Zoids: Renegade Shadow

"Love? I'm not in Love. Not quite yet."

Chapter II: Questions Without Answers

Read the spoiler summary for one of the last episodes in Zoids: Chaotic Century at Anime Admirer's... now I wish I hadn't, because (if you don't want to know what happens then don't read the rest of this note!) Thomas DOESN'T die... but someone else, whom we all like VERY, VERY MUCH, does.... However, I have a feeling that that person will be coming back in one of the other episodes, knowing that Shadow went back to Zoid Eve.

***

Hehe, another note, but this time no evil spoiler rants. Well, yes, but no telling what it said in the spoiler. I saved the page on my computer so I can look at the piccys over and over again, and read it multiple times. After reading it I almost started to cry, but I didn't want to look like a weirdo in front of my family (I did cry, however, in other episodes, and when this one airs, if I see it, I WILL CRY NO MATTER WHAT. TRUST ME, YOU WILL TOO. (If you're emotionally attached to the show, like I am!) So I sat there reading it over and over again, eating many purple grapes, and listening to sad sounding songs in Japanese over and over again. Yum. Story time, so I can finish as much of this as possible before you-know- what happens. Now I'm listening to "Wildflower," the Zoids: chaotic Century theme... Right, NOW I'm crying. Someone needs to make a music video to that song - or "Star Stealing Girl" from Chrono Cross-to remember that-certain-someone by. Though I think they're NOT really dead.

***

Dive into the mind...

Van Fleiheit, thought Harry Champ. The hero from way back when, the guy who helped destroy the Death Stinger. Fiona Alissi Lynett, the ancient Zoidian who helped to find those of her race and create the Zoidian Guild to help all of the citizens of Zi. Bit Cloud, great Zoid warrior and the pilot of an Ultimate X. Harry Champ, senior, who created the Champ Corporation and brought respect to his name. Thomas Richard Schubaltz, who died in the act of helping to save Zi. Irvine, mercenary gone good. Moonbay, the loyal transporter who left behind her cargo but once to save her friends.

All of these people had left behind a legacy; but had Harry? Of course he had! Harry Champ, the man destined to be King. More like Harry Champ, the man destined to be dead. The leader of the worst Zoid team in history. The man no girl finds attractive. That rich, spoiled kid...

...who had changed significantly over the last two years. Into what? A more respectable, mature, handsome man. Two years of military academy with the ZBC had helped Harry a lot. No one knew that Harry had gone there, of course; not even his sister Mary. He hadn't even told his lifelong crush and obsession, Leena Toros! What kind of a guy was he, leaving his friends behind, not telling them anything?!! But the fact was, he didn't have any friends. Except for the robots Benjamin and Sebastian, but they would be perfectly happy with Mary. Sometimes Harry wished he had stayed at his home, kept to obsessing over "his girl." But then he remembered: Leena loved Bit.

Harry Champ had nothing left to live for. He had learned almost everything he had ever wanted to know about in the past two years. Only one question was left in his head, keeping it from being vacant of inquiries. The question that Harry had been asking for the past two years but had yet to find the answer. He already knew how true love felt. He knew that Leena would never love him. He knew that no one could ever love a guy like him. The only question left was simple, so why hadn't he ever figured it out?

His question: who is Kylie Cloud?

Dive into Zi... Find out what makes it tick. Find out what makes Zoidians so different from humans. Find out where humans originally came from. Find out what a Zoid really is. Are they living creatures? or artificial intelligence? or have you already found the answer to that?

Harry forced himself to stop wandering in his mind and focus on the present situation, as he had been taught to do in the Academy. He sat up to see through the semi-darkness that he had been unconscious next to his Dark Horn for who knows how long. But how had he gotten out of that Zoid? What about the gash in his head? Harry tried to scratch his head in confusion, but to no avail. There was a bandage tied around his head, probably to prevent it from bleeding anymore. Had Harry done that to himself by instinct in his sleep?!!

Maybe he had spent two years at the academy, but he hadn't grown all that much smarter when it came to common sense. Let's face it, Harry, he told himself. You're not very bright.

He looked around some more and saw a Dibison standing next to his modified Zoid. Harry walked over to it. The Zoid looked a lot like Leena's old one, though it had been reduced almost to scrap. It could be Leena's! Harry told himself. Her Gun Sniper had been destroyed beyond help, so why not? Why not hope for something that you know will never come true?

The eighteen-year old climbed up into the cockpit and activated it, looking for the registration number. There it was: Z-93586 (don't know how long the registration number is! I mean, I know all the EZ-04 stuff, but that's not a registration number, it's the number in which the Zoids were created for the Empire/Republic). Wasn't that Leena's old Dibison's registration number? Harry asked himself. Besides, this registration number expired a year ago! As a lieutenant in the ZBC, it was Harry's duty to find the owner of this Zoid and bring them to justice! They needed to renew their registration number, like a driving license! Even if they probably had saved Harry's little life, though he wouldn't have minded very much if they had simply let him die.

Harry heard footsteps and looked up, only to be whacked upside the head by a hefty hoverboard and to have a gun drawn to his head. "Just WHAT do you think you're doing in the cockpit of my Zoid?!!" asked someone, probably the person who was holding a gun to his head.

"Hey, babe, go easy on the head!" answered Harry. Babe. Flattery would work well; it always did. The owner of the voice SOUNDED like a girl. If it was a boy, Harry was definitely dead.

"BABE?!!" shouted the girl. "Just who do you think you are, Harry Champ or something?!!"

"Actually, I think I'm a Lieutenant for the Zoid Battle Commission, so if you would please put that gun someplace safe..."

"Tell me your name first."

"Harry Champ. Yours?"

"K- Harry Champ?!! And why should I be telling you my name?"

"Because I told you mine."

"Just shut up and get out of the cockpit." Harry jumped down and turned to look up at who had put a gun to his head. He didn't feel very safe near a psycho.

The girl had curly, long blond hair and sad green eyes (by now you should know who she is!!! yay!! I just can't seem to keep ANYONE dead in these stories!!! ahhh!!! but you must remember, I never said she was dead in the first place... oooh...). In one hand she was carrying a hoverboard; in the other a stick, which she threw at him. Harry caught it and sweat-dropped. "You were threatening me with a STICK?!!"

"Why not?" She shrugged. "I never threatened you in the first place, anyways."

It thundered and started to rain. "Right, well, I might as well leave now. Thanks for your help against those bandits, I guess," said Harry, thinking. Lightning cracked (uhh.... lightning cracks, right? i'm not sure...) close by. As he climbed up into his modified Dark Horn the girl's mood changed completely.

"Wait!" she shouted, running up to him. Harry turned around wearily and sighed. "Girls just can't resist me," he joked to himself.

"D- don't leave me out here alone in this storm..." began the girl.

"Uh..." Harry didn't know what to say. He needed to get back to the base, but he hadn't accomplished his mission... However, if he made an arrest of SOMEONE, even if it wasn't the bandits, he could get by. That was the price of being a lieutenant; you were expected to do your job, however long it took. "Okay, then... I know! Your under arrest for possession of a possibly stolen and definitely unregistered Zoid!"

"Pardon?" asked the girl. Harry sighed again and said, "If you really want me to stay with you, then I'll have to arrest you." He wearily clipped some handcuffs (which had been stored in his Zoid's cockpit) on her hands and she looked at them nervously.

"Do these things attract/conduct electricity?"

***

Note: I have to add a sad section now.... because I'm in a sad mode...

***

Dive into the heart...

"Kokoro!" shouted Robert Marron as he remembered the first day he had met her.

*Robert climbed into his Spino Snapper and took off in the direction the Storm Sworder had been going when it crashed. Not very long afterwards his Zoid approached the wreck of the flying Zoid. Looking it over, he realized that this was a black Storm Sworder, capable of using stealth mode. No wonder the Whale King hadn't been able to find it! The Zoid had been using stealth mode for the time! And then, after it had crashed, the mode must have stopped working...

"Is anyone in there?" he asked, trying to heave open the cockpit. It didn't work, but he thought he saw two people in it. One of the two reached out with her hand, and ever so slowly, pressed the button to open the cockpit. With that she slumped back in the seat. "Hey! Don't die, either of you!" shouted Robert. Maybe he didn't know them, but did that matter? No. They were people, just like him.

He moved to a man, in the front seat, who looked much older than the girl and was wearing clothes like a scientist's. Robert checked for a pulse, but couldn't feel one. He then moved on to check the girl for a pulse; again, he couldn't feel one. Robert swore for not being quick enough to save either. He had wasted time, and as a result two people, two human beings just like himself, had died. He didn't know who they had been or what they would have been like, but still... they were people... didn't Robert have a heart?!! To just LET innocent people die like that?!! Was he just like the three Zoidians and Kaiser himself?!! (argh, I've started to cry over you-don't-know-who again) More questions. But these things going on inside his head- they were... feelings. . Some of the first very strong ones he had ever felt. Both happy and sad at the same time, usually immovable Robert started...

...to cry. Not very much, but it was crying all the same. He'd never really done hat before, even when times had been really tough, or he had been hurt severely. All these new feelings were beginning to become overwhelming...

"Don't.... cry..." said a voice.

"Wha-?!" exclaimed Robert, looking around.

"Don't..." The sixteen-year-old looked down to see the girl weakly smiling at him. But she hadn't had a pulse! How could she still be alive?!! More questions... But no answers...

She slowly closed her eyes, and Robert felt for a pulse again. There still wasn't one. So was she alive, unconscious, or what? "Please... stop it... that tickles."

Robert sweat-dropped at the remark and slowly a smile grew on his face. He WAS capable of smiling, of helping other people, all those things... And she couldn't be dead, if she was talking. Or could she? Was his mind just playing tricks on him?

Through his unusual tears Robert laughed a little, and then remembered the man in front of her. Was he alive, too? Robert unbuckled the restraints on both of them, and lifted the scientist guy out of the somewhat mangled cockpit, laying him on the ground. Next he gingerly did the same to the girl, when he noticed a small piece of paper laying on the floor of the cockpit.

Robert picked it up and unfolded it. Hurriedly scrawled with a pen were a few sentences:

"Dear Someone,

Her name is Kokoro. Please take good care of her. If you wait the truth will eventually reveal itself. Good luck and keep her safe from the Backdraft!

-With Regards from Dr. Scott Altiel"

"What..." Robert asked himself. How very strange. It seemed that this scientist knew that "Kokoro" would survive, the crash, but that he himself wouldn't. How incredibly strange. Dr. Scott Altiel? What a familiar name... Was he related to Commander Craig Altiel from the Backdraft, or was this just a very strange coincidence? Ah well. As it said on the note, "If you wait the truth will reveal itself."*

The truth hadn't revealed itself. Not quite yet.

"Leave her alone!" shouted Robert to the three Zoidians before him Hitoshi merely stood in the background with his red organoid, Kurai, watching as the other two completed their task. An unconscious Kokoro was being held by Neos as Akira did the talking. But Hitoshi wasn't participating in the fun. With her long brown hair and innocent blue eyes, Kokoro reminded him of someone. Who? No one knew except for Hitoshi himself. His background was a secret when compared to the two others. They didn't HAVE backgrounds, except what Neos had done to Van Flyheight many, many years ago, if you could call that a background. Hitoshi, on the other hand, did. And it was very personal. (HA! I thought I would never give THIS idiot character development, but I have started to! As you can tell... I don't like him. But oh, I will warm up to him nicely when I introduce yet another character. If I have the internet then.)

"If you ever want to see your friend again you will go kill the ten Chosen." Akira almost smiled, for who knows why. It seemed that she enjoyed making humans miserable just as much as Neos did. "And until you do that, Kokoro's death is, well, inevitable."

"You wouldn't-" started Robert, but he stopped himself. Yes, they would. And if they didn't the Kaiser would definitely do it for them, and with pleasure. "Fine. But I thought Ayumi was already working on that!"

"Kaiser can't trust her."

"He can't trust me, either, not anymore."

"But he can trust you more than he can trust Ayumi."

***

Leena sat in the waiting room at the New Helic City hospital. The wait was unbearable. She desperately wanted to see how her father was doing. All her thoughts focused on the way Mrs. Toros had died. Losing her mother had been horrible, but to lose both parents? As Bit had? At least Leon wouldn't die, too. Her brother sat beside her, staring at the wall. That was all he could do.

But Bit. He had lost his mother, then his father, and then his sister. Then he had found Kylie, but then he had lost her again. It must have been even worse for Bit. He had no one to turn to for five years, until he met the rest of the Blitz team. Talking to Liger must have let his feelings out a little bit, but when he had discovered that Kylie Maria Cloud was still alive, it all came out at once. Anger, love, disbelief, and a thousand more emotions.

Losing someone twice. Now THAT was unbearable.

Suddenly someone burst through the doors and ran down the hall. Who is that? thought Leena. The person stopped directly in front of Leena and said, "Leena! Where's Elen?!!! Where is he?!!!"

"Wha-?!" started Leena. She looked the young girl straight in the face. Of course! "Spring?" asked Leena. "What are you doing? Shouldn't you be with Ptolemy at the Guild?"

Spring looked like she was about to cry. "Where is Elen? I need to talk to him! Please tell me where Bit is! This is very important... I... Sensitivity to things like this sucks..." she mutterd as she collapsed into Leena's arms.

"Leena, what's going on?" asked Leon.

"I'm not sure, Leon, but we have to find Bit. I know he's somewhere in this city."

***

Must end it here so I can upload it before we get rid of the internet. Bwahaha... Spring is back 'cause I like her so much! Or, as sometimes I call her, Ehtel and an "e" with two dots above it. The spoiler for the Chaotic Centtury episode is at Anime Admirer's Chaotic Century site. I don't advise you to read it; If I were you, I'd wait, even though I couldn't control myself. NO! Kokoro! Hehehe.... Bit isn't the only Chosen, as I call them. Guess the others if you feel like it. Must stopp writing and UPLOAD before I can't anymore!