WOW!!! Its been FOREVER since I updated, but my mind was lost in my book three writings and so I had to write there while the insperatin was with me. Anyway, to make up for it I'm doing my diggest, fates, monster posting ever and giving you 5! you heard me 5! chapters today. So without further ado, here is he first of them in which some of the mystery is solved, and other parts fall farther out of reach, enjoy. Oh! and for you veterins of my story, this chap does have new content so please do read it, now please continue with your reading. :) Chapter 10
Familiar Stranger.
Sixth grade! Josh thought as he woke and sat up in bed to look out the window. They said I get to jump grades this year because I did so well last year. I'm going to miss seeing Pepper in class, but at least I can still see him at lunch. Summer went so fast, but it is probably because I was so busy battling. Then he smiled as he swung his legs down and walked to the closet to start getting dressed. And what a battle season it was! I can't take all the credit because my brother helped me plan tactics and Gunner is amazing, but a perfect season wasn't easy to get. There were other kids who did the same, but still, ten straight wins is a good way to start my carrier as the world's best Zoid pilot.
"Look!" Came an exclamation from his bedroom doorway as he was finishing getting dressed by slipping his shirt over his head. "The sleepy head is up." Chomper commented as he and Godzilla lumbered into the room
"I am up on time." Josh replied sarcastically, turning to face his two now full grown two hundred pound pet. "It is just that you two do not need as much sleep."
"Excuses, excuses." Chomper teased. "Joshua has breakfast getting cold downstairs."
"Pancakes." Godzilla added with a smile.
"Did you two already eat?" Josh asked as they headed out of the room.
"Yeah." Chopper told him. "Your brother makes great salads."
"You guys eat anything with leaves." Josh laughed. "It is not very hard to do."
"I like Pepper's vegetable pizza." Godzilla commented. "It's real good."
"He is getting really good at pizza making." Josh praised in response. "He told me last week he took fourth in a city wide contest."
"He took first in a few X games too." Chomper noted. "I think it would be cool to learn how to skateboard but I'm too heavy, and my feet are too big."
"Fatso." Godzilla teased with a snicker, to which Chomper growled and she let out a squeaking yelp as the chase was on.
Josh followed close behind, watching as Godzilla raced down the hall with Chomper nipping at her heals until they reached the staircase and went tumbling down.
"Careful!" Came Joshua's voice from the other room as Josh burst into laughter and stepped over the heap of dinosaur at the bottom of the stairs.
"Good morning." Josh said as he walked into the dining room to see Joshua's face obscured behind another aviation book. "How are the lessons going?"
"Fine, it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. Just simple math and physics, but the actual flying part is quite exciting."
"When do you get your license?" He asked, sitting down where his plate of pancakes awaited him.
"Well that is hard to say, but if I can keep going like I am I could have it by next month. I'll probably need another project to come in to pay for it though so that could slow me down."
"You are known well enough now, even the federation noticed you at that convention, so getting a project shouldn't be hard." Josh encouraged, and then stuffed a bite in his mouth.
"I hope so, we are running a little tight this month, I may have to cancel a few flight lessons."
"I am sure something will turn up." Josh said, shoving another bite into his mouth, and then a thought came to his mind. "Oh! Speaking of turning up, have you heard any word from Joe and the others?"
"No." Joshua said sadly, placing the book down. "It's been three months since I heard anything from them. They have a nack for disappearing for a while, but this is the longest time yet."
"I hope they are ok, they are getting old though."
"Yeah." Joshua laughed. "But those three don't seem like they are going anywhere anytime soon. Knowing them they will show up with same crazy invention or something."
"Yeah." Josh smiled, taking another bite. "I bet they are up to something big this time."
"Probably, but you better hurry and eat or you'll miss your bus."
"Right." Josh replied, and then went to work on his food as Joshua returned to his reading, little did they know that something big was happening, at the far side of the Milky Way.
Joe crouched low to the ground, having done this many times before because infiltration was what he and his two partners did best. Long ago, they had given up hope on finding Prozin until Nick had unexpectedly found a strange chain of commerce.
Nick had come across hundreds of purchased parts ranging from armor plates to Giant gears and other strange part orders. At the time that they were ordered, they would have meant nothing, but now that Zoids were a common thing on earth, it was obvious what they could be used for. There were seventy five different people that had placed the Zoid part orders, but on further research, they found that none of them ever existed. Those identities sold what they had bought to twenty six more fake identities who sold it to eight others. At that point, all the five hundred and thirty two orders were narrowed down to eight non-existent persons. From there the entire order was sent to a single ship on the West Coast, but the ship never reached its destination at New York. Instead, it was recorded as missing and the wreck was never found.
Their government has done the same for us countless times before during production of some of the experimental crafts in our past jobs, but this has to be another country or planet. Brian thought, trying to make sense of everything. What country would have enough money to make such an extravagant purchase? And then why not make it in their own country? It could be that their country did not have the facilities to produce such an order, but then it fell back to the money. Then again, any merchant on earth would do somersaults for a zeny gem and that makes Prozin the prime suspect. Plus the world did not know about Zoids then so it would be impossible for one of our own to have done it. It would also answer a lot of questions about how Prozin did what he did, but not why or where he is now.
The cargo ship had traveled from a California harbor down around South America, and back up towards the southern coast of Florida where it had vanished. A search of the area in a sub had turned up nothing. One explanation is a teleport, and who other than a Zoidean would have known how to build one. It was a vague connection and would have been more of a hunch than fact had it not been what type of Zoid parts they were seeing as the ship had been laden with parts to build the Death Saurer.
What puzzled Nick the most was that all this was done more than twenty years ago. For all they knew Prozin could be dead, but then, with their flame rekindled, they looked into the Back Draft on the other side of planet Zi to see if any answers could be found there. What they found was horrifyingly real, and in a way, they regretted finding it because it meant the realization of their fears.
What had been thought to be a harmless resistance to the Federation was much more. The Back Draft was experimenting with the construction of Zoids to develop stronger, faster, and more deadly machines by fusing Zoid Cores. It was all masked by rebels and smalltime inventors, but as they looked over all the tests, it became apparent to them that there was indeed a mastermind behind the tests. Each one tested a certain aspect of a Zoid in battle then the data from what seemed to be a series of unrelated tests was combined into a new deadly Zoid.
In their search, they found two ending projects, one called a Triple S, and the other the Iron Hound. One flew, and the other was a ground unit. The Triple S was actually now used by the federation after they captured one and reverse engineered it into mass production, but no sign of the Iron Hound was found anywhere. Also, there was an extensive search for a Zoid that was said to be the final legendary Organoid, the Ultimate X. They couldn't really find anything more on the Ultimate X other than it had something to do with the Liger Zero they had met years ago during their first visit.
And then, at last, they had found a possible suspect for the identity of Prozin. It was a man shrouded in secrecy who headed the Back Draft Organization and went by the simple title of The Count. With this new information they had headed out to do a little on site investigation in hopes of finally getting some answers, and better yet, maybe bring this whole case to a close.
Now the three of them crouched down in the shadows next to a building in the middle of a vast desert that they had found to be the Back Draft's ground base, but were disappointed to find only one guard standing at the door. Even if this is not where Prozin is. Joe thought to himself. It will undoubtedly give clues as to where he really is. For now though, we have to worry about this guard. Then he smiled. Then again, how long has it been since we worried about a single guard? Joe poked his head around the corner for one last look and then turned back to the others.
"All right. It's show time." He whispered.
"So we use the usual plan?" Brian asked.
"No." Nick said. "I say we do something different."
"Like what?" Brian asked.
"Just watch and play along." Nick answered with a flash in his eyes.
Now Nick thought differently than the others, and so took greater chances. Beyond that, he loved to have fun, but his idea of fun required near death experiences. He lived for the thrill of danger, but unfortunately, he often dragged his comrades into his outrageous concepts, although; they did go all too willingly.
"Hey, can I get some help?" Nick shouted to the guard as he casually stepped around the corner.
"Who goes there?" The guard asked as he spun around leveling the gun at Nick, obviously startled by the sudden outburst.
"Whoa buddy! We just need help with our car." Nick said throwing his arms up.
"Who is we?" The man asked looking at him suspiciously.
Joe and Brian stepped out from around the corner with hands raised.
"We told him it was a bad idea." Joe said with a shrug. "So we thought we would let him get shot before we gave it a try."
The guard smiled at the humorous remark and lowered his gun walking towards them still a little leery, then stopped short and seemed to think.
"I heard no car." He said bringing the gun back up to his shoulder.
"It runs quiet." Nick offered.
"Yeah." Brian said with a laugh. "Because we pushed it over here."
The guard lightened up again and started walking towards them once more lowering his gun.
"Where is it?"
As Joe started to point Nick subtly moved behind the Guard jabbing his finger under his jaw below the ear knocking him out.
"Nice." Brian said.
"Let's get moving." Joe said, "We have only twenty minutes before he wakes up, and there is no telling how long we have before someone discovers he is missing."
"Put him around the corner and give him an hour long nap." Nick told them.
"Works for me." Brian said as he picked the man up under the arms.
"Now let's go." Joe said after giving the injection of sleeper fluids.
The three adventurers were again disappointed by the lack of security when they found the door unlocked, but once inside it became evident that it would be hard to find their target as they wondered through the base. Joe led the way as the three worked their way through the halls. They had done this many times before, but that did not keep their pulse from racing as they ventured out around every corner knowing it could be the last thing they did.
"There are so many different halls and doors." Nick commented. "Anybody know the way out?"
"It seems to be empty." Joe said.
"We should be careful just the same." Brian suggested.
"So how do we find Prozin, or anything helpful for that matter?" Nick asked.
"Same way you find anything." Joe answered with a smile. "Check out anything that says keep out."
"Right. Should we split up?" Brian asked.
"No. We will stay together this time." Joe ordered.
Turning corner after corner they moved with guns drawn using SWAT tactics, but found no security or personnel at all, and judging by the size of the building from the outside they must have searched half the building already. Moving with as much stealth as possible down the hauntingly empty halls, they turned each corner with caution, treating them like bombs that would explode at any second. All the rooms they searched were empty as well which only added to the bases eerie emptiness. What is this place? Nick wondered. No wonder there was only one guard. But this doesn't add up. There should be something here. Something's not right. Is it a trap?!
Then suddenly, hearing movement up ahead, Joe raised his hand signaling them to freeze a moment before preceded quickly, but cautiously, as they ran to the door at the end of the hall where the noise was coming from. Pulling a small device from his pocket Nick slid a camera under the door and they watched on a small screen as people in uniforms or lab coats walked in and out of doorways lining the walls. It looks like the maze of halls we are already in, but maybe this is the other side. Brian thought to himself. This side must just be a decoy.
"Bingo." Nick whispered with satisfaction.
"But we can't just walk into a bee hive." Brian said. "What do we do?"
"We could not if we did not have cloaking devises in our clothing." Joe reminded.
"Right. Let's go." Brian said reaching for a button on his top shirt button.
As he disappeared into the surroundings, a black clothed figure dropped from the roof and the lights went out. Then Joe, Nick, and the cloaked Brian felt themselves pushed through a door, before a familiar voice spoke into the dark.
"Leave." Ordered the strangers voice.
"Who are you?" Joe asked trying to get him talking so he could locate the man.
"That I cannot tell you, but you must leave. He will kill you."
"Who?" Brian asked.
"You know who. Now leave."
Joe had heard enough to locate his target and stepped in thrusting out his right fist, but then felt a strong hand grab his fist before twisting his arm up being his back pinning him against the wall.
"Leave. It is too dangerous for you. Only I can do this. Now go!"
Joe felt himself shoved to the side. Who is this? Why is he helping us? Is he helping us? This is the first time in over thirty years we have ever been caught, but that time we at least knew who our captors were and had easily escaped. How had he snuck up on us? That does not matter. I have to get away.
"We can help." Brian offered.
"No! I can wait no longer."
With that, Joe felt something penetrate his shoulder, and then he slumped to the ground as he felt nothing and drifted out of consciousness. Nick and Brian soon followed unable to defend against the unseen attacker falling to the ground as a needle was thrust into their arms. When the three finally woke, they were sitting in Nick's truck with a note on the steering wheel.
"Leave, and do not return."
Looking at each other they wondered. Had it really happened? It must have because there sat the note. They looked out over the dark landscape to see the base two miles away as the sun started to roll its curtain of light over the horizon when suddenly the Back Draft building exploded in a mushroom cloud.
"Look!" Brian shouted pointing.
A small black Zoid flew out of the flames. The Zabit pilot. They all thought at once.
"He saved us again." Nick said grateful, but with a hint of bitterness.
"I would sure like to meet him." Joe commented. "He seems to be the key to this mystery."
"Problem is." Brian said flatly. "He always seems to find us."
"Let's get back home." Joe offered as he started inputting earth's location data into the truck's computer.
After their successful time traveling experiments, they had installed a modified teleportation device in the truck so they no longer had to endure a week of warp speed to travel between the two planets. The next instant the sky was swirling as the truck, and its passengers, defragmented and were sucked into the wormhole.
Who is this man of the shadows? Is he friend or foe? What is his goal and why won't he let Joe and the others help? What about Josh, what is there role in all of this? how long do they have before things start going wrong? Find out in the exciting adventure to come as this story twists and turnes its way to a shocking surprise. I'm so glad I finally posted again, and I can't wait to get you all to the exciting things I have to come. No time to waste, must post more! (Races off using speed of nine tailed fox to rush back to document manager) 9TailedFox.