Okay, so this story has been siting on a flash drive for almost a year now.
I have the second chapter done as well, I just need to edit it, and then it'll be up too. Part of chapter 3 is done as well, so we'll see how that goes

First time ever writing Zoids though; I started this back when Zoids and Danny Phantom were my two most prominent fandoms
It's not as much of a stretch as it seems. There's a lot in common between the series and enough that I can place characters in the settings
I honestly have no idea where I thought this was going when I started it, but I have ideas for characters character backstory, etc. just no idea how that translates into a full story.

It might be off to a bit of a slow start, but hopefully it picks up. There's some foreshadowing in this chapter if you know where to look, too.

Prologue

"Oh gross, it's the three losers." It started with mumbling, as usual.
"I can't believe they still bother coming to school."
"I can't believe they still think organoids are real."
"Shhh, he'll hear you! His idiot dad still thinks they're around, of course he would, too. Why's that hard to believe?"

Thinks? They've been searching for an organoid for years and come up with nothing. Whether they really did go extinct or not, my parents are researchers and have been studying the effects of organoids on the Zoid system, core and the artificial organoid systems that were developed to mimic the amazing ancient beings. They've been studying the sentience of the organoids since before my sister was born.

"Hey Fenton, your dad still think he saw one when he was in the army?"
Let me clarify; Organoids have long been thought to have gone extinct 100 years ago. That's when the last one was spotted commercially. I say commercially, because my dad saw one not forty years ago when his and his friend's zoid were taken down during an ambush. It saved his life. Revived his Iron Kong right there, and took them off the battlefield at an incredible speed, dodging the rain of bullets that followed after them and leading them to a medical encampment which saved his friend's life, who had been pierced by a piece of shelling when the cockpit of his Houndsoldier gave.

Or so my dad tells me.

"I'll bet my brand new custom Rev Raptor that he still believes in the tooth fairy too!"

Truth of the matter is, his friend doesn't recall the incident at all, just that my dad got him out of there and his Houndsoldier was obliterated. Which of course, led to the current harassment from people for the actions of a hallucinating veteran during the last war.

"What a loser, I say him and his friend's will be cleaning my Liger's exhaust vents by the end of the year."

There's never a break from it, is there?

"Don't listen to them, Danny. In one week, everything will change."

"Yeah, listen to your girly-friend, Fenton!"

As much as I wanted to refute that statement, it was better to just ignore it.

"Sam's right, dude. Once the big surprise is unveiled, we'll go from freshmeat to royals around here." Tucker reassured. They were right of course, my best friends and I have been looking forward to the upcoming tournament for a year and a half now.

"Stupid freshman, who on earth thinks organoids are still around? Next thing, they'll start praying to the ancient zoidians before class!"

The three of us scowled at the crudeness of that last one. "What's the big deal about believing in Organoids, anyway?" Tucker asked, just loud enough for his friends to hear; "I mean it's not that farfetched, just take a look at some of the weird and newly discovered Zoids out there. Not to mention the new enhancements."

I shook my head, "Tuck, it has nothing to do with believing in Organoids as it does with my parents obsession with finding one." I scoffed, "I mean between Organoids and fudge, I don't think my dad has any other interests."

We reached our lockers just as Sam snorted and rolled her eyes, "Oh please, He offered you his prized Iron Kong, that's more than I can say for my parents. At least he's there." That's true. Sam's parents had a habit of taking off in their Whale King and holding extravagant parties on short notice, which generally resulted in Sam being left in the care of her grandmother for weeks on end. As a result, she doesn't really have much respect for them, since she never really saw much of them growing up.

I nodded, she was right. My dad might be a bit eccentric and embarrassing at times, but I can't argue. "Yeah, I guess. It just seems that way sometimes. Sure he's loving and caring, but any mention of Organoids and he's lost to the rest of us. It's not like my mom's any better, either." I shrugged, ignoring another taunt as I unlocked my locker, "I don't really care much anymore, but it really bothers Jazz."

Tucker slapped me on the back, "Don't worry dude! Jazz is gonna be so stoked when she finds out what we've been planning, that she'll totally forget about your parent's goofy obsession!'

I shot him a skeptical look, "You think so?"

"Yeah, Danny. And just imagine the look on her face when she finds out she's registered as an alternate. An official member of our team." Sam picked up, I mean, she knows what we've been up to, but she doesn't know about the big event. It's not gonna be as much of a slap in the face as it will be to everybody else, but if you don't think she'll be excited, you've got another thing coming."

Five years of training and enduring the jeers of their peers all came down to this. A week from today, and none of these kids would have any right to call the three of us 'losers'.

The satisfaction of rubbing our skills in everyone else's faces will be worth dealing with this on a day to day basis.

Everyone was looking forward to the big Zoids tournament, and I mean everyone. Certain teachers were even allowing the screening to be broadcast in the classroom if the parents of the students allowed it. And of course they would, this tournament was held every five years, it was one of Amity's few grand-scale events. It was for registered zoid pilots only, and it was a local tournament, so mostly Amity and neighboring towns were participating; which made it the perfect place to make your start in competition battling.
No one would expect Caspar high's resident zeros to show up, and that was exactly how we wanted it.

"You sure Jazz is gonna be more excited about being on the team than worried about us in our first real fight?"

Tossing a book on the History of Zi to Sam and grabbing one for himself, Tucker shut his locker and turned to look at me, "For sure, man. Jazz knows we're good so-"

"Good? Tucker, we're more than good. Half the people in the preliminaries are barely out of their Roadskippers." Sam interjected smugly.

"I know that, but does Jazz? She knows we're better than her, but does she know how much better?"

Pride wiped off her face, she leaned backwards against the lockers with a thoughtful look, "Point." She said with a shake of her head, "She's never really seen us in action." A look of worry crossed my face and Sam must've seen it because she quickly stumbled back over her words, "That's not to say she won't be rooting for us as soon as we really start to show off. I mean, that was the plan, wasn't it? Win the first battle as quickly as possible to show we're serious?"

"Yeah, but…" I let out an aggravated sigh, ruffling my hair in frustration, "Well still, do you have any idea how much she worries?" I leaned against the locker as well, allowing myself to slide to the floor. We had a few minutes before the warning bell rang, anyway.

Tucker piped up, "About as much as you do when she's on a date with a guy you don't like?"

I shot shot him a glare from my spot on the floor, "I'm serious Tucker."

"So am I, dude." He said with a shake of his head. "Have you even seen how you get? You chased off the last guy because he looked at you weird." Granted, I did have a rather large cut on my face from an accident earlier that day, which would draw some stares; but it didn't really matter to me by that point; the action was enough to draw my pent up irritation and that was the end of that.

"Yeah well, she should get better taste in men." I muttered, knowing full well that I was out of line and shouldnt've have taken my frustration from a malfunctioning part out on the poor kid.

"Hey, I thought it was funny. How many times do you get to witness a nineteen year old chased out of the house by someone four years younger than him?" Sam offered in an attempt to distract from the awkward situation that would surely ensue considering Jazz's fury at the event, "Tucker's got a point though. She's gonna worry about us, just as much as you do her. It's like one of us in a solo match, the other two are gonna worry regardless."

I held her gaze before glancing at Tucker and sighing. They were right and I knew it. "Alright, alright. I get it. It's just…well I don't blame her. We're great, but we've gotten hurt before and she knows it. I know it, we all know it."

They let my words sink in, and the sounds of the hallway were suddenly obnoxiously loud as the gravity of the tournament began to sink in. This would be our first official fight, and no matter how good a pilot you were, there was always a chance you could get hurt. Not that Amity was known for it's skilled pilots or anything; It was a small town and they had meet and greets sure, but it was no Blue City. The tournament we were entering came every five years, and there was always a chance that a pro would be in it, but so far, nothing's been confirmed.

It was the warning bell that snapped the three of us out of our thoughts, and we shared a significant look before getting up and straightening out. For the first time in the months we've been preparing, I could see the uncertainty start to sink into my friends' faces, and mine as well I'm guessing. We stood in silence until Tucker suggested we head to class.

"Whatever, we'll be fine." Sam assured, "Danny's dad fought in the war and he said we're better pilots than some of his teammates were."

"Danny's dad never saw us fight though, just maneuvers and strategy training."

"Maneuvering is a big part of fighting, though." I noted before a thought occurred to me and I stopped, causing my friends to halt as well. They were right of course, I was worrying for nothing, and I realized I was making them nervous as well. I turned around and held out a fist, "It doesn't matter, we're just nervous. We've been a team for almost four years now, we'll destroy the competition."

The uncertainty in their eyes vanished as they realized I was right. It was just a case of the jitters; this event was huge and it'd change the way everyone we knew looked at us. Now was no time to lose spirit.

Sam and Tucker both voiced their approval and threw their fists in the pot before throwing them up in the air and bringing them back to highfive. Sharing a brief look of determination, we let our usual masks of apathy fall into place as we headed to class, which of course was met with spitballs, as was every other, but that was no surprise. By the end of the day, we were beyond ready to leave. For the most part, our classmates do their own thing and leave us alone, but due to skipping so much to practice and purchase parts, our teachers had it out for us, and of course the bullies did as well.

The final week before the tournament dragged on like you wouldn't believe, and the night before we'd spent the night in the hangar, running over the list of competitors. None of the names really sounded familiar.

"Any of the pilots ringing a bell, Tuck?" I called from the opposite side of the hangar where I was working on some last minute tuning on one of the key components of my Zoid. Tucker had the computer tray next to his own Zoid doing a final scan, as well as checking out tomorrow's competition, and Sam was laying on a workbench off to the side of her own, aware that if she did anything else it wouldn't be able to go into battle in the morning.

"Well, there's the Tasker sisters and their Saix." They partnered up with Jack Cisco and took down the Blitz team a while back. Third member is an unknown." That didn't sound too good. Jack himself was a mercenary, so the third member not being listed at least gave us the reassurement that it wasn't the seasoned pilot, but the fact stands that Chris and Kelly knew what they were doing well enough to run with the high roller.

Taking the Zoids themselves into account, there was one flaw that could pull us the win if we didn't have the skills to measure up. The Lightning Saix was known first and foremost for it's speed, the defense of the Zoid, however, left much to be desired; compared to what we were packing, anyway.

"Yeah, but their speed won't do much in the close quarters of the preliminaries. If we can take them out then, we'll be set." Sam said thoughtfully, "Though the unknown bothers me. Doesn't list the Zoid, huh?" She looked to where he was seated and was met with a nod.

"Just says they're unknown. Pilot and Zoid. For all we know they aren't even registered."

Sitting up, she rose her voice to be heard over the roar of the impact gun I was currently using, "Well I think it's safe to say it's not a Saix. Otherwise, it should've been listed, but we should keep an eye on them just in case."

The noise stopped for a moment as I switched to a welding gun. "There's a Damian Grey." Tucker shouted. "Did a quick search of him, he's Valerie's dad. He's got a sniper and he's running in the solo round, so we won't have to fight him. Not for a while anyway. Other than that it looks like a few regulars and some newbies."

"So it's basic competition then, what else is new?"

I turned the welding gun off and jumped down from my workbench, satisfied with my work. With a wipe to my sweaty forehead I grinned up at my freshly perfected partner, "Finally, done!"

Tucker grabbed a couple sheets from the printer and spun the wheely chair around, rolling towards his two friends, "You sure it works? Better test it out before we head off." He handed the sheets to me and Sam to look over, "Here's the list of teams and their Zoids. Some of the combos look pretty solid, but if they don't have the skills then they won't stand a chance."

Skimming over the list I was given, I nodded, "Yeah, yeah, I'll check it out in a bit. Hey, since this is an indoor stadium, you think we'd be able to show off our custom lights?"

"Maybe. If it's dark enough." Sam reasoned with a yawn. "I can't imagine them showing up too well if the place is well lit." Catching my nod, she got up, dusting off her pants before turning to the boys, "Well, I‟m gonna hit the hay. You guys want to spend the night, you know where everything is."

"Gnight." Tucker and I chimed. She knew full well we'd stay; it was the night before the tournament and less time traveling meant more time to talk strategy in the morning.

"I'm gonna test out my system, make sure I didn't sever anything on the boosters and then get to bed. Otherwise I'll be out here all night. As soon as that's done," I paused, pointing to the computer whose progress bar was a little less than halfway filled, "It'd be a good idea to turn in too."

"Yeah yeah," Tucker waved me off as he swung back around to the computer which may or may not have was going to be a long night.