ZOIDS

Tale of Two Worlds

Chapter 2: The Crash

The lost judge satellite hurtled through space missing many solid objects. If it had exploded, this ordeal might never have happened. But instead, it plummeted towards the void of space, the Black Hole.

Oblivious to the recent loss of a judge satellite on planet Zi, actually oblivious to the existence of planet Zi, Prof. Yagonativa was more concerned with the current state of affairs. After receiving an urgent message from the President of the United States, he was surprised. He was also devastated with the loss of all the information on system 26-15-9-4. But in his gut he was starting to dread what he would find behind each of the locked doors. Finally the guards stopped at a wall. Yagonativa wondered why they stopped.

"Wait here while we get the President and the commander of the Secret Service." Then, to Yagonativa's greatest surprise, the one of the guards walked through the wall. Moments later two men, whom Prof. Y. recognized as two of the most important people in the United States, resurfaced.

"Good morning'!" the president said well naturedly as they walked into another wall, this time with the professor.

"As you may already know," the commander continued, "the star system 26-15-9-4, code named BCP, has, for a time, been emitting strange emissions, which, we think, are signs of other life on this planet."

"Then why destroy all my files?" Professor Yagonativa roared with fury.

"We did not destroy your files." the president responded calmly. "A group, who call themselves AL, or Alien Liberation, has recently received this data from a leak."

"They have been trying to disprove alien life and have huge bets on whether they do not exist."

"Because of their extensive spy network, they were notified of your recent breakthroughs. That's why they sent a team to destroy the evidence."

"But why?"

"Remember the bets? The AL has placed hundreds of trillions of dollars of bets on the fact that alien life does not exist. That is enough to completely eliminate our national debt!"

"Or double it."

"The organization managed to get a mole inside our government. Half of all their bets are on the US."

"If they manage to win, we lose big time."

Almost having a heart attack, the professor sat down and thought. Then he retorted, "How will they pay you?"

"I forgot to mention, AL is not so much of an organization, and it is more of a ring of corrupt private companies around the world. Because of this fact, we can't arrest them. Most of their assets are on legal ventures."

They turned from the long corridor and walked into another room. Inside was a huge amount of machinery clicking and whirring, emitting combinations of 1s and 0s. The people working looked up at the men.

"This is the hub of our operations. Congratulations. You are part of the team."

The professor didn't consent.

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As the Hover cargo continued its ever-so-slow crawl towards the Battle Commissions headquarters, its crew was ever-so-bored with their pure dumb unluckiness.

"Aaaaah!" Leena screamed with agony, pain, and everything in-between, "how could this happen to us! First we have to wait a whole month until we get to the headquarters... AND NEXT HARRY CHAMPS STAYING WITH US!!!" Not a moment to soon as a Whale King slowly landed next to the Hover Cargo as Bit saw a small figure run into the ship.

"Leeennnaaa!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!" Leena shrieked and darted into her room and locked the door. Suddenly Harry burst into the lounge.

"Where's my lovely Leena?"

"Go away idiot!" Leena mumbled her voice nearly inaudible from the reinforced door.

Bit moaned. It would be a long trip. Very long.

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Somewhere in a distant desert, a young man was lucky enough to witness a dazzling display of silver streaks appear from the sky; while an aurora appeared harboring what appeared to be a very bright star. The man, on the contrary, was very disturbed by the sudden meteor shower.

"What is this?" Taking out a camera, he started taking shots of the display. His eye caught one particular one as it flew with a flaming trail towards the very spot he was standing.

"Oh no!" He flinched as the object hit the sand with tremendous force, causing a huge sandstorm. Coughing and choking, he managed to stand from the ground, looking at the object. He gasped as a door opened, revealing a...

________________________

"Hey Bit! Come and check this out!" Jaime yelled from the hanger.

"What is it?" Bit yelled eagerly, having gotten bored of Harry's constant begging to Leena.

"I don't know. Doc's been working on it all day. He won't let me see until you come. I bet it's probably another useless weapon he has bought. Hurry up!"

"I'm coming!" Bit Cloud ran down the stairs into the hanger where a huge steel door concealed something. Dr. Tauros walked out; exhibiting what looked like a flying Liger toy.

"Cool isn't it! I'm calling it the Aves conversion for your Liger-Zero."

"Is that what you called us down for?" Jaime exclaimed.

"Oh no, that's not what I called you down for. Check out the Panzer conversion!"

He opened the hangar. The Liger stood inside with its full glory.

"There doesn't seem to be much different for the Liger-Zero."

"Oh yes there is. I implanted a weak anti-gravity system inside its armor. Now it can use all of its weapons without burning out so easily!"

"Have you field tested it yet?" Bit said, sounding slightly hysterical. How could he forget the anti-gravity incident?

"Oh no! But I reckon it will increase the Ligers capabilities by 400%"

"Wow!"

"And that's only half of it," Tauros continued, as he proceeded to the back. "Meet the Aves Conversion, the speed of the Jager, the power of the Panzer, and the ability of flight!" He paused for some feedback, and when he only saw gaping jaws, he added, "The Liger accepts the armor, so we shouldn't have any problem with it."

After Bit and Jamie recovered from the shock, Bit asked, "How do you know it will work?"

"I don't have the slightest idea!" Then grabbing Bit he shouted, "But if the Liger likes it, you should to!"

"Alright. How much did it cost us?"

"Let's just say if we don't win a battle soon, we'll be back in financial troubles."

They both fell over.

Later that day, Bit decided with Leena penned up in the room, he shouldn't get any reprimands if he took the Liger out for a test flight. As the machine rose up onto the Armor Conversion System, he crossed his fingers as the new armor fitted neatly onto the frame. Suddenly, as if under impulse, the feet retracted to show two miniscule rocket boosters. The dashboard folded in to reveal the flight controls as the wings locked into position.

"Aves! All systems, ready, go!"

In that moment of truth, the tiger lurched forward and started a nose dive onto the ground.

"Liger! Do you know what you are doing?!" Bit screamed as he cringed at the impact that never came. Miraculously, the Liger righted itself and zoomed into the open blue sky.

"Hey Bit! The Aves conversion has the ability to accelerate to Mach 5! However, I don't think you'll be able to go that fast yet."

"No thanks. I'm already doing fine." Scanning the cockpit, he looked for the weapons control. He was quite miffed when he found none.

"Hey Doc! How do the weapons work on this thing?"

"Let's see, Strike Laser Wing activate the controls for Strike Laser Claw. We also have 20 missile launchers, two quad-laser cannons which can be controlled using the popup weapons board." Bit noticed the new feature and pulled which activated the side panels and allowed him to see all the weapons.

"We also have Advanced Shields and Advanced Boosters that will allow the Liger to accelerate up to Mach 6."

Jamie looked at the frame with concern and asked, "What about the actual durability of the frame? Did you make the necessary modifications for such high-speed combat?"

"Of course I did! I didn't get my stripes in weapons designing without making modifications."

"Any others?

"I've got a thirteen volume set of weapons back at the hover cargo, but I reckoned you'd only need those 3."

"That will be fine for now."

Suddenly the comlink flashed again. Dr. Tauros brought the screen up again revealing the face of the board.

"We've managed to get a fix on your location. Your next battle is scheduled for tomorrow at coordinates A35. The team you will be facing is the Supersonic Team. Battle Mode will be 0982; the restricted amounts of Zoids will be 4."

"That leaves space for the entire team!"

"Well, the Battle Commission looks forward to seeing the results of this battle. We will be transmitting the general data on there team at once."

"Looking at the data they sent us, the Supersonic Team mainly consists of Flying Zoids."

"Doc! Your new conversion armor came just in time! Now we'll have two Flying Zoids on our team!"

"The problem is," Brad commented, "How will me and Leena stay in the fight?"

"I've already got a plan for that. Bit! You're Ave's system and Jamie's Raynos are both equipped with stealth systems. Brad and Leena will lead off and draw away the enemy fire, and then you two hit them."

"The problem with that is the Supersonic team also has many rear homing missile canisters and a very good radar system. Even if what Doc. said was true, we still will have a hard time dealing with them. We might be better off having Brad equip the long range pulse cannon that Doc. bought last Christmas and Leena using those retractable homing blades to cover fire while me and Bit engage in close combat. Either way, the Supersonic Team won't be expecting two flying Zoids. We should use that surprise to gain the advantage."

"Remember, the Supersonic team didn't get to Class S just by flanking their way through battles. They probably have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves. The best thing to be is prepared." Bit yawned as he suddenly realized Harry Champ was gone.

"Hey! Were did he go?"

"Leena kicked him out of the lounge. He's left long since."

"Where is Leena?"

"She's still in her room."

"Go and get her! Tomorrow when we face our first opponent, if she's not prepared we may lose the edge we may never have had."

Brad crept cautiously up the stairs as Leena could have been in a very bad mood. Slowly opening the door, he saw what had kept Leena from the brink of insanity all day. It was strange enough to merit the attention of all the other team members.

She had slept the entire day.

"Do you think she has a fever?"

"I'M FINE!"

Suddenly Leena jolted out of the bed in the hospital wing.

"Well that's a relief. If she gets sick, we'll be one team member short during tomorrow's battle."

Jamie groaned. Now he had to repeat the entire strategy to Leena.

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"Mr. Y," one of apprentices his asked, "We are getting reports of strange silver capsules landing all over the planet!"

"Yes and the press are saying that this is an attack from the aliens."

"Research all you can about these if you want. My goal is direct clear evidence of interstellar life."