Chapter 7: Battle

~*~

"Finally," said Bit as soon as he caught sight of the small town they were approaching. "I guess this means that the hard part's over, for you anyway. Who knows what the Commission wants with me."

"Well, we shouldn't have anymore problems with the Draft now that we're back in our own territory," replied Brad. "And I was planning to hang around after I dropped you off so." At least I am now.

"Really?" asked Bit hopefully.

"Yeah, I've been on the road for awhile and could use a rest. 'Sides, you might need to me to show up and rescue you from another cellar." Bit grinned suddenly feeling hopeful. Brad smiled slightly and set course for a repair shop he knew of.

~*~

The left the Command Wolf in the hangar and Brad talked to the guy behind the desk, Bit wandered around the lobby hoping to find something interesting to do. Instead he literally fell over a table and landed in the lap of one of the other customers. "Sorry Sir," apologized Bit hastily picking himself up.

"You should watch where you're going," answered the man in a low almost raspy sort of voice. Bit looked up.

"Hey, haven't I seen you before?"

"Maybe, name's Jack Sisqo," answered the man standing up.

"Oh, you're that mercenary that no one can beat," replied Bit suddenly remembering some of the zoid battles he had seen at the bar back home.

"That's me alright. What do they call you?"

"Bit Cloud," said Bit grinning.

"So you're the kid the Commission wants so badly, not much are you," answered Jack looking Bit over carefully. Bit scowled. "I hear they hired Brad Hunter to find you, where is he?"

"Over there, talking to the repair guy," replied Bit a little coldly.

"Thanks, been meaning to talk to him," answered Jack. "See you later."

Brad finished paying the man for the repairs on the Command Wolf and turned around only to be confronted with Jack Sisqo. "Hi Jack, nice to see you're alive."

"Same here," answered the other mercenary. "I see they talked you into hunting down Bit Cloud."

"Yeah, where were you?" asked Brad genuinely curious.

"Around," was the less than satisfactory answer. "Any idea why they want him?"

"Not a clue," responded Brad. "I don't suppose you know."

"Hmmph. He's part of a prophecy to bring forth some ultimate power," said Jack getting Brad's full attention. "A kind of chosen one or whatever you want to call it. Anyway, the Commission would just love to crush the Draft with this power as I know the Draft wants to do to the Commission," answered Jack casually. Brad raised an eyebrow.

"You're kidding right?" Jack shook his head negative. "How'd you find out?"

"That's where I was," answered Jack. "The Draft made it very clear that all skilled pilots in the area were expected to join their army or hand over their zoids."

"And you joined them," finished Brad with just a hint of disgust in his voice. "Whatever happened to 'I don't fight in unsanctioned battles'?"

"This is war, there are no unsanctioned battles. Besides, I was curious about this new organization. Know your enemies."

"And you just happened to stumble across the information about the prophecy."

"Of course." Brad looked over to where Bit was sitting on a rather beaten couch reading a magazine. The boy looked up and saw him watching.

"Hey Brad, whatcha lookin' at?" asked Bit grinning.

"Nothing," answered Brad sound preoccupied. "I was planning to take Bit by the hospital so they could check out some minor injuries," said Brad turning to Jack. "Meet you for dinner."

"I'll be at the Cat n' Fiddle," answered Jack turning to leave. "See you later Bit Cloud." Bit watched the mercenary leave before turning to Brad.

"Do we really have to stop by the hospital?" asked Bit, Brad didn't reply and Bit knew to take it as a yes. "I already told you I feel fine, you're worse than my mother."

~*~

"Besides a few bumps and scrapes you're fine," said the doctor pulling off his plastic gloves. "Just watch out for infection."

"Told you so," said Bit climbing off the bed/bench he'd been sitting on. "You done filling out those forms yet Brad?" Brad muttered something inaudible, which was probably better, and handed the doctor the electronic datapad. The doctor looked over it and raised an eyebrow.

"Is this information correct?" he asked. Brad nodded solemnly and the doctor left the room. But before he did Bit managed to get a look at the datapad which read something along the lines of:

'Name: Bit Clod

Age: 16

Sex: Undetermined

Occupation: Performance Artist at local strip club'

"Brad!" shouted Bit.

"Hey, I just threw off anyone who was looking for you," answered Brad struggling to keep a straight face.

"Yeah sure, what did I ever do to you?"

"Wait a minute, I have to find my list."

"Very funny."

"Excuse me… um Sirs," said a nurse coming into the room. Bit grimaced and Brad almost grinned. "Could you please provide some identification so we can send you the bill?" Brad still grinning pulled the disk (it's a really thin rather card-like disk by the way) he'd been given out of his pocket and took the datapad from the nurse. "Thank you…" she glanced over at Bit with a curious expression on her face and then quickly left the room.

"And they call themselves trained medical professionals," grumbled Bit. "They'll let anyone be a doctor these days. If I was…" There was an explosion that rocked the hospital on its foundation. Brad dropped the datapad without running the disk through.

"What do you think that was?" he asked. There were several more explosions.

"Let's find out," said Bit heading out the door and down the hall with Brad close behind.

Outside pandemonium reigned as people scurried for cover. Brad spotted Jack in the crowd and tugged on Bit's arm. The two headed for the mercenary.

"The Draft are attacking the town!" shouted Jack above the racket made by explosions and screaming people. "The guard are all out on patrol or helping secure the border farther south."

"We have to do something!" shouted Bit. "We can't just let this place get destroyed!"

"I'll get the Command Wolf," replied Brad heading off through the crowd. "Stay undercover!" he shouted back over his shoulder.

"Never thought I'd see that," said Jack.

"That's insane," replied Bit. "I have to go help him."

"I'll get my Lightening Siax. The guy at the shop said they'd just gotten a salvaged Rev Raptor working, you should be able to use that," said Jack heading off through the crowd forcing Bit to follow.

"Wait, you're helping me?" asked Bit stunned.

"Yeah, I owe the Draft, now come on."

~*~

The repair shop had done a good job on the Command Wolf and Brad was glad for it as he took off past the town limits with what seemed to be half the Draft pursuing him. This proved his suspicion that the Draft was here after Bit. Well he'd just have to throw them off. The Command Wolf headed off full throttle through the woods.

Given their speed it really didn't surprise Brad when he was suddenly confronted with a large wall. He guessed, correctly, that this was the wall surrounded the Reserve. The Reserve was a large wilderness, all zoid battles were banned in the wilderness and you had to have a permit to have any large machine in the area. Brad knew enough about the area to know that the wall wasn't ordinary concrete and trying to shoot it would be foolish, but there was still a way in and given the circumstances he didn't think the authorities would mind him bringing his zoid in the park without a permit.

He quickly found an area where the wall stopped to allow for a large rocky drop off, Brad slowed his speed a bit and the Command Wolf leaped and landed firmly on a boulder and them leaped again and barely made it up over the edge. Brad turned the Command Wolf around and fired at the enemy zoids who were trying to copy his maneuver. He managed to hold them off like this for a quite awhile but eventually a Saber Fang made it up and came around behind him forcing him to leave off the barrage and focus on this one opponent. This proved nearly fatal for a second Saber Fang made it over the drop off and fired at him. Cursing his luck Brad fired a blast directly in the first Saber Fang's face and retreated to the trees.

~*~

"Darry! You idiot! I almost had him!" shouted Lor in full fury. "Do you keep your brain in your cannon barrel or what?"

"Shut up, he got away because of your crappy fighting," said the pilot of a red and black Command Wolf that had finally made it up over the drop off.

"Shut up yourself Steve," replied Lor firing into the trees.

"Would you two stop flirting and listen!" shouted another member of their crew, Rachel. "There are two-"

"Stay out of this Rachel," snapped Darry as he dodged a shot from the Command Wolf hidden in the trees.

"What is it with you girls today anyway? Can't fight or mind your own business," added Steve.

"Alright," replied Rachel coolly. "Me and the rest of the crew are just going to get under cover and let you handle it."

"Fine by me. You two keep firing and I'll go in and take him from behind," said Darry heading around towards the opposing Command Wolf.

"How about I just pick him off from here," said Steve charging his cannon.

"Great, let's let everyone in a 20 mile radius know exactly where we are," mutter Lor.

"Let em come, I can take em," answered Steve taking aim. "Ready fi-" he was cut short as a blast hit his Command Wolf dead center. Steve swore as his zoid collapsed and the screen displayed 'Computer System Freeze'. "What the hell was that?" he shouted despite the fact that the comm link was dead. Jack's Lightening Siax literally ran circles around the two remaining zoids avoiding everything fired at him easily.

"Oh yeah, there's two zoids coming," said Rachel over the comm link with a rather smug look

"Quit gloating and get up here!" yelled Darry as Brad's Command Wolf broke cover and tackled his.

"No you don't," came a voice over Rachel's comm as she went to climb over the drop off. "We'd like to keep things even." Rachel had just enough time to see the Rev Raptor step out of the trees before the blast from a cannon caused her zoid's computer system to freeze.

"Guys!" shouted Alex who had been remaining carefully quiet and therefor neutral since the beginning of the attack. "That's my old zoid."

"The one you lost?" asked Darry as he managed to throw off Brad's Command Wolf.

"You mean the one that got wrecked when you decided we had to attack that patrol, yeah," replied Alex as Darry scowled over the link. "The thing's a piece of crap, I'll take care of it." Alex activated the cloaking device on his Helcat and moved to attack his former zoid.

~*~

Bit was taken totally by surprise when something suddenly slammed into the side of the zoid he was in. "Helcat," he muttered swinging around. "Jack, Brad, there's at least one zoid still down here, I'll try to take care of it."

"Bit! I told you to stay back. Why don't you listen for once in your life?" asked Brad trying to take out the Saber Fang that he'd attacked at the same time.

"Nah, that's no fun," replied Bit as he fired in the direction he thought the Helcat was in. He missed by a mile and was hit yet again from the side; this one almost knocked the zoid down. Quickly he scrambled over the edge of the drop off and tried again to fire at the helcat, once again he was unsuccessful.

"This is just not my day," muttered Bit as he barely managed to escape being hit again.

A little ways behind him Brad was thinking rather the same thing. He'd finally managed to total his opponent and turned to see if Jack needed help when something grabbed his zoid. There came the sound of tearing metal and whatever had grabbed his zoid sunk its into the Command Wolf's side.

"What is that?" asked Jack as he finished with the zoid that he'd been battling. He squinted and wondered if something was wrong with his view-port. A giant shadow seemed to be tearing at Brad's zoid. Deciding not to ask questions Jack fired at the thing with his remaining ammo. The shots just bounced off and suddenly Jack wished that he had at least one really big powerful gun mounted on his slender zoid.

Bit turned around and saw the thing attacking Brad's zoid. Quickly he fired his cannons and whatever it was turned its attention away from its victim for just a second. Bit heard Jack yell for Brad to run for it over the comm. The Command Wolf tore away from the monster's grip and ran into the woods. Jack and the Lightening Siax followed quickly with Bit close behind.

~*~

Alex's Helcat barely made it up over the drop off. He got up just in time to see the Raptor disappearing into the forest. "Come on Helcat, we'll show him who's the better zoid." The Helcat roared and they started off.

~*~

"Where'd they go?" asked Bit over the link.

"Split up," replied Jack. "We'll find Brad." Or what's left of him, Jack added morbidly to himself. Jack headed left as fast as he could. He soon discovered a trail of ripped up trees where the monster and Brad had passed. Knowing that his poor Lightening Siax couldn't go any faster Jack could nothing else but pray that they caught up in time to do something.

Lightening Siax burst out of the trees and almost skidded over a cliff. "What's with all these sudden drops offs!" shouted Jack in frustration. There was a crash behind him and the Lightening Siax barely managed to move out of the way as the torn mass that was the Command Wolf was hurled past him and over the cliff. Jack swallowed and looked to the forest and sure enough the shadow thing emerged. I have to keep that thing off Brad; he might still be alive, thought Jack to himself.

The Lightening Siax leaped at the monster. The monster, probably thinking its job done, turned all its attention on its attacker. It grabbed the slim zoid and slammed it down hard on the rock. Lifting one of its giant claws and crushed the head of the zoid. When the Lightening Siax didn't move again the monster casually dropped it off the cliff and started on its way home.

~*~

Bit had gone in the wrong direction and he knew it. He should have caught up with Brad and the….thing by now. Bit carefully maneuvered the Raptor over a fallen tree and to the edge of a river. "I guess I have to turn back," muttered Bit a feeling of overwhelming despair washing over him. There was a sudden impact in the back of the Raptor and the zoid fell over into the river. "What the-" shouted Bit as the cockpit slammed against a rock.

Back on the shore a Helcat suddenly dropped its cloak and sprung away. "That's the end of that," muttered Alex. "Now to find the others."

The Raptor was never meant for water, it sunk quickly. Bit struggled to get the cockpit opened. It finally did and water rushed in on him. Bit pushed off hard and managed to get to the surface, he grabbed at a rock and held on tight. "Where's Brad when you need him?" asked Bit as his numb fingers started to slip. His grip finally slipped and he slid into the water.

~*~

End Part 1