Chapter 4



Not since the short-lived reign of Emperor Prozen had such a dark-hearted mastermind dared to try and enter the highest chamber of the Imperial Court. Hiltz quietly admired the workmanship of the citadel, noting the several gun turrets lining the towers and the all too obvious guards. The Guylos architects had outdone themselves on this, with the thick, reinforced outer walls, the fully functional training grounds within, and the famous zoid hangars housing some of the empires finest soldiers and war machines.

Though you couldn't see it from the southeast entrance, there were also several fields in the back, designed to help against siege tactics. Long ago, it had been built by Scalea Peytrivol as a sort of ultimate stronghold against the republic. Century after century it had proved its worth during the long years that it stood against the republic army. Thanks to its thick, unyielding walls and innovative water and food stores, no one could take it. Even during the rampage of the Death Saur, citizens hiding there told that the charged particle cannon didn't break through.

Today though, it had lost most of its former majesty. After the completion of the current Imperial palace it had been changed to a sort of safe house in case of emergency, and was used as the home of the courts. Sort of a Guylos version of Capital Hill. But Hiltz wasn't here to sight-see. He was here to violently usurp the throne.

Waltzing to the gates like he owned the place, he nodded to the confused guards, demanding an audience with the emperor. At first the two protested, but when Ambient came screeching down like a comet tearing through one's jugular, the other soon changed his mind. Too bad he was already being torn apart at the time…

"That'll do, Ambient. That'll do."



Marianne adjusted Rudolph's robes, glancing at herself in the mirror. It had taken a lot of work, but the end result was amazing. Staring back at her was an almost exact copy of the emperor.

"Unbelievable what a new hair-cut can do," she mused, taking a few steps before spinning around. Frowning, Marianne went up on her toes. She was still too short, and her voice…she didn't want to think about it. How come Rudolph had to drop a few octaves last year anyway?

Shrugging it off, she walked over to a desk filled with paperwork. Part of her plan involved her doing all of Rudolph's work, whether it was sitting through meetings, signing pages, or deciding where to send out the military. If Rudolph could handle it, then how hard could it be?

Picking up the first page, she nearly choked, "If party A demands a reduction in policy number thirty seven, then would party 38D need to pay for the damages, or would (according to section twelve) party 26B be held responsible and thereby…What?"

She was hopelessly lost and knew it. Though she may be able to look the part, she would never be able to remember all of Rudolph's instructions on how to handle the paperwork, much less Advisor Mitchell. After all, he'd managed to whisper about ten pages worth of words in half a minute last night. Sinking into the chair, she picked up the next page, hoping for something simpler. No such luck.

Scrambling her brains to remember what he had said, faint memories of the night before ran through her mind…

"Rudolph."

He froze, caught red handed. Climbing back in through the window, he held his hands up in surrender.

Marianne sighed from the doorway where she was tapping her slippered foot, looking the epitome of angry housewife, "You were sneaking out again, weren't you?"

Looking down at the old flight suit and setting his trademark helmet back down on the desk next to the piles of papers he was supposed to be going through, he nodded sheepishly. Marianne suppressed a giggle. Right now, the emperor of Guylos looked like her kid brother caught playing in her mother's rose garden. Keeping a stern face, she put her hands on her hips, just like Aunt Karen told her too.

"Why?"

Rudolph sighed, "Moonbay was kidnapped and…uh, I wanted to help?"

Whatever Marianne had expected that wasn't it, "WHAT?!"

Glancing around quickly, he shook his head violently, "Shhh! There's guards outside the door, they'll hear you!"

Marianne nodded, keeping her hand over her mouth. Rudolph was satisfied and continued his explanation, "Listen, I'm going to fly Karl Shubaltz down to Dragon's Head tonight. No one else is available to fly until next week, and by then it could be too late."

Marianne nodded, the cogs in her head working quickly, "But what will Mitchell say? You'll never make it back before tomorrow."

Rudolph nodded, worried, "I know, I'll just have to make something up."

"No, wait," a grin spreading across her face, Marianne began to formulate a plan, "I've got a better idea…"



Marianne had decided to play the part of the emperor until Rudolph returned. They were close in height (or at least they were two years ago) and she knew most of the etiquette. Her upbringing left her with a basic idea of how the empire ran. After all, she had said, how hard could it be? But that had been last night, when the flavor of intrigue was still strong. The next morning had left her with a headache and bad aftertaste. Kind of like a hangover.

Getting a five minute briefing on a lifetime's learning of royal protocol and politics, she remembered as much as she could before sending her fiancée on his way to the hanger. Unfortunately, 'as much as she could' wasn't that much at all. High on adrenaline and more than a few hours past your bedtime isn't the best time to test your memory skills.

Taking another dubious glance at the paperwork, she frowned, "Well…might as well get started…"

"Whee…"

Moonbay sighed, broken foot propped up on the dashboard, keeping herself occupied by playing with her hair.

Raven had been gone for what seemed to be forever now, and personally she didn't like baking in the hot sun with nothing to do. There was no one to annoy, her throat was too dry to sing (didn't Raven give his prisoners water?), and her now bad leg needed medical attention, the throbbing pain not comforting in the least.

Though she hated to admit it, attacking the obviously better-than-your-average-bandit wasn't her brightest idea. She couldn't even hotwire the ancient bucket of bolts, the control panel was apparently specially made to keep out beautiful women in their efforts to escape. How Raven had managed that was still a mystery. At least she'd gotten him out of her immediate presence, but what good was that when you couldn't even walk? And if he didn't come back…she wasn't in the mood to finish the thought.

Moonbay didn't want to die slow, and starvation was about as slow as it gets. Sinking even lower in the chair she closed her eyes, letting the sweat run down her face. Could heat stroke kill a person? Stupid stupid stupid…

For a moment she sat like that, repeating the single word like a mantra. But the back of her eyelids didn't provide the entertainment or rescue that she wanted. Resisting the urge to just roll over and go paws up, she glared at the shiny instruments on the dashboard. Maybe she missed something…maybe there was still a chance of getting the stubborn Zoid up and running again…

Creasing her brow again, she leaned forward, gingerly removing her foot from the controls.

"Okay, you stubborn little son of a-"

"Do you insult inanimate objects on a regular basis, or is this new?"

Whirling around (a bad move according to her leg), Moonbay felt her faintest shred of hope scream and faint at the none-too pleasant face smirking at her. Said hopeful piece performed Asian suicide when a very displeased organoid popped up from behind Raven. 'Displeased' meaning homicidal. Shadow had not gotten his nap…

"Look who I found at the bottom of the canyon."

"Um…whoops?"

Moonbay tried to look innocent.

"Sic her."



Stinger, the slightly effeminate plague of the seven and a half deserts, was displeased. The glass of beer in front of him seemed to share the same sentiment and was showing this by trying it's hardest to imitate a cup of oil.

Behind the famous hunter were his usual goons, both of them in much better spirits and in the company of a rather buxom brunette with three tumblers of the amber petroleum to share. Sadly, messing around with the local females had lost its flair for Stingy, and even his recent bout of jail-breaking couldn't cheer him up. A pale pallor seemed to have fallen over the man, and nothing seemed to be able to brush it away. Let Zi know that his minions had tried, using the usual tactics, but the hunter didn't show any interest. Eventually the pair had given up and went back to cheering themselves up without their 'stalwart leader.'

You see, Stinger had been smeared across the desert by a pre-adolescent and a strange little Zoid that had just finished going from caterpillar to butterfly. Not only that, but he'd been laughed at by a member of the fairer sex, severely insulted by a scruffy mercenary, lost his oh-so manly pink artillery to said Zoid, and then had been thrown in jail by a spoiled rotten brat with access to an army. Not the best note to end your career on. And it was looking like Stingers illustrious past as one of the best warriors of the desert was defiantly down the tube. Not a single person wanted to hire a wimp who was kicked by a kid, regardless of the kid's status as 'world saving hero.'

So now he was nearly cashless, pining for his long lost zoid, and stuck in a little hole in the wall bar with nothing to do but watch his partners try to score with the locals and fail miserably. Flipping his hair over his shoulder, he snorted to himself. Alas, not everyone could have his charm. Frowning, he went back to sipping the unholy brew and half listening to the country 'music' playing over the radio. Emphisis on the '' around music.

"SHE LEEEEFT MEEEEEEEEEEEE…for that floozy in the DOUG-oooo-OOOOOH-NUT SHOP! YEAH!"

There was the whining sound of catgut being tormented as the fiddle did a quick and sloppy imitation of 'the Devil went down to Georgia' before ending on a note just as sour as the rest of song. Stinger's eardrums involuntarily praised whatever deity that had deserted him. The rest of him, however, went right on moping. Until a particularly interesting announcement caught his attention, and by 'caught' we mean grabbed, beat, and pounded it across the bar.

"Alrighty then," the heavily accented voice floated through the speakers, "We interrupt this program to bring y'all this announcement. Accordin' to the Emperor of Guylos, 'is Royal Majest-whatsit there's another dangerous critter on the prowl. It's that Raven guy again. We'd like to inform you that this Zoid pilot is presumed armed and dangerous, so keep your rifle close. Next, a transporter pilot has gone missin' too, so be on the lookout for a Miss Moonbay."

Stinger's drink flew several feet, splattering against the wood walls. He didn't really listen to the description that followed (after all, how many Moonbays could there be?) before promptly grabbing his cohort's by the ears and dragging them away from the grateful redhead.

"Wha?" Lackey numero uno looked unhappy to say the least, "Hey boss, what's going on!"

"Yeah!" The other one growled, "We were just about to get her too!"

The slightly demented gleam in Stinger's eye shut them up rather quickly. The evil laughter worked even faster. So as the trio was dragged into the desert the only thing that was said sounded suspiciously like 'revenge' and 'butterfly.'

And when those two words are coupled together, it goes without saying that trouble is brewing on the horizon.



Moonbay didn't say anything as Raven ripped off another stretch of duct tape. The look on his face coupled with the hungry gleam in Shadow's eyes told everyone present that Raven was in charge for the moment and it was only through his good grace that the world could turned for another day. More importantly, the reason that Moonbay would be living to see this next day was because the quintessentially evil pilot could afford her to.

Of course, this didn't make the braid wearing transporter any less nervous. In fact, she was in the curl-up-and-die stage of fear and didn't feel like leaving it for any particular reason. Sadly, the now-crowded backseat of such a small zoid didn't leave any room for curling up and Raven's glare didn't leave any room for dying so her needs would simply have to wait.

Besides, watching her captor patch her up was more amusing than it rightly should be. With little more than duct tape and one of Reese's trademark blue jackets (she didn't know how it had gotten under the chair and wasn't asking) for bandage material he was doing a marvelous job patching up her broken foot and recently gnawed-on legs. Technically it was his fault that she was almost eaten alive. Despite the wounds being mostly superficial, (the only serious injury was her broken foot), Shadow had done an excellent job scaring her to the point where she would do almost anything for Raven to call the psychotic mess of wires off.

But now the organoid was happily munching on some of the local critters (stuffed with lead courtesy of Raven) and Moonbay was curiously watching Raven's more unusual methods of curing bite wounds. Apparently, duct tape really *was* the be-all, cure-all of the modern era…

"You realize you brought this on yourself," Raven growled, twisting around more tape for the splint on Moonbay's foot, "If I didn't find Shadow you'd be a smear on the canyon floor right about now."

Moonbay didn't doubt it.

"And secondly, no more trying to kill me. If you hadn't noticed I have this nasty habit of coming back."

She nodded. That much was obvious, "I'll be a good girl, I promise."

"I'm sure."

Glancing at his handiwork, Raven yawned. Now that he thought about it, this would make it his second day without sleep. Glaring at the setting sun, he came to the even worse conclusion that he'd nearly wasted an entire day searching for Shadow (who had been finally found hanging from a withered tree root with one of his wings damaged beyond Raven's current means of repair and about to plummet to his doom).

That left him almost a day behind in his plans. He'd have to run through the night to catch up, something he wasn't looking forward. Contrary to popular belief, homicidal maniacs needed rest too. He was pretty sure any further escapades from his captive would lose him the bet, a fate he didn't want to think about. So it was with great relish that Moonbay found her hands and legs being mummified and then attached to the command wolf. The pilot would not have a repeat of Moonbay the martial artist.

Night came quickly, the sun setting behind a mesa in one of those beautiful scenes that could inspire the ages. But Moonbay was too busy watching Raven and Raven was too busy coming to a rather shocking (and dangerous) conclusion.

Reese's blue smock was ruined, with several chunks torn off and bloody beyond any dry cleaners ability to mend. Raven sighed, holding up the remains in the dying light, realizing a little too late what he had done. Moonbay looked mildly surprised as Raven's glare was quite suddenly replaced with a greenish grimace, "Great, just…great."

"What?"

Raven looked visibly ill, "I hope you're happy. Now Reese is going to kill both of us. The last time anyone messed with her clothes there was a massacre."

"M-massacre?"

"It involved some assembly plant."

"You mean that Lightning Saix factory was because of her?"

"Yep. I only came in to bring her back. Wound up blowing the whole thing up though…"

There was a rather awkward silence.

"You know," Moonbay ventured helpfully, "I think it looks sort of…stylish."

"For both our sakes," Raven gave her a pointed glare, "Reese better agree with you."

There was an audible gulp, "Yeah, rags are all the rage this season."

"Don't the new republican uniforms have the whole 'faded' look?"

"Only if they're Van's, but that goes without saying," Moonbay snickered to herself.

"I'm pretty sure that Emperor brat shred some of the old imperial robes…"

"Weren't they laced with anthrax?"

"A minor detail."

Lazily munching on the remains of several desert rodents far below, Shadow yawned. He was about to shut down for a while, when he suddenly found his sensors were no longer picking up the strange grating noise from the ridiculous blue zoid's cockpit. In fact, he was quite pleased to find that it was being replaced by a completely different sound: laughter.





(A/N 'The Devil went down to Georgia' is an old fiddle song that is both very fast and very cool if played properly, emphasis on 'if.')