Chapter 2
"And on to our next item of business, your Highness, as for the crops in the lower region of…"
Rudolph's eyes drooped dangerously low as the imperial court director droned on and on. He'd been stuck in the stuffy room for at least four hours now, and staying awake had become a problem. The dull voice of the advisor wasn't helping. Slowly, the buzz of noise faded and Emperor of all the, well, empire, fell fast asleep.
"We also have reports of bandits in Aral Plains, apparently some old members of the imperial army are still out…there…your Majesty? Are you alright?"
Rudolph jerked awake with a start, "Huh?!"
Grand Advisor Mitchell frowned, watching his young charge, "Emperor, you need to know what's going on in your kingdom. How do you expect to rule the empire properly if you can't even keep awake for one meeting?"
"If it was just one! I've been here for fifteen of them!"
"That's not a lot…on average you're supposed to be present at twenty-three, and that's on a good day."
"Twenty…twenty-three…" Rudolph winced. I should have stuck with Van. No, wait, he amended , that would have left me feeling guilty. I should have died.
The afterlife had to be better than this. Groaning, he leaned back in the (purposefully) uncomfortable chair, preparing for the lecture that was looming over the horizon. Mitchell frowned, and crossed his arms. Haughtily, he began one of his favorite pastimes-boring the life out of everything in range. How could one man be so adamant about not wasting time and still spend a good hour blabbing about nothing in general?
Rudolph resisted the urge to shut his eyes once again, settling instead to just watch the clock with peripheral vision. It wasn't that he didn't care about the empire, it was the fact that there were smaller government branches put in place to handle the stuff that he spent a good ten hours learning about. By the time the real meetings began, poor Rudolph could barely keep his eyes open. He'd slept through the last meeting when they were addressing the current problems with Raven and the destruction of the Lightning Saix assembly plant. At least Marianne had been there to fill him in.
He cringed, Marianne…Yet another responsibility. How the heck did they expect him to have a fiancée at his age? Even after the wedding, Marianne would only see him for about three hours a night anyway. Wait…three hours a…night…
Surprised, Mitchell watched the Emperor's face go pale. Raising an eyebrow, he waved his wrinkled hand in front of the frozen face, "Your majesty? Hello?"
Nothing. He was about to try again when an ear-splitting shriek echoed through the near-empty courtroom.
"RUDOLPH!"
The emperor swung around. It had been weeks since someone actually used his first name. Shaking the sleep out of his eyes, he focused on the pinkish blur in front of him. Standing in the doorway was none other than Marianne. Of course, Mitchell wouldn't even let Rosso call me that…
"Rudolph, there's an emergency message from the Republic! Something's happened at Dragon's Head and-"
But he was already on his way.
In the communications room, Rudolph found a channel already open to the Republic, wiring in the latest news from Dragon's Head. Shooing Mitchell and all the advisor's protests away with a wave of his hand, he turned up the volume and typed in his access code.
At first there was nothing but static snow. Finally the signal caught and-
"GET A FREAKIN' TEAM OUT HERE RIGHT FREAKIN' NOW BEFORE I FREAKIN' REARANGE YOUR FREAKIN' FACE!"
Irvine's face filled the screen as he shouted out what might have been a calm rational statement long ago, but had long since erupted into a shouting match. It might have been amusing under different circumstances, but something told the Emperor that there was serious business underlying all of this. Irvine rarely blew his top.
Every now and then he caught a glimpse of Van trying to butt in and drag the irate warrior off screen, but the valiant efforts went unnoticed by the much older mercenary. Fiona was somewhere behind the two, shouting for them to calm down. After about a minute of this, Van finally managed to shove Irvine out of the way long enough to wheeze out a few words,
"Moonbay was kidnapped by Raven last night, and he's-"
Rudolph nodded, cutting Van off, "I'll send out the best I've got. Just tell Irvine not to worry. We'll get his girlfriend back."
"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!"
But before Irvine could curse a certain fourteen year old to high heaven, Van wisely shut off the link.
For a moment, the communications staff stood still, waiting for a command from their young leader. Finally, Rudolph looked up,
"Get me Colonel Shubaltz."
"I am a… TRANSPORTER…of the WASTELAND!"
Raven wasn't going to kill her. No, he cackled insanely to himself, she was just cargo. Yeah, just another load of stuff that Reese was having him haul across the desert. Just another load…that was trying to tick him off.
"MOOOOOONBAY…QUEEN…OF THE DESERT!"
And she was doing a great job of it.
Turning away from the console, he focused one of his better death glares on the oblivious 'Queen of the desert.' More like Queen of Hell…
"Could you shove that oversized boot down your throat before I'm forced to do it for you?"
"Hmm?" Slapping on her best 'who me?' look, she turned away from the orange-tinted view of the desert. Moonbay was enjoying this. Oh yes was she enjoying this. If she was going to be kidnapped, she was going to do it right.
"I said that you can feel free to shut-"
"TRANSPORTER…TRANSPORTER…kay, fade out people! Transporter…transporter!"
"Cut it out already!" he roared, doing his level best to keep from shooting the smiling face, " I'm gonna kill you!"
Moonbay laughed, it was time to pull out her trump card, " Kill me, huh?"
"Yes," came the half-hissed, half-snarled reply.
"Raven, sweetie, if you were gonna kill me then you would have done it already."
He looked down, keeping his mouth shut as the Command Wolf careened down the ravine. Moonbay kept smiling.
"You need me alive, don't you?"
If there was one thing, Raven decided, that he was going to learn from this whole deal, than it would be one simple truth,
"I hate women."
Irvine twitched nervously, bored out of his mind and under 'house arrest' in the ground-zoid hanger.
"So tell me why we can't just go after Raven now?"
Van sighed. They'd been doing this for the last hour. Waiting for Rudolph's reinforcements to arrive had been pure torture for the restless mercenary, and his trigger finger was spasming dangerously.
"Because he might have the Genobreaker, and not even a Gogilous could stand up to that monster."
On the other side of the room, Fiona stared blankly ahead, still tired from the previous night's premonition. Her red eyes clouded sadly for what wasn't to be the last time. If only she stayed awake, she could have warned everyone. If only...no, best not to blame herself. Even if she hadn't had the vision, she still wouldn't have been able to do anything. Raven was a trained soldier, a master in the art of killing, and she still couldn't hold a gun right. More then just one person would have been hurt or dead taking down the homicidal soldier.
How can one person cause so much destruction? She wondered quietly. What exactly had he been trained to do, and why? Prozen must have had something in store for the young murderer, but that mistake was dead now. It should have been all over for everyone. Yet bases were destroyed, villages terrorized, and innocents killed. And all for what? What did Raven have to gain from all the senseless death?
Death Stinger.
The flashback jolted her awake. Hiltz, Reese, Raven…they were all connected with her visions. They all were fighting for something that seemed to be the apocalypse. But who was in charge? She knew it wasn't Reese. It wasn't Van's rival either. Raven had always played the part of the mindless pawn; he could care less about the government or schemes. Perhaps Hiltz?
Or could it be-
"FI-O-NA!"
She looked up, startled, into the brown eyes of her hero. Grinning, he flicked a piece of blond hair out of Fiona's face.
"So what's the weather like on cloud nine?"
"Huh? I'm sorry," she laughed, "I guess I was just off day dreaming again."
"Kay, just try and stay on Zi…" Van grinned before walking back to where Thomas and Irvine were having a 'heated discussion' about whether brawn or speed was better, heated meaning Irvine had the colonel in a headlock and was currently beating him against the side of the Blade Liger. Taking his place on the other paw of the zoid, he scratched Zeke under the chin. Contented, the organoid forgot about the impending battle for a few moments and wagged his tail like an overgrown golden retriever. But something was amiss, and Zeke could smell it.
Behind his master's cheery façade was a worried pilot. Something was wrong with Fiona lately, ever since they had run into Reese. If she did anything…Eyes darkening, Van brooded over the various methods of Happy Fun Torture that he could inflict on the 'blue demon.' A loud clang coming from Thomas's abused head finally annoyed him enough to force him to get up and play bouncer.
When Colonel Karl Shubaltz and Dr. D entered the room, they found the three male pilots at each other's throats and destroying the hangar while Fiona stared blankly ahead, not even noticing when a socket wrench went flying past her.
More than slightly annoyed at the obvious lack of discipline, Shubaltz calmly clicked a cartridge into his glock. Aiming carefully, he closed one eye as Dr. D suddenly realized what was going on.
"NO WAIT!"
CRACK!
Every person in the room froze, looking for the source of the shot. Thomas was the first to recover.
"Um, hey bro…"
Karl cleared his throat.
"I mean sir!"
"Thanks."
There was an awkward pause on all sides.
"So…um, Shubaltz. Long time no see, huh?"
The colonel smiled, "Yeah. A very long time, Van."
Irvine's momentary shock wore off, exposing the still-angry mercenary underneath, "Good, the cavalry's here so now we can get moving."
Thomas nodded, "Yeah, I think Dr. D's got something to show us in the briefing room, and then we're on our way, right?"
The ancient doctor grinned, "You got that right, now let's get this show on the road before I get any older."
Van grinned, "If that's possible."
Irvine kept the group at a brisk trot all the way down the hall, nearly barreling into a squadron of trainees, sending them scattering through the hall. Following the rage blinded badger of a man; they made it to the briefing room in record time, Irvine nearly breaking down the automatic doors in an effort to hurry up.
"Okay then," Dr. D smiled in his usual happy-go-lucky way, "We've got a few things to do before we up and leave, like figure out exactly where we're going and who's coming. So first, who do we want on this little rescue mission?"
Van raised his hand, "Count me in."
Irvine nodded, "Me too."
Karl and Thomas both saluted at the same time, earning a smile from Fiona. Still grinning, she raised her hand, "I'll be going too."
"No," Van shook his head.
Angry, the blond turned on her usual friend, "What? You're leaving me behind again!"
"Yes," he nodded, tone leaving no room for argument, " We're fighting Raven, and I want to make sure we've got a good pilot left to defend the base if we don't come back."
"Don't even say that!" she all but shrieked, face going red, You can't just make me stay!"
Dr. D sighed, "Yes, he can. I'm backing him up on this one, Fiona. We need you to stay and help me in case of an emergency. Raven's not the only one we need to be worried about. We've got his little psycho friends to worry about."
"Who?" Thomas snorted, "Tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum? We can handle those clowns any day."
"Yeah, those clowns who sent Raven to destroy your D-Bison. Don't underestimate Reese and Hiltz," Van frowned, still watching Fiona, "Both are just as good as Raven, if not better."
Karl nodded, "Besides, the Stinger person that tried to kill you broke out of jail last week."
"What!?"
Irvine cursed, banging his fist on the console, "We don't have time for this! We can deal with that loser any day. Fiona, we're leaving you behind and that's that. Next time you can tag along. NOW LET'S GET MOVING!"
Storming past his companions, he snatched a map off one of the desks before kicking the doors open and all but sprinting down the hall. Van shrugged and followed, shouting a 'wait for me!' Thomas wasn't far behind. Eventually the remainder of the room filed out, leaving just Shubaltz and Fiona behind. Before the soldier left, Fiona tugged on his sleeve.
"What is it?"
"Um, Lieutenant, I hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you get here so fast? It takes hours for a ground zoid to cross the desert."
"Oh, that?" He smiled, "I was wondering when someone would notice. I took a storm sworder."
"You pilot flying zoids!"
"No, not really, someone else flew. You've got plenty of Iron Kong's here for me to use, so I don't really need to take the extra time. Besides, the pilot who was flying seemed like he wanted to come along anyway."
"Oh…"
He was already out the door before she asked her last question, "Who flew you?"
"Uh…he's just a newbie. Kinda short, actually. He's still here if you want to talk to him."
"Thanks!" she called. Inwardly, she was grinning. Try to leave her behind?
Phht.
(A/N) Kay, major thanks to Orange Girl Explosion for looking this over. And, in my time-honored tradition, I will now shamelessly plug for her stories. She's got some of the best zoids fics out there, and if you haven't read them already, you should.