Well, it's been how long.... a day? Yeah. We're getting to closer to Raven- action peeps; ya just have to be patient. And I know this whole story is cheesy, but I just had to put it up here because... I felt like it. I'm weird that way... *nods* But you all know that. So... are you ready for the next chapter? Good! *claps* Once again, "/" means italic... yeah. Let's go!

I DON'T OWN ZOIDS OR THE OPENING STATEMET THE STORY AND THIS A RUN-ON SENTECE SINCE THERE ARE MORE THAN THREE CLAUSES AND YOU SHOULD BE CORRECTING ME BUT YOU'RE NOT.



Lilly and I stayed in a motel for a night, preparing for the next day. And that next day, we asked around for where they might think the Imperial army might be holding a captive Zoid. Of course no one would want to answer that question. The Empire is a very "secret" organization, and no one will ever reveal those secrets.

Unless they wanted to pay the price.

Admiral Prozen, the leader of the Empire (besides of course the Emperor), is not a very flexible man. His main goal is to basically destroy the Republic. I bet he would use Slasher too. That was the way. I wouldn't go to Slash. She would come to me.

"Hellooo?" Lilly yelled jumping in front me, waving her hands wildly.

"Huh? What?" I said, breaking out my trance.

"Kala, we're going to have to leave soon," she told me.

"Yeah, but what are going to travel around in? A motorcycle?" I asked sarcastically.

"As a matter of fact, yeah," she said, pointing in front of her. Right there was a sleek black Hargey Mavidson. It probably cost over $20,000!

"Lilly!!! Where did you get this thing?" I asked, amazed.

"Did I tell you I come from an extremely rich family?" she told me, looking around aimlessly.

I stared at the amazing machine for a bit. Its seat had to be modified a bit to fit two people, and the decals on the sides was a big fire flash and thunder bolt intertwined. It probably went a million miles an hour (not literally of course). Lilly hopped on.

"Well? Aren't you going to get on?" she asked, putting on her helmet.

"Alright!!!" I yelped happily, jumping on and putting on my helmet.

Lilly revved the engine, and politely asked, "Where are we going?"

"Well. we're going to. to. uh." I fumbled with my words. Where were we going? Then I had an idea. "We're going to the nearest Republican stop!!" I cried, and with that, Lilly floored it and we were off. The nearest base was one hundred miles away, but we were near a Republic city, New Helic city. It was only about seventy miles away.



"Can I see some ID?"

I forgot about the border guards. Unfortunately, we didn't have any ID, both of us being under eighteen. We were in trouble. Even though I didn't have the best solution, it was one. I reached into Lilly's pocket and grabbed a credit card, one of her parent's that she had stolen. I put it into the border guard's open hand and said, "Here, have some fun," and kicked Lilly for her to hit the gas. We drove off with the border guards just staring, some yelling angrily.

"Kala, I'm glad that was my parent's, or else I'd be really, really, mad right now!" she steamed, not as mad as she obviously could be. But she immediately calmed down and said, "But it was pretty good!" Lilly let out a high-pitched laugh. I smiled inside and we continued riding. I wondered if Lilly knew where we were going. Luckily, I did, so I was able to direct her.

"Lilly, take a right now. no, a right! Lilly!!"

"Quiet Kala! I know, I know!"

After motoring for about five hours (with of course some small rest stops), we finally came to the edge of New Helic. Well, it was only the suburbs, but it was close enough. Some of these suburbs were just rows of grassy fields. By the time we got there it was nighttime so we just kept going. It was a moonlit night and the stars dotted the sky like flowers in the field we were traveling on. It was a cloudy night and I just laid back and was about to fall asleep when we suddenly stopped moving. There was a hole in the ground Lilly mumbled something and revved the engine two or three times. Suddenly the hole caved in and we fell though.

"Ahem," said a voice above us.

I looked up and there was a girl standing over us with an irritated look on her face. She had torn up blue jeans and a ripped white shirt. She a green diamond on her forehead, and one large lock of her golden-brown hair came down over one of her cobalt blue eyes. I smiled nervously and Lilly just lay face down in the ground. The girl kept the stern look and said, "Are you two going to start fighting and stain my carpet?"

"No, no!" Lilly explained, getting her face off the ground and dusting it off.

"Good, because the last two people dropped in here covered in blood /and/ mud, and stained my carpet!! Two young men, I believe," she explained angrily to us. ((A/N: Hey, if you guess who they are before she says who they are, you must be psychic! -_-;;))

"Oh, no. what did you do to them?" I asked her curiously.

"Ah, gave 'em both a good sock, one in the nose, and gave the other a black eye,"

"You go!" Lilly shrieked.

Suddenly a tiny voice appeared from behind the young girl. "What's going on?" it asked. It turns out the voice came from a medium-sized beige rabbit with a black patch over her left eye. and wings!

"It's ok, Patch, these two girls just dropped down into our hole again," the girl told the rabbit, who was obviously named Patch, an appropriate name.

"Oh, ok. Are you going to beat them up Jeri?" asked Patch to the girl, who was named Jeri. Jeri shook her head and rubbed the rabbit on her silky belly. Patch giggled and fell to the ground. While Lilly screamed at how cute Patch was, I looked around. Lilly's Hargey was lying on the ground, upside down and still running. The white, plush carpet looked a bit dirty, but not stained. The hole was covered with fancy blue wallpaper. Jeri looked the complete opposite of her home. She was a rugged, don't-give-me- that kind of teenager, whilst her house looked completely.rich.

"Jeri, if I may ask, where did you get all this money?" I inquired.

"Well, first, I have a high paying job. I do almost anything for money, as long as there's a lot of it. Maybe you've heard of me?" she bragged.

"Jeri. Jeri, oh, yes, I remember now, you're the one who stole the computer parts from that huge warehouse right?" Lilly responded before me.

"Yes, that's correct. And who are you two?" Jeri asked us.

"Well, I'm Lilly Sunshine, and this is Kala. this is Kala," Lilly said, again beating me to the punch.

"Ah, well, it's nice to meet you two. Wait a second. I heard of those names before. Patch?" Jeri said, signaling to the rabbit to get something. Patch immediately get the newspaper and handed it to her partner. Jeri searched the paper and then her face showed a sign of recognition. She showed up the paper. On the headline it said, "/Two juvenile teens escape from boarding school/" Lilly's eyes squinted.

"I'm NOT a juvenile delinquent!!!" she screamed. She was obviously angry that they had mistaken her for an escapee of a boarding school for delinquents. But, she had potential to be one. She was just too nice. For now.

"Well, Lilly, then why were you there? And why DID people consider you a nutcase? C'mon, you can tell me," I teased her.

"Fine. You want to know? Well.if you were considered a sweet girl twenty- four seven and when some guy tries to hit on you and you end up breaking his jaw maybe you would be considered a nutcase too!!!" Lilly cried angrily, nearly strangling me. ((A/N: THAT was my friend's idea....))

"Whoa, sorry Lilly, I didn't know," I squeaked, backing off. Lilly's eyes gleamed with fire. I kept backing up until I hit Jeri, and then I hid behind her. Lilly suddenly cheered up and started squeezing Patch.

"So, Jeri, do you have any food we could borrow?" I asked her, hearing Patch gasping for air in the background.

"Yeah, sure, hold on," Jeri responded, dashing into her kitchen and coming back with meat and fruits in tow. Jeri dropped them in a bag and attached them to the back of our motorcycle; after flipping it back over of course. I thanked her. Lilly was still squeezing Patch to death, even when Jeri asked us if we wanted to stay.

"Nah, but let me ask you something. Who were those two young men that fell through here?" I asked her.

"One was named Ban, I believe, and the other was Raven," she said.

"Whee! I gotta fight them!!" I shrieked, jumping into the air and clapping my hands.

"Have you even seen them before?" asked Lilly.

"Well, no, but I want to fight them."

"Ah."

"Which way did they go?"

"All I know is that the Ban dude went to New Helic."

"Right where we're heading," Lilly smirked.

"Yeah! Now we can get Slash and beat Ban in one go! Killing two birds with one stone!" I laughed. I knew we were getting close.

We politely thanked Jeri and Lilly gave Patch a last squeeze good-bye and we got the motorcycle out of the hole. As I made sure everything was secure in the back we were off. I fell asleep again but when I woke up I was still on the motorcycle and Lilly was nowhere to be found. I looked around only to see that were surrounded by huge buildings, apartments, and such. Smoke was flying out of a few buildings and it smelled kind of bad. We were in New Helic!!

But /where/ were we in New Helic? The motorcycle was parked next to a café and there was cobblestone floor surrounding it. I looked in the café and Lilly was in there eating. Steam flew of my ears. I blew down the door and I stomped in. No doubt Lilly had thought that I needed my extra sleep when the fact was I needed to get up as early as possible.

Of course, being that I never told her I couldn't blame her. I was still angry and wanted to find Slasher so I could defeat Ban. Now, not only was she in the café talking away, she talking to some weird guy. He was wearing weird clothes and had spiky black hair, and some was pulled into a ponytail. He had a red lopsided rectangle on his lower left cheek. His eyes looked cheerful and happy, they were black. His nose had tape over it. When I broke in Lilly looked at me.

"Kala! Before you beat me up, this guy is the one we've been looking for!"

"Who, Raven?"

"No! Ban!"

"Well, Lilly, that's great. but.uh. I HAVE NOTHING TO VERSE HIM WITH!!!"

"Oh, yeah."

Ban immediately got up and got in my face. He must've known I wanted to challenge him. But instead, he stood in front of Lilly and pointed his index finger at her, holding an apple in his other hand. Then, all in one smooth motion, he shoved the apple in her face and said, "I challenge you to a Zoid battle!"

I looked at him and laughed. "What is this, pokémon?" I laughed and laughed until I fell on the ground. After I calmed down I said, that neither of us had a Zoid. Ban blushed. I asked him if there had been any sightings of a strange Rev Raptor.

"Well, I wouldn't be the one to know that. There was just an attack here but the Imperials failed. The person who has your information is on the Imperial army," Ban explained.

"Well, we can't just go straight to Prozen!" I complained.

"No, not him. You probably won't get it out of him, but the only guy who will tell you and not get in trouble is Raven. The Imperials value him so much that they would never get rid of him."

"He must be a pretty good fighter then," I said.

"/Pretty good?/ This guy is so good even /I/ can't beat him," Ban scoffed.

"Then you must not be very good," Lilly giggled. She would always come up with a good insult then giggle at her own joke. I would have to work with her on that.

Ban frowned and sat back down. I sat down at the table on the other end of the café and Lilly sat across from me. I crossed my arms and pouted.

"All this work for nothing! We don't even know where Raven is!!" I yelled, slamming my fists on the table.

"He's south of New Helic!" Ban cried form the other end of the café. He was pretty helpful for such an idiot.

I grinned and Lilly did too. Raven must be pretty experienced, so he must be a bit older than Ban.no doubt as ugly or uglier than Ban. Boys never looked good at the ages of fourteen and fifteen. I sighed. I walked out of the café and got in the driver's seat.

"What are you doing?" Lilly asked crossly.

"I'm driving."

"No you're not!"

"Sit /DOWN/ Lilly!" I seethed through gritted teeth. Lilly sat down and I revved the motor. "Lilly?"

"Yeah?"

"Which way is south?"

---------------------------------------------------------------- Well, how good was that? Satisfied? Sorry if I made Ban look like an idiot, but that's what us RF's (as Fire Fox would call us) do. I needed to tell you guys something... I'm trying to say as close to the anime as possible, but I WILL make mistakes in later chapters. Yeah. Okay? Good. Now, R&R. ^^