Chapter 2: Masamune vs. Schneider!

When Sykes arrived, a pair of men came to greet her, and examine the new Zoid. Sykes parked the Liger Schneider and stepped out. The older man approached him.

"Hey. Who the hell are you?" the man said, who was obviously Vincent.

"The last person you want to fuck with right now."

"I've fought in battles, punk. My Liger is undefeated."

"Because your opponents were pussies." Sykes retorted.

"I'm no weakling, boy. I've fought Zoids a lot bigger than my Masamune Liger."

"It won't match my Liger Zero Schneider."

"Boys! Can we be friends?" Eve asked.

"Not after insulting my Liger. Eve, no offense to your leadership, but I want to be sure he's got what it takes to be on the team."

"You didn't care about Zeke here getting on the team."

"Leman had a Command Wolf MK II. With a long-range beam rifle. What does this guy have? A Schneider. An out of date, run down, Liger Zero Schneider."

"With an organoid."

"Really? Let's see if it helps it any." Vincent snarled. He turned and stalked back into the carrier, and the Masamune Liger emerged.

Sykes nearly laughed. The thing was blue and gold and black all over. Like a bruised pimp. He climbed back into the Schneider and took off into the desert outside of town. The Masamune followed. Sykes stopped and turned so the Zoids were facing. A comet suddenly landed a half a mile away. The Judge bot. The capsule opened to reveal the handless robot, with one 'hand' blue and the other red.

"The surrounding mile radius is a designated Zoid battle zone, all unauthorized personnel are to leave the area at once. The following battle is between Vincent Leonhart's Masamune Liger, and Sykes Krousen's Liger Zero Schneider." It raised its arms to point at both Zoids. "Ready? Fight!" it said, crossing its arms.

Sykes deployed the Liger's forward ramming blades, and prepared to meet some kind of charge. Vincent deployed his main weapon, however, the Masamune sword. It was a glowing blade built onto a circular track section that allowed it to move independently, and it could slash, like a sword. The Masamune Liger charged, roaring, its blade moving to the Liger's left side. Boosters engaged in its back, boosting it foreward.

Sykes dodged and boosted into the Liger's side, the ramming blades penetrating the armor of the other Liger. The Masamune Liger was knocked away, rolling over on itself. However, it rose to its feet, the Masamune sword still intact, and charged. Sykes went ahead and deployed his Schneider swords on Blaze's sides, unlocking the second set of joysticks, which Sykes took into his hands and slid back in the ready position. Pedaling the Liger up to the redline, and igniting the boosters in the Zoid's back, he blazed at the Masamune Liger at 240 miles an hour, pulling both triggers on the joysticks, and sliding them foreward, which moved the swords foreward in a slashing motion, blue energy collecting about the black blades.

"Schneider Slash!" Sykes called, initiating the attack, and cut through Masamune Liger's side, leaving a sparking trail of destruction across the Liger's heavy blue and gold armor. The Masamune Liger toppled, falling, its system frozen.

"Battle over! The Winner: Liger Zero Schneider!" the judge announced, holding up its red arm. "Farewell, until the next battle!" it said, and the capsule closed and Launched away.

A small communications box appeared on Sykes's view screen. It was Vincent.

"Okay. I admit. You've got a nice Zoid, and you've got enough skill to defeat me, so you can handle anything the B Class can throw at you. Welcome to the team."

Inside the control room of the Hover cargo, Eve smiled as Sykes spoke.

"Thanks. Teammate."

The next morning the Masamune was running again, and Blaze was safely in the hover cargo. There were three more Zoids, one, Eve's Dark Horn, which was mounted with two beam gatling cannons, and a laser-charged blade on the horn.

The next two were Command Wolves, one, a regal blue with a long-range beam rifle; the other, silver, mounted with a double-barreled beam rifle and retractable blades on the sides.

Sykes was in the customization bay, working on painting Jager's powerful boosters red and black, and to make them compatible with the Schneider armor.

Vincent watched, looking at the specs of the Liger Zero.

"You won't be able to mount a Beam rifle on the Liger, you know." Vincent said. "Even without the boosters, it can't hold up the weight without slowing it down considerably. The basic Zero armor came with a double-barreled shock cannon, but Schneider has armor there."

"That's why I've got the heavy guns." Eve said, walking in with a plate of sandwiches and six-pack of beer. As well as a certain bottle of triple-strength Death Liquor for Sykes. "Here you go." She said, putting the bottle into Sykes's hand.

"You're a dear, Eve." Sykes said.

"I know." She said hotly, then left the room.

"You drink that straight?!" Vincent cried.

"Yep." Vincent shook his head.

"Eve said you were in the military."

"I piloted a Lightning Saix. I love speed. I piloted a Death Saurer, once, but I couldn't get it going fast enough. Red lining it went about as fast as a turtle." He finished painting the Boosters. "Well, that's it. What do you think?"

"It's okay. You could mount smaller boosters on the Blades, you know. I did that when I upgraded my Blade Liger, before I got the Masamune." Vincent informed.

Sykes ignored him. He called the Schneider to the bay, and it slid in on the tracks built into the floor of the whole Cargo bay. Arms went down on the Schneider, removing the smaller boosters and adding on the large ones, which formed one component, as they were connected to a base.

Now, ranged weaponry. First Sykes didn't like the head unit, so he had the arms remove the armor on Blaze's head and thought about what he wanted out of the head. The Jager. He called up that part, and examined it. He'd have to paint it red; otherwise, the whole paint scheme would be ruined. He programmed the pattern in and began looking at the Panzer's ranged weaponry. The Windbreaker cannon, nope, too heavy, and much too strong. The multi-missile launchers, no, it was part of the Panzer's armor. Jesus, there was nothing he could mount on this damn Zoid that fired! The answer came to him in a flash, and he ran from the Hover cargo, cash in hand.

"You again? Welcome. How is the Liger?"

"He's fine. I've upgraded him with the Jager's boosters. But, anyway. Do you have any small beam armaments? Like the one that could be mounted on the underbelly of a Blade Liger?"

The clerk, Terry, thought for a minute.

"I've got just the thing." She said, and walked towards the parts garage. Sykes followed. She led him past several beam rifles and cannons, eventually leading him to a single barreled weapon that looked like a miniature beam rifle, except upside down.

"This is a pulse laser cannon. It's pretty light, and has a great punch for a weapon its size. Basically, it fires a fully automatic spray of laser fire, or a single continuing laser. The downside is, it gets so damn hot that medium-sized Zoids can't carry it without considerable heat suppression systems. It could run on Panzer, I suppose, but imagine if you had the kind of heat control of a large Zoid, say, a Dark Horn?" Terry said suggestively.

"I bought the heat sinks of a Dark Horn, so I could mount them on the Panzer. I don't think I'll use them on the panzer anymore, though. The Schneider needed a ranged weapon."

"Well, I said I' give you half price, so, I guess that's five hundred." He handed over the money.

"I'll use my truck to bring it over. I want to see this team of yours."

"I didn't say I was in a team."

"News travels fast in a small town." Was all Terry said.

They packed the Pulse laser into the bed of Terry's big pick-up Truck and drove over to the Hover cargo. Terry backed up into the bay, and Eve, as if on cue, hoisted the pulse laser into the air and moved it into the customization bay. Then she came down wearing again, a Goth skirt, a T-shirt, and fishnet hose. And, yet again, you could see her garter belt.

"Well, this is the woman you bought the Liger from?" she asked Sykes, rudely ignoring Terry. Or maybe trying to insult her.

Sykes only nodded. "Terry, this an old friend, Eve, Eve, this is Terry." After a moment, he added, "my third cousin." Terry looked at Sykes, catching the lie, but she played along.

"His mother's side. Twice removed on my father's side." Terry explained. Eve warmed up to Terry immediately. Oh, if only.

"Oh, well, okay then, if you're family." Eve said. "Sykes, wasn't your mother an Only child? Didn't she tell me on your fifteenth birthday?"

"My father was her brother, two years younger, but he was kicked out of the family tree for not following the tradition of being in the military." Terry said. Funny, Sykes thought sounds almost convincing!

"Oh. Sorry. I thought, er, well. Nice to meet you. Sorry I was a bitch." Eve said. "Uh, you want a tour?"

"Well, I'm going to install my new pulse laser." Sykes said, and walked away.

Vincent looked at the small pulse laser cannon, and stared openly, as Sykes came in and sat down in the control chair.

"That's your ranged weapon? An itty-bitty, weak little Beam gun?!" He cried.

"It's a pulse laser cannon, jackass, and you'll be saying different about the weak part once I use it in a fight."

"You're right, any self respecting Zoid pilot would fall off a cliff rather than say they were defeated by a Zoid with that! Then, I'll call it a useless itty-bitty weak little 'pulse laser cannon." Vincent cried.

"Shut up, we've got company." One of the Command Wolf pilots said. "I'm Josh, I pilot the white Command Wolf Irvine. Zeke, the other guy, pilots the Command Wolf MK II, the blue one.

"Sykes Krousen." Sykes said without looking. He was placing a heat sink on the armor around the Pulse laser. A thick cable connected the power supply of the Liger to the Pulse cannon, along with another cable that connected to the cooling systems. It wasn't a very long cable, as there was a port for both systems on the belly, right behind the cannon mounting.

"Time to test it."

"You think your Liger can race a Lightning Saix?" Terry said. "I just happen to have one."

Sykes grinned. "I'm all for a race."