Thankyou for the reviews... they are just too nice! Did you get busted Naomi? Hope not! THANKYOU FOR THE REVIEWS!!! I love you all (not as much as Thomas!).
Please this chapter needs a lot of work, but you can get the general idea from it.
________________________________________________________________________________
When Van could stop crying, not needed to stop, which felt like an eternity to Thomas, the lieutenant composed himself into the steely warrior, the one that believed that nothing could hurt him. Van, looking back at his friend, giggled "Oops! Your shirt's all wet!"
Thomas responded, with a squeeze to Van's shoulder, "So you have wreaked my new uniform, and I get another bath in the process", he sighed "Oh well, throw me one of your undershirts." Thomas put on one of the lopsided grins that Van always wears. Van smirked and threw him the key to his wardrobe "You ain't a cripple, get it yourself."
Laughing, Thomas took the shirt and left for the bathroom to get changed.
When the bathroom door was closed, a knock was heard on the front door. Van, trying to creep up on his unsuspecting confidant sighed. He walked over to the door. A corporal was standing there, with the latest situation report in his hand, saluted Van.
"Lieutenant, Major Hermann would like to see you in the tactical Ops room"
"Ill be there soon" Van replied, snapping a return salute.
Closing the front door, and sneaking around to the bathroom, Van burst in, "Gotcha!" blushing at seeing a shirtless Thomas, a small Guylos emblem on the top of his right shoulder blade (A/N I can see him with one.. but that's another story... :-) ), "I've got to see Hermann, so Ill see you later..."
"Doesn't matter, I'm going to use the mainframe anyway, got to do some work to Beek, but I need some heavy processing power to do it. See you at lunch" With that, Van walked out, glancing back at his confidant.
Thomas, feeling bored after a couple of hours of tweaking Beek's code, decided to tour the base some more. He really never got to, since Fiona left when he got there, and then he did leave too... Wandering aimlessly, Thomas sighed, "Do I really have those feelings for Van" he mumbled. Unbeknownst to him, a captain was tracking his movements. "Boo", the captain yelled into Thomas' ear, making him near jump to the ceiling. Regaining his composure, he yelled, "O'Connell, what are you doing!"
"That's Captain," O'Connell replied with a smirk, "And I have your new assignment" he replied, handing him a disc, "and if you are going to wear a Republic uniform, make sure you hide the sleeves better"
Looking down, Thomas saw the red sleeves poking through his grey Imperial uniform. "Oh, thanks..." Thomas said, blushing with embarrassment, and with that the enigmatic Captain left, laughing.
"Sir, you wanted to see me?" asked Van, saluting at Hermann
"Sure did, at ease, Van" Major Hermann told him, returning the salute," Take a seat, it's your new assignment, and it's Robert"
"Oh yeah, I forgot sir... I mean Robert"
"Now, you may remember Fiona's disappearance a few days ago..."
"Yes, Robert..." Van looked down, hoping that Robert couldn't see his eyes
Noticing that it hit a cord, Major Hermann continued
"We believe that she has joined with Hiltz and the Dark Kaiser..."
"She wouldn't" Van yelled, slamming his fist into the table, rattling the contents
"Van, please, I can't get a new desk, and you'll break this one"
"Oh sorry..."
"Don't be" Hermann continues. He dimmed the lights and activated a small projector on the table. Up pops an image of Hiltz and Fiona. Van scowls. Herman continues the briefing "She has taken a new prototype Command Wolf, the Command Wolf TC." Hermann hits the remote to show an image of the aforementioned zoid, painted completely black
"But it looks like a Command Wolf, what's so special?" Van inquired
Hitting another button Robert continued "It is outfitted with the state-of-the-art cloaking device, three type E shield units and a tri phase long range pulse rifle" Robert changed the scene to the power charts "it is an experimental weapon designed to combat the likes of a Genosaurer. It has the ability to neutralise a stream of charged particles" the image on the screen changed to show the range and simulated experiment "as well as cause huge amounts of feedback upon the target. AS well as that, it can obliterate even the toughest shields, but the drawback is that it needs to have a huge amount of power dedicated to it, and the weapon makes the zoid incredibly slow."
"So, what is the problem then, Robert?"
"Because she has Zeke "Hermann hit the button, but instead of getting an image of Zeke, he had one of him and O'Connell doing the horizontal tango (A/N this is PG-13 btw... I don't want to warp some poor person's mind with particulars (like mine :-))). Embarrassed, Robert quickly hit the button again, taking out the slide and pocketing it. Van just smirked, then fell on the floor, laughing. All the while Robert Hermann's face went redder, and redder.
"Back to the briefing... Flyheight, GET UP"
"Yes sir" Van finally did what he was told, and tried to recompose himself, relatively unsuccessfully
"With Zeke, she can cut the zoid's firing time about 50% and increase speed and agility about 40%."
"So what do you want?"
"Take her out."
Van cringed "I really can't do that, she's like my sister!"
"It's an order."
"Yes sir" Van slowly walked out.
Thomas returned to the server room, and loaded the disc. It contained the information that Van received (albeit the other slide...). Except, his contained 2 extra orders, one to load Beek into the Blade Liger, the other was to become Van's co-pilot. Thomas inwardly smiled. He would get to work with Van now...
Van walked to the maintenance bay, where he saw three technicians loading some equipment onto the Blade Liger.
"Hey!" Van practically screamed "What the hell are you doing to my liger!"
The lead technician walked over to Van "We are following orders - we are outfitting the liger with some stealth gear, and some more sensors"
"Why" Van was puzzled
"This is going to be a Shadow Liger..."
Ignoring the technician, he strode over to the liger and patted its paw. It growled, in pleasure.
"Why are you letting them touch you?" Van sounded disgusted with his zoid
The liger growled, low and gutturally, 'because I have to get this or...'
"I don't care" Van stalked out, leaving behind a thoroughly confused liger.
Thomas entered the cafeteria and ordered a coffee and a sandwich. He sat down, intently studying some blueprints of the zoid core of the Liger. Van stormed in, ordered his usual (Coffee (Duh) and some corn) and flopped down next to Thomas
"I can't believe it! They were tinkering with Liger" Van seemed very agitated to Thomas (duh)
"What?" Thomas looked over his coffee at the pilot and said "Didn't they tell you"
"That I've got to kill Fiona"
"I know that." Thomas stated
All the anger drained from his body and it was replaced with surprise "You knew..." he muttered
"Of course, so what did they tell you" Thomas was intently staring at Van.
Van outlined his briefing to Thomas. Thomas sighed "So they didn't tell you..."
"What?" Van was curious
"Beek is going into the Blade Liger"
Van froze, and indignantly retorted "Oh no its not. I can't use it anyways"
"That's why I'm going to be your co-pilot"
Van's jaw dropped. He was incredibly pleased that Thomas would be his co-pilot, but shocked at the same time. Thomas... how could he fight? I really can't stand him? But ... The thoughts trailed off in Van's head. An embarrassing silence enveloped the room.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ending this here, too many words already and I don't want too many more...
Trust me, some action soon ~_^ and Ill try and get some more in here somewhere!
~_~ bought a new zoid ^_~ a Venomous Viper
And I hate Electronic Boutique - They want $40 for New Century 2.2 & 2.3. I don't have $40... :-( must send in Venomous to get them :-) He's a stealth zoid ^_^.