Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 13
Chapter 14 – the secret organization known as backdraft
As you can guess from the title the backdraft will have some role to play in this chapter, but I guarantee you it's not the type of role they play in new century zero, cause they're still a fledgling evil organization. Also things will become less depressing from here on in. (And maybe less violent, ah who am I kidding, author begins a psychotic laugh, lights in fire by using strange demonic powers and then gets put out by a bucket of water)
-Begin-
Some two days after the very violent blood loss induced near coma Tom awoke lying on some hard rocks, the first that hurt was his back, then everywhere else. Tom had leapt up in the middle of the night and no-one near him had been awake to see him get up. However at Tom's feet Reddy was sleeping and around him he could see many of the guys doing the same. With a glance at the door Tom's super eyes could see a zoid standing right below the doorway and a person sitting at the doorway looking out. The zoid was a blade liger, it's pilot could be anybody, and the person at the door looked to be Perrone. Tom lay back down, his entire body hurt, but he was alive and he could find out what happened later, right now he needed a good rest.
The middle of the next day Tom awoke again, with less pain this time, except in his back, there he hurt more. Still Tom felt it would not be as excruciatingly painful for him to sit up. So he did, he did it slowly and his various wounds from getting blasted by ephemeral lasers and stabbed with laser swords feeling very tender when he moved. Other than that he felt, ok he felt horrible, physically emotionally, every which way he felt like scum or someone who had been beaten half to death. The only bonus was that evil Zenebas emperor fellow had no more of the first generation humans to support him and one that opposed him. And the power that Tom could wield would turn a good half the world against him in a heartbeat if he tried. If he didn't try he could win over a fifth. Although first he needed to survive.
In the three seconds that Tom had all those thoughts run through his head everyone had come over to him and had begun on the typical route of questions that all had to be answered, starting with are you ok, to which the answer was, ow. And it continued for some 40 minutes until only reddy Perrone and John were around Tom. Finally Tom got in a question edgewise. "Did you bury Lisa?"
For a moment John Perrone and reddy looked at each other as they remembered the events that had happened right after the battle ended.
Tom had fallen to the ground and everyone had run to him immediately. As they began to wrap up his wounds with what they had available the ground around Lisa began to shake. After a moment everyone noticed it. Looking to her corpse they could see her slowly getting up, sword fully impaled through her chest. "Did you think I was that easy to kill…?" She trailed as she slipped down the blade. "I wasn't quite such easy prey as to fall victim to that." Three guns were trained on her in a heartbeat. "Well I guess if you all shoot me now I'd probably die though…" Then the ground around her shook more. Then it began to fracture around her. Everyone backed further and further away from the cracking ground. Tom's body momentarily forgotten in their fear. Then the stones rose up from the ground in a near perfect circle around Lisa's body. They came and formed a spiral that completely covered her body, sounds could be heard and when the stone retracted back into the ground all that was left was a clean sword serving as a grave marker, and then there was Tom's bloody sword lying on the ground as well. It was as if Lisa hadn't been there ever.
After remembering that even the consensus was, "Yes." As John said. They had removed the other sword and stored it away so that Tom wouldn't have to deal with what actually happened. Although in retrospect, at least that of john, the guy could probably handle it with ease and as much grace as he could muster given the situation and probably make more sense out of it than they ever could.
Tom nodded and decided to lie down, as his muscles relaxed from keeping him up he felt better. Kokuhso also decided to speak. They're lying. The spirit said. Since we share minds you know what I've been seeing in the mana leylines. Something happened and Lisa was taken away from them by a magical force. And then some other sword was put back in her place.
Just like with Sylvia. Tom thought back to kokuhso, We of the last humans are too special to die by a simple stab through the chest. I had no doubt Lisa lived through what I did to her. However I had thought that the guys would have shot her until she was dead though. But you seem to have discouraged that thought path as well. Well that's ok with me, I'm content with her living, it's better than killing of someone who is practically the only other being with your pedigree on the planet.
Kokuhso thought about what Tom said then replied plainly, I concur.
Tom lay on the still hard and still back tormenting ground wondering about where Lisa had gone, the fate of Zenebas now, the fate of the guardian force, how Jaina was, when would he re-join the war effort, would he wield his power of being the last of the humans from planet earth during the course of the war, what zoid would he use, could he build a fleet of ships to take him to the moon, where had the globally three crash landed, and thousands of other things that he wanted, needed, or had planned to get done. Had there been survivors on the discovery had always been a vague hope of his, he had known of the starboard pods ejecting, but never the port. The discovery had always been tough enough to survive something like that, explosive enough it had been, Tom simply just had become more motivated to go find out now that Lisa and Sylvia were, for all practical purposes, dead.
In a miracle five days after waking up Tom felt ready to explore the caverns saying that since it had been guarded, full of all this machinery and stuck in an obscure location it had to house, or have housed, something important. Being the only one willing to search the base and also still not really being strong enough to search randomly on his own he simply sat down in front of a computer terminal that looked like it worked and began hacking the Device. When Tom quickly found that the particular terminal had nothing of value, he simply went on to another. The second one he hit was much better guarded, but still took only a short while to hack. While it lacked a map or contents of the base that wasn't already known there was a syndicate name that appeared in the file as well as synopsis of the forces in general that were not top secret. This was the force that they faced off with when entering. And the groups name was, backdraft, they wished to mess with the world of zoid battles for personal monetary gain and perhaps eventual political or extreme military power. Their current backers were few in number but had great amounts of money. Tom took some time to burn all of the computers information to a disk. And then as he returned to the first computer he did the same, and thus he continued to the next computer with security twelve times more challenging to crack than the last one, it took Tom a whole three hours to get through with a special hacking program and help from the computer savvy members of the team. Finally Tom figured out it was the experimental unit terminal once the device was hacked. Included was a human genetic experiment that involved his own DNA crossed with a zoidian, the project was deemed a failure in it's 'original task' whatever that may be, but it was declared a success for general purposes and had been sold off to the Zenebas army with twelve others like it and one clone of just Thomas himself. The Tom-zoidian clones had been reported to have become Ultrasaurus commanders in the invasion, but the pure Thomas one had been said to pilot the Gael fury. Tom thought back to that pilot, he had seen his face and while he hadn't recognized it at the time he now realized the pilot had looked almost exactly like himself. Stopping in shock Tom sat in his chair simply bringing his mind around that concept, glad that he hadn't killed his own clone, and sad that one of his half clones, practically his own child genetically, had been killed by his hands. After twenty minutes Tom returned to hacking the computers finding data on an experimental zoid that had just cleared the safety testing stage. The fact that it was guaranteed not to explode in Tom's face was a key reason he picked it in particular. Tom looked at the zoid, the shadow fox was what it was called. The zoid would be appropriate to a true ghost fox. With a moment of observing the technology and noting the many earth influences that were present in the technology, then he copied the data onto a disk of his own and went to the last working computer terminal. Searching its varyingly classified files he found a map of the base which he was able to get on paper. After feeling thankful for the new zoid and the convenient directions Tom decided the next day was his day to search.
At the dinner that night Tom explained his proposal, "Since we are running low on food ammunition and I need some raw materials to fix the belts and a new zoid I think that we need to go explore the rest of this base to get that stuff."
"You wha?" Fred said. "I can understand the food ammunition, and even to a degree the raw materials, and I can understand why you'd want to take it from the scum balls but why a new zoid?"
Tom sat still, he had just hoped that they would just let him do this and let it be over with. But apparently that would not be. "Well," he said whipping together the best story he could on the spot, "I need a better zoid because I've long surpassed the command wolf's limit."
"Why not make a new zoid and use the command wolf as a base. You could call it a 'ghost fox'." Fred said with a laugh.
"Because there's an already made zoid right here for me. It's called the shadow fox and fits the bill of what you just said perfectly."
"No." Fred muttered, "There's no way in hell that mere Zi technology, not yet equal to that of the colonists from the globally three had, could surpass what you could build."
"If I had every single damn manufacturing device that they had on earth when I left. But as it stands the only place where technology of that sort could be manufactured happens to be stuck on the moon as a massive spaceship. The discovery is its name; I think I told you about it."
Fred looked at Tom, "You've got a point there. Well since I've heard you got a map I suppose I won't oppose the idea of you getting stronger anymore."
Tom sighed, the only reason he wanted a new zoid was simply to try and forget about his dead comrades more. One day that command wolf would be upgraded as Tom saw fit, but that day would not be any day soon. "Well then I've got to work out how to divide up the search teams, I can't get everything without a zoid myself."
The next day the groups were split into three groups, Tom made himself his own group; he just had to find a zoid. And walk what looked to be some 10 miles to the zoid, gravely injured, but no-one would believe a man that crazy could be beaten by a ten mile walk that he wanted to take. The other groups were to just look for Ammunition and food each.
How Tom had been able to get by himself was a miracle in and of itself. It had something to do with his every power of suggestion and then some. However why he wanted to go was more predictable. The fact is he was planning to leave and finish the war on his own terms once he got the shadow fox. He was going to return to the village that they had all fled from; attacking every Zenebas zoid he came across and then add on some devices to blast the Zenebas capitol to smithereens. With the emperor dead Tom would pray for a quick surrender or he would rip half the nation to shreds. He may even do more, he happened to have things planned that Zi had never seen before and if it weren't' for him they would never see ever. But he was ready to unleash things on the world that would guarantee the end of the war.
However those were all last resorts on paper still, he had yet to find the means to actually make a single plan of his other than this one reality. And honestly once it was over he was going over to the other much more peaceful continent on the planet. Of course, as he promised, Tom would adopt reddy and take him with him. And odds are Tom would get reddy's black reddler and his command wolf and take them with him. Maybe then he would start work on his plan. Or perhaps maybe not.
Meanwhile the two groups were intent on finding what they had been looking for. Group one's leader was Perrone, since he was best at cooking. In the group were Bekah, Devon, and Fred. Bekah and Devin both decent cooks with no surprise to anyone, the surprise was that Fred was a genius chef who could do things that even Perrone couldn't when it came to cooking. Along for the ride was the blade liger they had found and Freds storm sworder.
In the ammunition group reddy was the leader being better than even Fred in combat and almost equal to Tom. Also reddy had special military training to discern what would be best for everyone to use. The rest of the group went down into the darkness of the ammunition stores with a safe code and map of the area. They were simply going to find the ammunition for their Zoids and nothing more. With them was the black reddler and Tom's command wolf. Their team was also going to be the more mobile in all likelihood because reddy could pilot the black reddler in tight areas, even long extended caves. Sure he would have some difficulty but he could definitely do it.
Tom, of course was walking alone. He had wanted to do this alone. He had wanted to just ponder life the universe and everything on his own even going so far as to use every single mental barrier tool in his disposal to block kokuhso out of his thoughts, to which kokuhso mentally said, You could have just asked. And then shut up anyway.
Tom walked down the long, long passage way flipping the scroll around as he looked at it. Finally after a very long time he sat down and opened up the scroll. "Kokuhso, I just want to get this done now so a) you can get back at full power, even if by very in-honorable means. And b) I don't have to really worry about my safety more than I have been worrying." Tom put his hands over the scroll in a way that seemed to happen without him really trying and then the black flames poured onto the scroll. "Um is this not going to utterly total the scroll?" Tom asked as he watched waves of black fire wash over the scroll. After getting no response and seeing the wave of fire not stop Tom simply assumed it was fine and he began to try and summon up some power on his own.
Granted because he himself wasn't a super powerful magical being he couldn't summon a lot… Well that would be a lie to say because he actually was producing a massive amount of power, enough to let kokuhso momentarily loose his total focus on the act he was partaking in at the moment and ask. Do you know what you're doing?
"Not really, no. But I am doing it and it is succeeding so what does it matter."
It matters because I don't know if it will help or hurt. There's more than one type of energy that this thing will respond to in the universe I guarantee you!
"Then let me match your energy frequency." Tom said as he looked at the black flames both intently and in an aloof manner at once. After a moment more black flames seem to explode into the paper. "Better?" Tom asked as the amount of power he input seemed to quintuple. If kokuhso had a head he would have bobbed it up and down in shock.
However after several minutes of throwing huge amounts of energy at the scroll nothing seemed to be happening. Damn. Kokuhso muttered.
"I'm guessing the 'damn' has to deal with this not working yet."
I completely underestimated the energy needed to get this thing to work. Even with the energy you're inputting it still would take ages for the thing to work. Even with me at full power as well.
"You weren't at full power?" Tom asked as his energy input increased slightly.
Well you said you wanted it done, and 'full power' really means little if I input the right amount of mana at the correct rate. With the energy I'm putting in now I could almost keep going forever. However it would take maybe a month or more to get this thing to work. And if it takes to long the mana starts to dissipate too. The fact is we need to do this in one big burst of energy that we don't have.
Tom glared at the spot where the contract was then he stood up while still glaring. "WILL THIS DO!?" Tom shouted at the top of his lungs as a large white dragon and a strange titanic creature came out of him and sent masses of energy into the contract. In a heartbeat the blast of power made the contract work, and created a very odd effect across the world.
First the various Kami spirit scattered about the world began to ripple and come apart. Then their small blobs of spiritual form became visible to the world. This caused mass confusion world wide and actually stopped the invasion in its tracks. Then the blobs began to disappear into the earth. Then all of the immediate effects were done like that. While the effects may have been grand it really wasn't much for the climax that had been built up to this.
In the cavern in the zoidian city Tom looked at the spot where the contract had been. He felt rather exhausted, but at the same time somewhat rejuvenated. At least he was capable of standing up and walking. And he was fully healed to boot. Tom got up trying to remember what he had done and how he had done it, but everything was a total haze and Tom abandoned all hope of remembering when kokuhso said, You don't need to do that again. I think the era of magical super beings can be declared done. I just hope that energy will restore ZI. Tom really wasn't thinking about that. He was more confused about what he had done and was wondering if it could be used in the war he was going to have to fight.
Still other duties that could be definitely be executed now had to be taken care of first. Tom could walk, talk, breathe, blink and think without pain of any sort now. He needed to get to that zoid. It had abilities that could get him into the Zenebas capitol and combat abilities good enough to get him out. And most importantly it was a zoid that no-one should recognize. Unless this backdraft organization should have people working in the Zenebas capitol in which case it really wouldn't matter anyway cause if someone cared enough to try and rat him out then it was too late, any non-Zenebas troops would be shot down because they would be declared conspirators and Tom would either have temporary allies in the act of bombarding the capitol or fewer enemies to deal with in the short term. Neither of which were circumstances unfavorable to him.
Tom started walking, and then he realized he could run real fast, so then he did that. At his top speed it took Tom one short hour to reach the door that would secure the shadow fox from the rest of the world. Tom entered the password that was on the computer and watched as the big doors opened in front of him. There lay the shadow fox beta version. The zoid that would terrorize the Zenebas capitol and end the war.
-End-