolf, otherwise known as the Bike Wolf. This particular model was already in its bike mode as it approached, the paws drawn forward to act as the axle of the front wheel, the hind paws drawn back to accommodate the back wheel. The colour scheme of the streamlined wolf-Zoid was typical of a Republican pilot; the ochre cockpit shield surrounded by medium blue armour against the exposed gray steel of the internals of the Zoid.

She tilted her head and regarded the Gravity Wolf carefully, running several diagnostics on it and retrieving the information directly to her mind. Speed capacity two hundred seventy-five kilometres per hour, as it was somewhat beaten up from a prior scrap; armour integrity at seventy-three percent maximum, again from whatever fight it had just been in. Perhaps half of its combat energy had already been spent.

Let's trash him.

With a reverberating roar of challenge, she felt herself assimilate with the Zoid yet further, and she drew up her powerful talons as the boosters on her back flared, allowing her to hover just above the ground as she shot forward, toward the Gravity Wolf.

She saw the Wolf – still perhaps a kilometre off – turn to its side and revert back to its standard mode, and it turned to face her, confused. It wouldn't be confused for long.

Because as she neared the Zoid, something inside her snapped.

Her vision became a blur of white, all the necessary detail lines against the world lined with red sketch marks. With a horrendous screech the shells near the top of her body extended, like a larger, secondary pair of arms, and the tremendous axe blades held within them flipped forward in a fraction of a second.

The poor Gravity Wolf moved somewhat, trying to figure out exactly how to react, but could not, and in an instant, it was overtaken by the Geno Breaker, its entire right side crushed immediately from the impact of the first of the axe blades.

Armour integrity at forty-two percent.

The Wolf fell to the sand with a soft impact noise, and Reia drew up her legs and landed next to him. Not allowing him a chance to stand, she brought her talons upright and slammed it down upon the Zoid's side, smashing a terrific hole into the armour of the Gravity Wolf. Sparks erupted from the open wound, showering her in a golden gleam of energy, and the axe blades shined palely in the moonlight as she prepared to bring them down upon the head of the Wolf, then smash its core; kill the pilot, kill the Zoid, kill–

An impact from behind hit the hind leg, and with a screech she staggered forward, nearly falling atop the Gravity Wolf. She shuddered to herself and forced herself to turn around, her breathing sharped and staggered as she realized that she had just been shot in the leg while piloting the Zoid, and that she had actually felt the impact of the blast.

A hiss escaped her jaws, and her eyes focused upon her assailant; a mercury silver Trinity Liger.

"Fool," she growled, rather too literally for her tastes. "You can't take on the PSYCHOSIS!"

Her words rose to a terrifying crescendo of anger as the screams of rage escaped her throat, and she brought the small flechette cannon at her side to bear, releasing a growl from the back of her throat as she aimed for the best place to blast the Zoid...

"Reia!" came the familiar voice from within. "Reia, please listen to me!"

Reia? she thought. Who's that? The name sounded almost familiar, but was still foreign. The pilot was trying to confuse her. No matter. She could take him down. She was the Geno Breaker Jet Variation B; nothing could stand to her. Certainly not some helpless Trinity Liger.

Do you really think you can defeat me? she growled mentally, sending her thoughts to her opponent. I can't be taken down by the likes of you...

I was afraid of this, a voice whispered. I should have explained the situation...

She knew that voice as well. It didn't matter beyond that.

She opened fire with the flechette cannon, and immediately the Liger moved to the side, the small barbs fixing themselves into the sand. She snorted and turned to face the Liger; no matter, it had a lucky move...

The strike began in earnest, and she launched herself forward, jaws open and searching for their target. The Trinity Liger moved to the side and flipped the blades upward and forward, smashing them into the side of her muzzle. She roared, feeling the blast of pain tear through her body, and this time she spun, smashing her tail into the Liger's side. This strike made contact, she could feel the weight of the Liger as she was thrown across the desert. That wasn't enough to fell the miserable beast, but she knew what would be.

She opened her jaws and began to collect energy, feeling a faint hum within her, and then prepared to fire the blast point-blank, knowing that upon impact her opponent would fall, no matter what–

A bolt of golden blue interrupted the red-on-white world of her suppressed fury, and suddenly the blast slammed into her back. It felt as though it were tearing through her spinal column, ripping it to shreds, and then the impact settled down, and she rested upon her haunches, silent for a long moment. She could do nothing, she could feel nothing, the charge had stopped...

She slumped, and with a pneumatic hiss the cockpit opened up, and she fell forward, rolling once as she made her way down the steps, feeling tendrils of agony grip her as the wiring was ripped from her body, and then she hit the cool desert sand.

Reia was very disoriented, to say the least, and closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. Her arm was folded in front of her; she drew it out from under her body and stared stupidly at the pinprick speckles of blood clinging to her. All over her. She felt pain, a slow, throbbing pain through her body.

The wires at left her with these pricks of blood, and as she faded into unconsciousness she hoped these remnants of pain were only skin-deep.

After all, there had been five synapse nodes attached within her skull. Well, she thought, feeling slightly giddy, that certainly can't be good.

Blackness was all that answered her.

c h a p t e r : n i n e t e e n

Reia paced within the confines of the small room, her breathing still shaky from the experience of the prior night. She looked to the wall as she approached it, the finally came to a stop perhaps a foot off from it, and turned her eyes upon Aesteroth.

"You knew what would happen," she said bluntly. She felt the urge to lean against the wall as she spoke just to get a more comfortable position, but rightly decided against it; her body had healed from the puncture wounds – all of them inflicted by the primary wires, thankfully, so they were only flesh wounds – but she was still rather sore from their presence.

Yes, the Organoid said simply. I was aware of the consequences.

"Why didn't you tell me, then?"

I told you not to attempt to pilot the Zoid without Organoid fusion. While it is possible to control the Psychosis without an Organoid to counteract it, I certainly don't suggest doing so before you've trained properly.

She sent her gaze to the ground, fixated on a fascinating piece of dust embedded in the carpet, then looked up to Aesteroth again. "What happened? I mean... What happens after the linkup?"

The pilot is hooked to the Psychosis in such a manner that their synapses are linked nerve for nerve to the Zoid itself, giving the pilot direct control through their thoughts as though they were the Zoid, which makes piloting it much more... Precise, I suppose. You experienced this, yes?

"Yes."

Extremely disorienting, yes?

"Yes..."

Aesteroth rose to his hind legs and tilted his head to look at her. This link goes both ways, as it were. While you are linked to the Zoid you are capable of giving mental commands directly to it as though it were your own body, although some of the equipment is harder to utilize than others. You, for instance, do not have a tail or blade shields or anything that could convert to these weapons.

Reia nodded, clenching her teeth as she realized that, aside from the awkwardness at the beginning of the experience, she had performed disturbingly well in the Zoid for not knowing how to pilot it.

That's because the link goes both ways, Aesteroth offered, drawing upon her thoughts and giving her a proper response, hoping to set her at ease. As you are linked to the Zoid in such a manner, the Zoid will also draw its consciousness onto you, although in a much less obvious manner. This Zoid lives for combat and torture; once you have found an opponent, the Psychosis is prone to taking over and invading your consciousness with thoughts of absolute destruction, and from what I have witnessed it's very hard to pull yourself away without external intervention.

"Like you and Ramus riding to the rescue."

Similar to that, yes.

She decided now to sit down and massaged her temples. The experience had left a deeply sour taste in her mouth, and now all she wanted was to figure out why and to never do it again. She looked up to the Organoid again, this time finding the less pressing question, and inquired: "Where did you learn about that Zoid? I never would have thought of one like it."

The time period known as Ancient Zi, he said simply.

Reia stared at him.

"You're from Ancient Zi." A statement, rather than a question, although Aesteroth could taste the confusion behind it."

I believe so, yes. I do not remember much of the experience, however; only that I was involved in the utilization of the Geno Breaker Psychosis, and that I was badly injured during a battle– He stopped suddenly, his eyes shining brightly for a moment, then dimming back to their normal tone. That's where it happened!

"What?"

My memory has been fractured ever since I left the Crixis Compound, although I thought it was merely because I had been created there. But all of my prior actions were lost and still lost even from my short time in the Compound. I believe that the final battle of the original Psychosis was where I sustained my memory trauma.

"As opposed to oxygen deprivation," she murmured. She had set aside the complication of her past for a time, but to hear it brought up again made the pit of her stomach churn.

Now come with me, he said. We're headed for the bridge.

"Hnn? Why?"

We are receiving potential news of Sylosia's return.

Reia leapt from the chair and opened the door with a resounding bang as it impacted the side of the hallway wall. She was only a few minutes walk from the bridge, as the quarters were nicely placed very close to it as opposed to being centered in the Zoid hangars, and she decided to make the trip shorter by sprinting all the way there.

The bridge door opened with a crash as well, and Reia, breathing heavily from the sudden exertion, walked into the room, exhaling deeply and looking up to the two men standing there.

"Feeling any better?" Cyrus said automatically.

"What's the news?" Reia responded curtly.

Cyrus looked to Ramus and nodded toward the control deck, and Ramus pulled up a small screen, a prerecorded news report with accompanying visual footage. "They've been running this report all day," he said wearily. "Monster Zoid attacked Romeo City."

"Romeo! That's a heavily populated metropolitan area–!"

"We know," he said quickly. "And that's worrying us."

"Have they identified the Zoid?"

"No. I can't for the life of me figure it out, either. Looks like some sort of Geno, but I haven't seen anything quite like it before."

Reia approached the screen and issued a verbal command to enlarge; the computer complied, and she stared at the picture, enthralled, as the commentator's voice droned on in the background. Meaningless ambience; the Zoid was the only thing that mattered.

It was massive, she could tell that much, at least fifteen metres tall if it were to stand completely upright, and the entirety of the body was covered in almost spine-like armour; sleek and sharp. A deep gray-blue colour, nearly black, almost the same as the Psychosis' armour. Dead gray armour connected the internals, somewhat exposed on the arms from the peculiar armour coverage. On its back, two long spikes, almost like blades, rose back; modified boosters, and in one shot they actually opened and unleashed a torrent of bolt-spikes upon one of the Zoids attempting to fight it back. Its claws – foreclaws and hind claws – were of a very faint light blue, in contrast to its sharply white teeth and the gleaming white spike that rose from the forehead and swept back in a single, long spine. And the eyes... Crimson flares against the sides of the Zoid's tapered, sharp head, and within them she could almost see the hatred, the all-encompassing loathing, burning within them.

"Of note," came the voice of the commentator, "is the Neo-Zenebas insignia against the thruster pods of this Zoid."

Neo-Zenebas. Of course it was screaming Sylosia.

That is the Geno Maxi II.

Reia turned around and found Aesteroth standing behind her, pulled up on his hind legs as he watched the screen.

Melee combat specialist, unlike most saurian Zoid... Something similar to the Psychosis, actually. Its primary weapons are the teeth and claws, and it makes auxiliary use of its thrusters as blade-like appendages, as well as using the bolt-missiles within. The tail is sturdy enough to knock almost anything bipedal over, and knocked any quadrupedal a good distance away.

"Like the Psychosis," she said. Cyrus looked to her and arched an eyebrow before he realized that Aesteroth was in the room.

And of course, it has a charged particle weapon. You must be especially careful of that; a more powerful variation of the typical charged particle gun, and even more powerful than the Berserk Fuehrer's triple charged particle assault – and you know the immense power that holds. She nodded. He utilizes the charged particle cannon; a larger attack radius, more powerful knock-back, far more devastating.

"Right, then." She looked to the images on the screen. "Where is he now?"

"Reports said that the Zoid was seen moving south-west. And from Romeo City, that approximately in our direction." Ramus looked down to his notes and nodded. "I think he's asking for a confrontation with us."

"We'll be delivering," Reia growled. "Can you turn this thing so we're going to just about meet him head-on?"

"I can approximate," Cyrus said. "Shouldn't be that hard."

"Great." She turned away from the control panels and moved out. "I'm going to awaken Ascanius."

As she moved toward the door, Aesteroth leapt in front of her, his wing flared to block the entire entranceway. She stared at him, frowning, and said simply: "Move."

I will not allow you to utilize Ascanius for this fight.

"Why not?"

She had not yet recovered from the strain of battle and advanced evolution. She is still gathering enough energy to function properly, and she must boot up the tachyon generator to do that – a process which is, as I understand it, fairly complicated for one who has not needed to do so in several thousand years.

"I certainly can't use Artema–"

You will use Anamnesis. He is the Zoid you can use.

She stared at him. "Anamnesis?"

Anamnesis Kaiser. The Psychosis.

"I am not going to pilot that demon."

I'm afraid you have little choice.

"I refuse to pilot that Zoid!"

I'm afraid – and his voice became a dark whisper, a hissed demand more than a piece of advice – that you have no choice in the matter. Artema is nowhere near strong enough to withstand the power of the Geno Maxi II, and Ascanius is too weak to even try. Besides that, we need absolute reflexes to defeat this beast. Anamnesis is the only one that can provide those reflexes.

"I can't use the Zoid, though!" she cried, hysteria slowly beginning to creep into her voice. "It'll go berserk! I can't use it!"

Aesteroth looked up to her. If you wish to put your life and the life of one of your Zoids on the line, then so be it. His wing retracted, and he began to move away. But before you do. He lifted his head and released a single, low-pitched screech. Reia stared at him, and he tilted his head slightly. The computer will provide you with a sampling of the Maxi's power. Please turn around.

"I'm not going to use that Zoid," she repeated. "I nearly killed–"

Turn around.

His request had become an order, and regardless of how stoic she attempted to be, she knew it wouldn't work. Exhaling heavily, she turned around, and suddenly the screen shifted, enlarged, to show a very special piece of footage.

The Geno Maxi II swung its tail around and immediately felled one of the buildings of the city before turning to face something behind with a deafening roar. The camera, shaky, as though it were amateur footage, panned to the side to reveal a Murasame Liger, fairly standard colour scheme, although the white was a very light shade of blue and the blue was a somewhat darker shade; a definite model of the Republic. The camera continued to move, and revealed that there were two of them. Two Murasame Ligers against one Geno-variation Zoid. It hardly seemed a fair match.

The Geno Maxi II splayed its legs slightly apart and lowered its body, setting its sharp crimson eyes upon the two Zoid, and opened his mouth in a thunderous roar, working from the lower tones of its voice to the middle range and then falling back down, a cry of challenge. The first of the Murasame Ligers had already brought the blade upon his back down at his side and drawn forward; the other was preparing to do the same.

Suddenly, a shot was fired, from the Murasame Liger whose blade has just clinked into position. She saw the flash from the muzzle and the flash against the armour of the Geno Maxi, but beyond that, nothing.

A weak cannon, she thought to herself. Those things are meant for melee combat.

The first of the Murasame Ligers leapt forward, snapping the blade up above his head and charging it with energy, and he came down upon the Maxi, preparing to literally tear him a new one. The Maxi watched the incoming attack and stepped back slightly, and the blade of the Liger made contact – not a direct hit, but certainly enough to–

Do absolutely nothing.

The Liger glanced away from the Maxi, and one of its claws came out as it passed, gripping its neck and tearing its claws through the armour before pulling back sharply. It wasn't strong enough to actually toss the Zoid, not with the shrimpy saurian arms it had, but it could definitely throw him to the ground, and it gave the Maxi ample time to lower its head and snap its jaws upon the mid-section of the Zoid, just behind the Murasame Blade itself. The second Liger was leaping in, preparing for a blow with his claws, and he hit the Maxi over his back and kept going; the saurian sustained no visible hull damage.

The Geno Maxi spun, the Murasame Liger still clenched in his teeth, and with a powerful thrust of his head tossed him to the side, sending him flying and eventually impacting the other Liger as he was turning for another attack. The first of the two forced himself upright and brought the blade to his side, charging it before lunging, aiming, obviously, to cut the Maxi in two.

The blade made contact – the Maxi did nothing but brace himself for the impact – and remained held against the armour of his stomach for a long while before a hideous screaming sound was released, and the blade snapped, flew into the air and landed in the ground, sunken into the dirt. The rest of the Liger continued forward now, no longer held back by the deadlock, and was immediately hit with the tail of the Maxi. The first Liger was approaching from before, and the Maxi slammed the stabilizer claws down and opened his jaws. The spines along his back and tail rose, crackling with electricity, and he began to inhale, a ball of particle energy forming at his mouth.

The Liger didn't stand a chance. The blast completely encompassed him, he was completely obscured from view, and when it was over–

He was gone.

The Maxi pulled out of his charged particle position and looked to the remaining Liger, sidestepping and slamming his foot on top of the Liger's head. With a faint crackling, the cockpit glass was shattered, and–

"My god..."

You understand that we've only two courses of actions. You can take the Geno Breaker Psychosis and pilot it against the Maxi II, or we can wait. We can wait until Ascanius is running at optimal capacity and run from Sylosia. Allow him to destroy more pilots, more cities, while we wait. He stared at her levelly. We don't have much of a choice in this matter, you see.

She clenched her teeth and nodded. "Yes..." she whispered. "Yes... No, we don't."

Then you will pilot the Psychosis.

A statement. Not a question.

She closed her eyes. "Yes." She looked up to the screen as the recording rewound itself, playing the image of the Maxi crushing the cockpit again. "No matter the cost. He has to be stopped."

She was silent as she turned away and went out the door, then amended herself. "Not stopped," she said quietly. "Killed. He must be killed; that's the only way to stop him."

She left the bridge.

"No matter the cost."

c h a p t e r : t w e n t y

Reia stared stoicly forward as the platform lowered itself, and in the wan light of the hangar her eyes locked onto the cold, soulless white of the Psychosis. The Zoid was still as massive, and still as cruel-looking, as ever; but now that she was panning down its eyes, looking at the gleam of light against its white-tipped blades, she also felt justified for the coldness that gripped her chest and sent ice down her spine.

"I don't want to do this," she murmured quietly, to herself, full aware that she had no company and would not have any until Aesteroth came for her. The two men in the bridge were to stay in the bridge, act as a kind of mission control, until the Maxi was defeated. Or until Reia was dead.

She shut her eyes tightly as the platform hit the ground wit a soft rumble. She didn't like to think of that particular outcome.

She stepped forward, off of the platform, and approached the Zoid's cockpit once again. At least, this time, she knew what to anticipate, and her eyes opened slowly as she heard the pneumatic hiss of the cockpit door opening. Reia stopped and turned to look, and sure enough the Zoid had gauged her approach just right so she passed in front of it as the cockpit door swung downward; a noise that would prompt her to turn her attention toward it.

"Clever demon," she whispered.

The internals of the cockpit were just as dark as ever, with the exception that now, a small, red light was blinking quietly in the far corner, and the presence of that light certainly didn't help to set her mind at ease. Regardless...

She breathed in, then exhaled deeply, and stepped up the first of the five steps to enter the Zoid. As she lifted her leg for the second one, it seemed the Psychosis had lost its patience, and the walkway swung upward and slammed shut, literally throwing her against the opposite wall. The impact dizzied her for a moment, but she managed to shake it off and looked around the cockpit bay again.

Just as freakishly black and foreboding as ever.

Reia turned her attention toward the softly blinking red light in the corner and brought herself to her feet, feeling a faint, pounding pain within her muscles as she did so. She approached it – just a pace away from where she had been thrown – and experimentally reached out to touch it.

Her fingers brushed the light, and suddenly the stinging impact came over her again; the wires released a low hiss, giving her just enough time to begin to panic, and deprived her of just enough time to calm down and prepare herself. Pinprick bolts hit her arms, legs, back, torso, and the back of her head, and this time she felt the internal synapse links crawling over her skull, searching for the entryways they had dug, and found them.

Then came the conjoining with the brain–

"Augh!"

A single cry escaped her throat as the wires dug their way through her mind and found the necessary synapses. She felt, vaguely, as they began to channel her brain waves, bored into her thoughts, and this time the snap on the nerves of her eyes was tangible. The mass of wires was coiled around her, and she tried to hold on, for as long as she could, to her own body, to her own thoughts, shutting her eyes tightly to try and concentrate on just moving her hand to wrench a wire free, just to see if she could–

The faint squeal of new machinery reached her, and she opened her eyes. A faint wave of static overtook the world – everything was duplicated in the haze – but her eyes adjusted after a moment, and she looked around. Indeed, everything was far too small; much too small to match her normal perspective.

Regardless of the fact that she was now anticipating the sudden change in venue, she was taken aback by the conversion. Mildly disoriented, she took a stop forward and flinched automatically at the resonation that tore through her legs, and the accompaniment of the heavy, mechanical sound. It was too strange for her, she didn't want to do this...

Sylosia will kill everything until he gets me, though. This didn't comfort her, but it did give her reason to take that second step forward. And I certainly can't let him just take me. God knows what happens after I wind up joining him. God knows he can only get worse. He'll only seek out another Ancient Zoidian. The words were still bitter to her. And if he does that, there will only be more carnage. Aesteroth said that he had a lot of somewhat obscure points marked on the map in the Crixis Compound... Even without the map he shouldn't have a hard time finding his targets.

Not with Ryuukei to help him look. Organoid memory is astounding, unless it is tampered with.

She swung her head around, and her eyes rested upon Aesteroth as he hovered above her, simply hanging in midair, his boosters flaring behind him and keeping him aloft. His wing was drawn down, in an almost resting position, and he tilted his head, regarding the girl before him.

I do hope you hadn't planned to leave without me.

She moved her gaze forward again, toward the back door of the hangar, and realized that certainly wasn't the way she was going to be leaving the Dragoon Nest. I couldn't, she responded, testing her 'telepathy' now that she had audience that did not take the form of an automated computer. You said you can counteract the mind of this thing. I certainly can't do that on my own.

Yes, you proved that to us last night.

Never speak of that again.

He didn't respond. Are you prepared, then? According to the radar we will be within combat distance of the Maxi in approximately fifteen minutes.

She was silent for a moment then, with a bit of difficulty, turned to face the central forward hangar, ground-level. The doorway before her had a launch pad just behind it, and would serve the purpose to send her out against her opponent with a powerful forward thrust, giving her a minor advantage in forward speed – enough to quickly catch up to the Maxi and hopefully begin her strike before it could attack.

She brought the Psychosis down the almost abandoned hangar, leading the Zoid toward the catapult, and settled just before reaching it, sending out her command: Tell me when we're ready. Launch the catapult ten seconds afterward.

"Understood."

Disorienting to hear Cyrus' voice clear in her mind; she was accustomed to hearing Aesteroth, but that was because he 'sounded' more like a thought; Cyrus, however, was speaking literally inside her head. The echo of his voice left a bouncing resonance in her mind, and she snorted, automatically growling in annoyance. The sound fell harshly against her ears – whatever the auditory sensors were – and she stopped immediately, her anger giving way to mild horror as it hit her, again, what she was doing and what she almost literally was.

I don't want to do this, she repeated, directing her thoughts to Aesteroth.

It will be fine, the Organoid whispered. I will be here to ensure the Zoid does not take control of your mental faculties again.

Should I feel relieved?

You prefer not to go 'psycho' again, yes?

Well enough.

Aesteroth's booster ignited to a brilliant golden-blue, and he leapt to the ceiling, dissipating into a single stream of sparking energy. He tore up into the air and performed a sharp curve, leaving a trail of stardust behind him as he tore to the ceiling, came back down, and in a blinding flash slammed through the back of the armour of the Psychosis – Reia felt a faint tingling halfway down her spine where he connected – and tore through the wiring. She could feel him digging down through her body – through the chassis of the Psychosis, not her body – until he reached her oddly-placed 'heart' in the form of the Zoid core.

She waited for a moment as all internal movement ceased, and suddenly cried out, her yelp of surprise taking the form of a long, deep-throated roar. She shook her head and looked back, but saw no mark of injury. She clenched her teeth and looked forward, waiting for something more to happen beyond feeling a faint stab against her heart.

A moment of absolutely nothing, and then she felt it beneath her; the power coursing through the wiring within her, setting every synapse ablaze, cold fire blazing at her joints. She felt so alive... So powerful... So...

Confident.

Reia felt herself melt into the Zoid; it was no longer a separate entity that she was controlling via the careful commands released from her brain that the Zoid carried out as a separate function. She felt as though it were a natural form, that becoming a huge bipedal saurian bearing enormous axe-blades on its back were the most natural thing on Zi.

"Launch bay prepared."

She stepped forward and into the catapult and felt the clasps against her ankles. She lowered her head as the station began to power up, a hum of activity thrumming around her, lights flashing and sirens blaring warning as the Zoid rose up and locked down completely.

"Prepare for thrust..." Ramus warned. "T-minus three... two... one..."

The jolt was exhilarating, thrusting her back against the braces of the catapult launcher as it tore forward, toward the wall, and the doors of the hangar blasted open with a resounding screech. The catapult snapped forward once, twice, three times at end the third extension came the release, into the air, flying forward at a speed comparable to her old Shield Liger at full-tilt.

She aided the thrust as her eyes adjusted to the blinding desert daylight, and the thrusters upon her back, with a swift, subconscious command, ignited and threw her forward, skimming over the ground; and with Aesteroth, her speed was far great than it would have been even with the aid of the catapult.

Before her was the great black shape; a mountain of dangerous spines, sharp and streamlined and ready to strike as she came forward, although it seemed marginally surprised by the manner of her initial result. Its claws locked in and it brought its foreclaws up, but it was only a minimal match for the axe-blades already drawn out before her, used as two pikes to ram into her opponent's armour, hoping to rend it piece from piece and impact the core, make contact, destroy it–

The Psychosis hit the Maxi just as the second saurian stepped slightly to the side, and the axe-blade hit with minimal impact, digging a small furrow into the armour before glancing away. The right claw of the Maxi came up to meet the body of the Psychosis and shoved it away, forcing her forward, stumbling in a less-than-graceful manner.

Regardless, Reia turned herself around and stood face-to-face with the Maxi, both Zoids almost completely unharmed by the brief contact. She pulled her left leg back for balance and kept the axe blades extended, staring darkly at her opponent. The Maxi drew back from its assault status and stared down at her.

She heard laughter from within.

"This is rich!" crowed the increasingly – infuriatingly – familiar voice. "I can't believe this... Just like all those years ago, eh, Adrien?"

Adrien?

A second voice joined the chorus, this one only chuckling, however, and murmured darkly: "Indeed it is. I'd been expecting the Liger you warned me about, Sylosia. But this changes everything."

Who's with you, Sylosia! Reia demanded, adding in a taunting tone: Couldn't take down a teenage girl without help?

"Ah, a sharp tongue on that one," the second voice – Adrien? – said simply. "You two certainly seem to have met. How many times now?"

Twice in three different battles.

"You lost one before your Demon and Fuehrer were defeated?" the unknown pilot asked slowly, almost amused. "To a teenage girl. That's sad, my friend."

Sylosia ignored him, deciding not to incite an internal fire within the Maxi's controls. "I see you've already found the Interface system," he said cooly, allowing a pause for effect before adding: "I also see that you don't quite know how to control it."

Reia was silent for a moment, feeling herself and Aesteroth tense. What did he know...?

"All over the news before our dear Geno Maxi made its appearance. 'Lone Wolf Mauled by Demon Zoid While Traversing the Desert'. 'Man Piloting Gravity Wolf Nearly Meets His End at the Blades of an Unknown Saurian'. 'Traveling Merchant Almost Incapacitated by a Violent Attack from–'"

Enough!

She felt a whip of white-hot energy slash through her, and Aesteroth let out a low cry. Careful! he warned. The Psychosis feeds off hatred! Control your emotions!

"Good advice, girl," Adrien's voice said immediately. "And good job, already figuring out the Organoid fusion. But what else could I expect from somebody who so easily defeated Sylosia than that she would have an Organoid for help?"

She involuntarily staggered back as the realization hit her with a shockwave. You're an Ancient Zoidian!

"As well," he added cooly. "Yes, turns out we're all contemporaries here."

The Maxi ducked its upper body down, getting in its assault position, and Reia immediately pulled herself back into her own; she had lost it for a moment from the shock she had received, although given everything she had experience in the past couple of weeks it was a surprise that continued to react.

Because you still don't quite accept it?

No doubt.

Adrien's voice cut through her thoughts. "Would you like to know what happened all those years ago between these two Zoids?"

In reality, she really didn't care, but she knew that no matter her words she was going to get a history lesson anyway. She took a step back and braced herself, and then Sylosia began to speak as the Geno Saurer Maxi II suddenly lunged, the blade on its forehead snapping forward to act as a spear while the impact cannon on its neck unleashed a small burst of blows.

"I don't even know how long ago it was, but I suppose it doesn't matter. I was one of the high-ranking Republic Advanced Construction Unit engineers, you know. I did work with your parents."

Reia brought he blade of the Psychosis forward and turned the shell, taking the impact to the blade shell rather than to the main body. Taking damage to the shell held no consequences for her; to her main body, however, and she could already feel the stabbing arcs of pain shooting through her. She was linked totally to the Zoid; it's pain was hers.

She preferred not to feel pain.

With a roar, the Psychosis stepped forward and brought both axe blades before it, crossed together like two swords in a defensive strike. The Maxi crashed into them, and she pushed outward, unlocking the two and sending the great saurian staggering back. She heard a faint grunt over the intercom in her skull, but the noise was from Adrien; something about the pitch of her voice betrayed him from being Sylosia.

"I broke away from them, of course," the professor added. "Something within me finally broke and I realized that the rewards of working with the Republic were simply dwarfed by the advantages of aligning myself with the growing reign of the Zenebas Empire." His voice turned mocking as the claw of the Maxi shot out, a thrasher whip that latched deep into the mirrored arm of the Psychosis and closed down hard. Reia felt the tips digging into her upper arm, the pressure as though her wrist were being broken, and she shrieked, the sound manifesting as a high-pitched saurian scream.

"Of course, your father begged me not to join them, and I promised him that I would avoid aiding the Zenebas Empire."

The Maxi twisted the thrasher claw, and a snap was hurt as metal was torn from metal and the Psychosis' claw was snapped clean off. This time, the pilot Reia's scream actually succeeding in escaping the confines of the sound-repressive cockpit, but her pitiful human cries were dwarfed by the hideous saurian screech escaping the back of her throat. She could almost see the Maxi smile, and suddenly she was reeled toward him and slammed into his chest, hard against her opponent.

"So naturally I joined an independent manufacturer. How was I to know that they happened to be aligned with the Zenebas Empire. And your father made me promise that I wouldn't aid them." The jaws of the Maxi opened, the gleaming white teeth showing brilliantly in the desert sun. "The fool."

She froze.

Never call my father a fool.

"You don't even know the man."

It didn't matter; her father would always be her father. The man who raised her was her father; end of discussion. She did not remember who here true dad had been, but she imagined, immediately, that he was as kind, as caring, as gentle, as brave, as intelligent at her own, her archaeologist father who had so long convinced her he was off to great Zoid tournaments. Lied for her own protection. Lied that she would never need to know this horrible truth.

"He was a coward, a weakling."

Shut up.

"A complete fool."

Shut up!

"I don't believe the likes of him will ever grace this great planet of ours again."

"SHUT UP!"

The roar that erupted from the Geno Breaker Psychosis was enough to send the Maxi staggering back, completely caught by surprise by the sound, its concentration completely ruptured. The Psychosis slashed the thrasher claw away, the axe blade cleaning cutting the wire and leaving a sparking claw attached to its own fore claw. They were matched injury for injury.

The Psychosis needed to inflict more–

STOP IT!

The pain shot through her skull like an iron brand, and with a keening sound she pulled back. Reia was unable to function during the sudden bought of pain, but Aesteroth took over for a second and unleashed a blast from the flechette cannon, catching the Maxi by surprise and forcing him to step back, raising his remaining claw and arm-stub in a protective measure, trying to distill the barrage from the small arrowheads chewing away at the uppermost layer of armour.

Don't let your rage consume you! Aesteroth hissed. The Psychosis feeds on it, remember?

Of course...

He's trying to rile you up. Don't listen to him!

"My, that was different," Sylosia mused. "Your Organoid is quite right, girl. You should take his advice."

"How can you trust him, though?" The second voice, from that mysterious Adrien character, suddenly cut in. "He has origins within the borders of the Zenebas Empire as well."

What? Reia whispered.

What? Aesteroth bellowed.

The Psychosis had stopped for a moment. The Maxi took advantage of the pause.

"Aesteroth was one of five Organoids created by the Zenebas Empire for the purposes of drawing out a Zoid's greatest power," Adrien said. "Aesteroth was the third of the group created, although for many purposes he was the most useful."

The Maxi's thrusters slid to its sides and opened slightly, ignited internally with the power of the thrusters, and the flames began to creep up along the edges, turning them into blade-like appendages. The huge Zoid leapt forward, aiming to land a severe cut against the Psychosis, but Reia was still capable of reaction. She sidestepped to the left of the attack and the remaining, working claw of the Psychosis lashed out and latched onto the side of the Maxi, drawing taught almost immediately and stopping the Zoid in its flight. The Maxi was brought crashing hard to the ground, and the thrasher claw withdrew.

The script continued to roll from the mouth of the pilot.

"Five elements converged by the Zenebas Empire." The Maxi leapt to its feet and spun to face the Psychosis, opening and closing its jaws dangerously. "The first was water, cute little girl by the name of Syrion – I named her." The Maxi leapt and brought its talons forward, as though preparing to smash the Psychosis with a front kick, but Reia dodged to the right. The Maxi landed and spun, its tail slamming into her face and knocking her to the ground.

"The second of wood, another girl, named Thyra."

The claws of the Maxi rested upon the back of the Psychosis and began to dig in, eliciting a long, keening wail from the Zoid.

"Sweet thing. Much less violent than the water one; oh, the things Syrion did, I could never begin to explain to you. Awful, really. Shock that she was supposed to be such a gentle element."

With its remaining claw, the Maxi drew the Psychosis to its feet. Reia staggered for a moment, looking to the Maxi, trying to gauge its actions, and suddenly its head thrust forward, the spike aiming to sever the neck of the Psychosis. Reia moved aside, and the blade managed only to graze her shoulder, again unleashing another terrible screech. She felt herself automatically clutch the injured appendage, but in the case of the Psychosis itself, nothing could be done but to foolishly wave the arm stub and try to help.

"Fourth of them was our last girl, named Infernia. Bit of a silly name, she was built for the earth. No wonder she was so quiet; must've been confused."

The jaws of the Geno Maxi II opened and came forward, snapping down hard upon the already injured shoulder. The Psychosis released a screech of its own accord, and Reia, giving in to the feral instincts, turned its head and brought its own razor-edged teeth down upon the now-exposed neck of the Maxi. The teeth dug through the armour, and then the head drew back, removing a huge chunk of the plating with it. Slowly, she thought, tear it down...

"The fifth was Ryuukei – ah, you recognize that name!"

Reia had hesitated, locked up slightly upon hearing that name. The voice across from her laughed, and took advantage of the moment; the remaining thrasher claw came up and immediately crushed the hand of the Psychosis, then pulled back as the jaw released her shoulder, came down, and cleanly bit off the remaining hand.

"AIHH!"

She saw the shower of sparks leaping from the remnants of the saurian's hand and clenched her teeth against the pain. She could almost feel her own hand torn from the bone, could almost feel the heat of blood running down her arm, caking crimson and black and leaving a rusted trail against her skin once she finally picked it off. She felt the need to find a medical kit, get some kind of first aid, hell, replace the damn with a bionic hand, she didn't care, but just to stop the pain...

"And the third Organoid?"

The best recourse from keeping from hurting was to hurt back.

"The one I ever so conveniently glossed over?"

Rage was boiling within her. She could feel it within her core, too; Aesteroth was no longer concentrated on restraining the systems, he was feeding them, he knew what was coming.

"The Organoid of Metal?"

The entirety of the Psychosis seemed aglow with golden-blue energy; along the claws, within the jaws, against the blades of the axe, at every joint, at every articulation, anywhere where the armour stopped came the gleaming blue glow.

"Why Aesteroth, of course! Our favourite Organoid! So well loved that when Ryuukei was stolen from the base he volunteered to pilot the Geno Breaker Psychosis and return him!"

The sound that escaped the throat of the Psychosis was likened unto an overhead crack of thunder, accompanied by a long and rolling echo of its powerful cry. The axe blade was thrust forward and slammed into the upper chest of the Zoid, just above where she knew the cockpit was, and dug deep, almost two metres in, before she twisted its suddenly.

The Geno Maxi screeched hideously, the Zoid now crying of its own accord, and the Psychosis drew the blade out with a wrenching backwards thrust. The Maxi had already been trying to pull back, and this sent it off balance; it fell back and hit the sand.

HOLD YOUR TONGUE! Aesteroth roared, and the Psychosis screamed again, a long, low-pitched howl of fury.

"Damn it," she heard from the intercom, coming again from Adrien. "The hell? I hadn't anticipated this..."

"I don't care!" Sylosia screamed. "Destroy the Zoid! We will take the girl or we will kill her!"

"The Psychosis is nearing maximum capacity," Adrien hissed, forcing the Maxi to its feet and whirling it to face the Psychosis, which was still glowing with energy from the Organoid it had fused with. "The girl and the Organoid are giving it too much power, we can't possibly–"

"I will inform you of what is possible!" the scientist cried. "You will finish her or I will do it myself!"

"Clayton–"

"You weak, useless INSECT! RYUUKEI!"

A screech from within the Maxi was released from its throat, although it was far too high-pitched to have originated from the monster Zoid. And on the end of that cry, the spines on the back lifted, and a small pod, an ejection from the cockpit, shot out from the inside of the Zoid and slammed into the desert sands a fair distance off, rolling a stop against the heated landscape. It lay still, and in the back of her mind Reia hoped that the man within was not injured.

At the forefront of her mind, she wanted nothing more than to tear Sylosia limb from limb.

"Now that he has been eliminated..."

The thrusters turned toward Reia and opened, and the bolts within the them were suddenly unleashed as spine launchers. Reia pulled herself to the side and danced away from the initial rain, but took a powerful blast to the back of her hip, feeling the bolt tear away a chunk of armour and leap part of her left leg exposed. A great gash had been torn through it, and a second one followed behind the first, then a third, nearly destroying the upper part of the left hind leg.

She felt as though her entire thigh had been completely lacerated from the blast, and the blood she felt from the wound was pouring down as a cascade, torn open to the muscle and, in some parts, nearly to the bone.

"You're weak!" Sylosia hissed, surging forward, fully intent on impaling her with the spine on the Maxi's head. "Weak like your father, weak like your mother, weak like your adoptive parents, weak like your brother!" A thrust from the boosters as it charged like a blade, but Reia met it with the Psychosis' teeth, clamping down hard and preparing to force him to the ground. "You're all WEAK! USELESS! INSECTS!"

The thruster suddenly opened within the jaw of the Psychosis and the lower part of the mouth was torn partially from the upper. She felt as though her entire muzzle had been disconnected, torn away, let to lie in the desert sands while crimson ran from her bloodstream as water down to the remnants of her lower jaw. She couldn't even manage a scream, the pain was too intense– so intense–!

"Now die!"

The Maxi slashed at her, forced her to stagger back, put a bit of distance between himself and her, and opened his jaws.

No!

The particle intake fans along his body hummed to life, and the stabilizer claws sank into the sand. All along its body, the fans rose, preparing for charge-up and cool-down, and from its mouth the barrel began to extend, flecks of crimson energy appearing at the base of the weapon.

You're mad! Aesteroth screamed. You can't do this!

"REIA!"

A bolt of silver slammed into the frontal part of the Maxi, and it pulled around, disrupted momentarily, although the red glow in its jaw was still present, still charging and growing brighter by the second. The mercury Trinity Liger swung around and landed opposite the Maxi, preparing a burst from her impact cannon, but the Geno Maxi would have none of it; the remaining thrasher claw shot out and caught the Liger, reeled him in, and then, with a strength she didn't believe the puny arms could have had, lifted him and slammed him to the ground. One claw left the ground and was planted instead on the Liger's side, clamping down instead upon Artema's unconscious body.

Ramus? Reia asked, feeling herself freeze immediately. Ramus...

A numbness came over her in that instant as she realized that one action from the Geno Maxi had instantly incapacitated the Zoid, had knocked her surrogate brother unconscious...

Or worse, came the taunting thought in the back of her mind. Definitely worse. He's dead in there, you know.

No.

Oh, yes. He won't respond no matter how long you try and call him. He's been killed.

No!

I'm terribly sorry, but there's simply nothing that you can try and do about it.

She felt her mind drain as she realized suddenly where these negative thoughts had originated from. Every time she was in the Psychosis she felt them within her, but it wasn't the Psychosis trying to bring her down, trying to make her feel a fool for even thinking of optimism. And all the other doubts she had felt, when she was certain she was tearing herself apart...

No.

Ryuukei!

Ah, yes. The voice within her mind laughed. You didn't think I was sentient enough to do this, did you?

But how...?

That's a question you'll never have to worry about again.

The charged particle cannon suddenly unleashed its aggression upon the Zoid and its pilot, and Reia instinctively brought her arms upright, the shield pods crossing before her to take the brunt of the attack. She felt the sting against her back, the powerful sting as they began to fracture, to break away from the power of the cannon, an assault that seemed infinite over the course of just a few seconds... A flash of blinding energy as she knew that the systems had ruptured...

And yet still she stood against the onslaught, and heard the voice in the back of her mind: Your will is superior. You will. You want to save your brother.

Of course...

Then will it so. Kill him. Kill him. Consequences be damned, this man must. Be. Killed.

Energy channeled to the axe blades, and she moved them against the tide of the particle gun. Drawing energy from the air – proton energy, positive ion energy – into the blades, she brought them to a point before her, watching as the particle beam began to split, sent in different directions by the wedge within it.

"WHAT?"

"Die," she whispered, her words seeming almost to form on the saurian voice. The charged particle cannon broke away, but the excess energy within her blade did not, and she thrust both of the axe blades forward, slamming them through the chest of the Geno Maxi II. The Maxi seemed almost to jump from the impact, and within the Zoid's empty cockpit Reia pulled them apart, leaving a huge, sparking hole in its stomach.

She hurt everywhere; her hand had been cut off and her wrist was broken as her left leg was practically skinned and her back had been impaled and her talons were becoming incapable of holding her against the shifting sands and the axe pods were nearly disintegrated and her lower jaw had nearly been ripped clean away. But this fueled her, this pain and this rage and this blinding, furious confidence that divine will be done! The demon would be destroyed!

The particle cannon within her own mouth clicked out and came to a stop, and the beam shot forward, hissing against the sand, a weak beam, as she led it to the unstable remnants of the Geno Maxi II. With one axe blade, she shoved him to the side, knocked him over so he was nowhere near the nigh-dead Trinity Liger, and then the small beam of charged particle energy locked onto him.

The beam stuck, and drew in more energy; more electron power to feed the energy beam, enlarging it, engorging it with power, making it large, stronger, impossible to escape, impossible to survive. A wave of particle overtook the Geno Maxi, transforming into a circular fortress around the Zoid, creating a sphere of particle energy around him. And within she could almost see the electron bombardment as it ripped away at the flesh of the Zoid, the bone of the Zoid, the internals and the externals and metal and wire and gears and the glass of the cockpit within its skull and the core and she couldn't help herself. She began to laugh, a deep, manic laughter originating from the pit of her lungs and working outward, no longer masked by saurian screeched but deep, resonating, foreboding. Ecstatic. Dark.

"DIE!" she screamed, her voice leaving the realm of her laughter and becoming hysterical, manic, conveyed impeccably upon the waves of energy shooting from the Psychosis and bombarding the Maxi and tearing it apart. "Die, you bastard son of Satan! Die, light-bearing nightmare! This is your judgment! Your baptism of fire! Rot in the eighth circle, sowers of discord!"

She shut off the bombardment, and the orb fell away, revealing naught but the charged husk of the Zoid, the gleaming crystal Zoid core exposed and torn, a great chunk taken from the side. Attached to it, also blown apart, Ryuukei's corpse. And undoubtably still within him, Sylosia's.

She stared down, allowing her voice to ring out as a bell tolling the hour: "The inferno welcomes you with scythe blades procured."

She stood within the Maxi, then felt herself fall away, closing in on darkness. The felt, far off and distant, as the wires retracted. Felt, far off and distant, as she slumped to her knees. She seemed to be away from her body, almost watching from an outside perspective as she slumped down with the Geno Breaker Psychosis, broken, battered, beaten.

At perfect peace.

"I apologize," Adrien Syrion whispered. "I don't know what came over me..."

"Ryuukei," Reia responded. "I hadn't realized it, but he's capable of manipulating minds, little bastard. He was manipulating me for a while, as well. I'm sorry–"

"You don't need to apologize. I think you've more than made up for what Sylosia did."

"I killed him," she said simply. "Vengeance doesn't make anything better."

"It wasn't vengeance," the man said, resting a strong hand on her shoulder. "It was self-defense. Self-preservation. You were – I hate to be cliche – but you were saving the world." He removed his hand and beat it as a fist against the centre of his chest. "You saved me."

She smiled.

"Even if only one person is saved," she murmured, "my job will be fulfilled."

"And by stopping him, you saved a lot more than just one."

"I suppose."

"You saved at least three. You saved me. You saved Aesteroth. You saved yourself."

"And is that not one of the greatest victories to be had?"

"I think it is."

Reia fell silent and looked out of the window of the Dragoon Nest's bridge. She smiled sheepishly, then looked to Adrien Syrion, a man who stood a good foot above her, strong and sharp featured, glasses resting on his nose to give him a somewhat more cultured, learned expression. "I'm sorry about that Geno Saurer. You used to pilot Genos?"

"Many, many years ago, yes."

"We'll get you a new one, then."

"You would do that for me? After all that I–"

"All that Ryuukei made you do. But you broke him in the end."

"You broke him."

"You made the final leap."

Adrien set his dark eyes out against the desert expanse before them, looking over to Cyrus and Ramus. "You'd really let me join you," he repeated. "After all that I–"

"Reia's a good judge of character," Ramus said smoothly. "I think so."

Adrien smiled. "A new Geno Saurer," he mused. "I think I'd like that very much." He was silent for a moment, then looked back to her. "I'm amazed you conquered the Psychosis, though. Not even Octavian could do that – he piloted the Psychosis years ago."

"I didn't," she said slowly. "Aesteroth..."

"Defused. After the particle cannon, he had to defuse. You tore the man apart, I figured that was the Psychosis, but you kept the discretion to move him away from your brother. I've never seen that before."

Reia stared at him.

"Aesteroth defused...?"

He nodded.

She was rather quiet for the rest of the trip to New Helic.

That did not go as I had anticipated.

No, of course not. I had hoped you didn't want us to end up as a slag heap.

You know what this means, of course.

I've an idea. Please inform me more fully.

A smile seemed almost to form from the remnants of smoke.

Execute Command: Operation Colchis.

And a laugh followed in the wind.

I have waited for this for a long while.

TIME STAMP : 11:59 pm Jan 1st