Amy's First Kiss
Chapter Three: The Desert Marauders
By: Sci-Fi-Raptor
Disclaimer: I Don't own Zoids
And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything feels like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive
And I don't want the world to see me
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
-Goo Goo Dolls (Iris)
Later, in Crass' new room, Crass wakes up from being unconscious for sometime:
"Ow… my head hurts…" said Crass in a daze. When he could clearly see, he saw Amy's family hovering around him. (ß not hovering as in off the floor!)
"Do you remember what happened out there?" asked Amy
"No…"
"I figured…"
"Can we take a look at that patch?" asked Mr. Rose
"Ok…" said Crass. Mr. Rose carefully looked at it, and then started poking at it. Then he tried to take it off, since he found a solid part to it.
(view of outside of house) "AH!" screamed Crass in agony. (back to room) He quickly took his hand back from him. "What you do that for?" he said, while rubbing his hand.
"Well, that armor that you had seemed to come from that patch"
"I may have amnesia, but I'm stable enough to tell that that's ridiculous"
"But we all saw it. This armor came out of your patch and covered you, and then you kicked the Desert Marauders' asses!" said Amy
"Amy! Watch your language" said Mrs. Rose.
"Sorry mother" said Amy. "Hey he fell asleep again…" everyone's sweat dropped.
"Well, you've found quite a catch Amy" said her dad.
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
"You two look so cute… I think I'll fix you two together." said her mom.
"Mom! I told you that kinda stuff is my business! And its not like I like him or anything" she said, and left the room with her nose held up high.
"Yes she does, she just won't admit it" her dad whispered to her mom
"Hey! I heard that!"
"Amy and Crass, sitting in a tree" they said
"Mom! Dad!"
"k.i.s.s.i.n.g…" they said much softer.
The next day I woke up to the sound of drills and wood being cut. I got up, yawned, stretched, walked past my new furniture and went into the bathroom. Wait… back track. New furniture? I don't remember daddy ordering any furniture. Wait… backtrack one more time: "woke up to the sound of drills and wood being cut." Oh no… did daddy make Crass stay up all night making new furniture? God… daddy can be such a…
I used the bathroom, and got changed. Then I went downstairs, and saw daddy building a table, and Crass standing next to him, telling him what to do. At least he didn't make him do all the work.
"Good morning" I said to Crass with a smile. Then I looked at daddy pissed off. "Did you make poor Crass stay up all night working something again?"
"Nope. I started when he woke up. He taught me how to build all sorts of furniture in the first hour, and he's been watching over me while I was building them. So far we've spent about three hours together."
"What?! Only three hours? But you replaced all my furniture. How'd you do all that in three hours?"
"Actually its two hours Mrs. Smarty Pants. And I didn't refurbish only your room. I did the whole upstairs."
"What?!" I said, and ran upstairs and checked all the rooms. And true to his word, all the rooms had new furniture in them. I went downstairs with a dumbstruck look on my face.
"Should we tell her that we had some help?" Crass whispered to Mr. Rose, pointing at a receipt from a nearby furniture outlet.
"Maybe later. She looks funny like that…"
"Well dad," I said not hearing them "you've had Crass all morning. Not it's my turn"
"I knew you liked him!" he said.
"No I don't dad," she said in a death whisper "It's just that kids like us aren't supposed to be cooped up in one place for too long."
"Sure…" he said.
"Really!" I rebutted, but he was already going outside to fit the table he had just built himself (without help). Then Crass sobbed. "What's wrong?"
"It's demeaning when you're referred to as an object sometimes…" he said. All I did was laugh at him, and took him to my car. "We, my friend, are going to go to an Oxygen bar. I've heard that they make some things there that have given people their memory back."
The Oxygen bar was in another town, and it took us about two hours to reach it. For some reason, Amy seemed nervous and kept talking about her life when she was young. I didn't really mind, since some of the things that she said were pretty funny. She said that there was this time when she was on the swing and she swung so high, that she got thrown off her seat and landed a full ten feet away. She said that she cried for a while, and that she didn't go on swings for a few years. Eventually she got over it, and when she tried to swing again, the swing broke and she fell on her butt. She says she still swings now, but she says she does it with caution. Then I asked her what swinging was, and all she did was laugh. This distracted her a lot, and she went into the wrong lane. A truck was headed in our direction, so I turned the wheel, as she calls it, around so we would get out of its way. I got us in the right lane, and we didn't have to stop or slow down, but Amy blushed when that happened. It might be because I had accidentally put my hand on hers, so I apologized for doing that, but she said it was ok. Then I asked her if she was hot, since it was really sunny that day and she was still blushing and the roof was down, but she just shrugged it off, saying that I was a "very unique individual." She told me a few other accounts of her younger years, and we soon arrived at the town.
The Oxygen bar was huge. There was a lot of neon lighting and spotlights. I asked her if it was an important place, and she answered no, explaining that so many people came there that it made enough money to put on things like that. We went in, and she bought us two drinks. We sat at a lonely table in the side, and watched the show that was going on. I took a sip of the drink, and almost spit it out. She looked at me and smiled, giving me the usual look when I did something wrong.
CHOAM repair status…100% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… CORE module spontaneously activating! Possible reasons: introduction of foreign chemicals. Chemicals do not appear to be threat.
Xi'an warrior located and bugged. Recalling probes.
"You're supposed to mix that in first" she said, pointing to these packets that were on the table. "All the things they make needs the oxygen crystals to be complete"
"Why don't they just put it in, in the first place?"
"Because the oxygen come out of the drink in about fifteen minutes, and it tastes nasty again, so if they put it in early, it would all be gone when you got it"
"That makes no sense…"
"I know, but they somehow figured it out so no one would be able to take their drinks home"
"But people could just take these packets home"
"They could, but they have this special beam, one that no one can copy, inside this room that keeps it in the state its in. So if you tried to leave the place, it would just turn into regular oxygen."
"Oh…" I said, still confused. "But how do you know all this? You don't strike me as a person that would research things like that"
"Thanks a lot… but you're right. A friend of mine tried to copy their bar so he could sell it in school, but he found out everything I just told you. I was curious how his entrepreneurship was going one day, and he told me."
"Yeah, that makes sense…" I said. Then we finished our drinks and watched the rest of the show that was on. It was a comedian that was humorous… at least to everyone else. I didn't get any of the jokes he made. But then I heard something I did understand. I could hear two people talking, and I heard the name of Amy's town being mentioned.
"Yeah man, it was horrible. First we was winnin' then all of a sudden this guy starts flyin' and beats the crap out of us. I'm tellin' you man, it was so unreal…"
"Man, bull! No one believes you guys. You guys brought shame to the name Desert Marauders, and you're just looking for some excuse."
"I'm tellin' you man, there was this guy that just started flyin'!"
"Yeah, when I can bench a Gogulas. Well, the boss was outraged by you guys' woopin', so he sent in the squad to make an example of that town."
"Man… the boss never used those things. He's changed a lot since he hiked into the Aegean Mountains. Its so weird how all of a sudden he's been makin' good on the threats he made"
"Yeah… but don't question the boss man. He didn't get where he is by doin' stupid things. I guess he was just seein' who would pay and who wouldn't. He didn't tell the squad to raze the towns that paid their protection money, did he?"
"Yeah… I dunno what I was talking about…"
By that point, I had heard enough, and was sure that Amy's town was in real danger. I grabbed Amy by the arm and started walking us to the car, but she resisted.
"Crass, what are you doing? This guy just got to the good stuff"
"We have to go, now"
"What's gotten into you?"
"Can we please leave?" I pleaded.
"Well, when you ask like that…"
"Thank you!" I said and hugged her. Then I ran to the car, with her hand in mine.
"So, what got you so spooked that you dragged me out when the jokes started getting good?" she asked me a few minutes into the drive. I told her what I had heard. "So, who did you hear it from?"
"I heard these two guys on the other side of the room talking" She suddenly braked, crushing me under the seatbelt, and headed back to the bar. "What are you doing?" I asked a bit jumpy.
"There is no way, that anyone could hear a conversation from the other side of a room, especially with that much noise!" she said.
"But I know what I heard!" I said.
"No you don't. You're probably under the influence of too much of their Oxygen. It's your first time, and you're prone to be delusional."
"No I'm not!" I said in a pissed off tone. It was the first time she ever heard it. She stopped the car and was about to lecture me, but I simply got out and started running towards her town. I looked back after a while, and saw her car still parked there. I thought about going back and apologizing, but I just kept on running with so many thoughts in my head. Why am I so mad at her? And why wouldn't she believe me. And why do I feel so hurt for leaving her there? I'm the one who's going to save her town, while she's gonna have the time of her life.
I ran for twenty minutes, and I was pooped. So I stood by the road, and did the thing I saw a hitchhiker do on the road when he was picked up. A lot of cars passed by, and no one stopped, so I started walking as I waited for a car to pull up. At least I'm moving.
Then I heard a car pull up, and I turned to see if it was someone who would help me. When I saw the car, I recognized it from somewhere. I looked inside, and there was Amy; she looked like she had been crying for some time.
"Need a ride?" she said weakly. I got mad again, and started walking again, but stopped when I heard her sobbing. "Crass, I'm sorry alright" was all she could say. I took a few deep breaths, and went into her car. She put her arms around my neck, and started crying again. "I'm so sorry" was all she could say. I looked down at her and felt guilty for doing what I had done to her. Since I was found, she's always been there for me. She took me into her house, and she tried to let me have a good time. How could I have acted like this to her? I put my arms around her to comfort her.
"I'm sorry too" I said. Then, I too started crying. We just sat there, crying together for some time. Eventually we settled down, but Amy still had tears flowing out of her eyes. She drove for some time until we entered her town, but she didn't say another word. Then she drove us to the police station, and we got out and went up to the station.
"How far did you really think you'd go on foot?" she said to me like I mother. I took some time to answer.
"I dunno…" I finally said.
"You could have gotten lost or worse…" she said, and the tears started streaming down her face again. I took her into my arms, and tried to calm her down.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking clearly. It's just, whenever I'm near you, I feel so different…"
"Huh?" her sobbing lessened.
"I don't really know what came over me. It's just I don't want to see anything happen to your dad. But when you wouldn't believe me, I was so hurt that I couldn't stand listening to you being mad at me. I just had to get away. The truth is, Amy, I really, really like you…"
"What do you mean?" she said like she had just taken a blow.
"You've been a real good friend Amy… but for some time now, my heart has been acting funny whenever I get near you. And for some reason, I feel bad when I'm away from you. I don't know what that means, but…"
"Shhh" said Amy, and put a finger to my lips, as some kind of realization dawned upon her. I realized that she wasn't really listening to me then, but seemed to be overcome with something. Then she moved her face closer to mine. I was about to ask her what was happening, but I remembered that she told me stay quiet, and I had this feeling inside of me that felt good.
CHOAM repair status…100% complete. All systems optimal. Status of Crass… Immediate threat detected… Engaging HES. Initiating heavy assault platform. Threat requires reinforcement. ETA to Crass… 4 minutes.
We inched closer until: Boom! A bunch of explosions destroyed a few houses on the outskirt of the town. They were near Amy's house.
"Oh no! You were right, they are attacking" she said in exasperation. I was about to say "I told you so" but realized now wasn't the time. Then a missile came our way. Amy held onto me tightly as if this were the last time she would see me alive. I couldn't disagree. We braced for the impact we wouldn't survive, but just heard an explosion far away. And this strange feeling on my hand that just I briefly felt went away. We opened our eyes, and saw Amy's dad inside an Iron Kong, between us and where the missile was.
"Hey kids!" he said. A bunch of thoughts ran through Amy and her dumbfounded face, but all she could manage to say was "How?"
"We never got a chance to use our heavy artillery" was his answer.
"Oh" said Amy, and she calmed down. We looked at the place where the missiles came from, and saw a large group of Red Horns. They were skirmishing with the town's newly formed defense, which consisted of Godos, Command Wolfs, DiBisons, and Iron Kongs. Then Amy got alert and ran to her car, and dragged me with her. "We have to go somewhere safe" she said.
"What could possibly be safe?" I asked, aware that they had the much of the town surrounded.
"I know about this bunker nearby"
"Oh I said"
"Huh?"
"I meant Oh. The author screwed up"
"O…k." she said and put the pedal to the medal. We went to the main road, and headed out of town. We traveled for a few minutes, the battle raging behind us, and got to the city limits. I could see a bit farther then her, and I saw this fearsome looking Zoid in front of us. It was black, and looked like a T-rex. Its mouth was wide open, and there was a white ball of energy being collected in it.
"What's that?" I said
"What's what?"
"What's that?" I repeated, and pointed it out.
"Oh my ****ing GOD!" said Amy, and quickly headed the other way.
"What was that?" I asked, frightened by the reaction she had from it.
"That's a Berserk Führer, an imperial Zoid that's supposed to be at the bottom of the sea right now!"
"What's so bad about it?"
"You know that white energy you saw in its mouth?"
"Ya"
"That can level a whole city"
"What!?"
"I know, and I gotta tell our pilots to stop it before its done charging. Now I see what they were doing. They were trying to distract our guys so that it could get them while they weren't looking" said Amy. Then I heard a loud pop.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes I did, and I hope its not what I think it is" said Amy. We both looked back and saw the CPC-emission heading straight toward us.
(Bird's eye view of town/battle site.) The Zabat's camera turned on. The town looked like a big circle with a few bright spots going off, which was on the east border of town where the fake battle was happening. A black dot all the way to the west, and it has a white ball of energy heading east of it.
The white dot grew into a line, and slowly made its way to the center of the big circle. Then everything, except the town's outskirts were destroyed in a big explosion that rippled from the center of the town. Blue and white waves of energy pushed anything in its way, and what wasn't hurled away was melted by the explosion's energy. Then, everything left got sucked in by the resulting vacuum, and got crushed at the center of the explosion. The only things left were the shells of former buildings, the aggressive Zoids on the east the lone Black Zoid on the west, and a single dot nearby the black dot.
The energy was headed straight at us, and I felt that there was nothing that I could do. It seemed Amy felt the same, so all we did was hold hands, and see each other's faces for the last precious seconds of our life; and that's when it happened. I felt the thing on my hand again, and looked at it to find it glowing brightly. Then something metallic was growing out of it. Amy gasped and told me that this had happened to me before indirectly, by telling me that "It's happening again!". Before either of us could say a word, the scales covered my whole body, and I was flying. Good thing that we were holding hands, because Amy would have been left behind, and gone forever… And that's when the second thing happened. As I tried to fly as high and fast as I could with the deadly explosion directly under me, and growing fast, I started remembering bits and pieces of what I once was. Memories of many people, a big blue planet, a white surfaced planet, and some kind of starship. All of it didn't register to me yet, but I knew that I had HES armor on me, and I knew how to use it. When the explosion cleared, I set down Amy on the remains of her house, and started going for the Red Horns.
"Commander, do you see that?" asked a Red Horn pilot.
"Yes," said the Geno Saurer pilot "and its heading straight for you guys. The scout group that came here last time mentioned something about a flying person, and it seems that they weren't lying. Take that thing out before it reaches you. I'll try to get there as fast as I can."
"Yes sir. All men, take that thing out!" said the Red Horn pilot. The UFO was still quite a distance away, so they locked onto it with their missiles, and fired. A hail of at least fifty missiles went after it. When the missiles got within combat range, they started doing crazy movements to keep the target from knowing where it would hit the target from, and therefore increase its chances of hitting. But the pilot was prepared, and confused the missiles, and made many of them crash. He didn't get rid of all of them, so he went towards the Red Horns at maximum speed (I think) and made the missiles hit one of the Red Horns by getting it between the UFO and the missiles. This effectively wiped out the Zoid, but there were many left, and they incessantly shot at him.
I remember using that on a training mission once. I never thought I'd ever use it back then, but now I know better. All that training I had to drag through was finally paying off. I knew this was the heaviest armor I had, and it had some of my most favorite weapons on it. My most favorite weapon that it had was the MPPC (Micro Particle Pulse Cannon), and when used, looked like someone shooting energy from his or her hands (like a kame hame ha wave). So I went high into the air, and charged up my attack, then shot it down at picked off a few of the Red Horns. I noticed the Geno Saurer getting closer, and made up my mind to take the rest out with my more efficient attacks. My lower arms started to glow, and they were covered by long energy slashers (like the alien guys from Star Craft). I dove arms first towards the ground, and went through a couple more of the Red Horns. When I lost my momentum, I went up to each Red Horn, and slashed up their leg joints, effectively making them useless. By this time the Geno Saurer had finally reached me, and hooked onto me by launching its hands at me while I was busy wasting another Red Horn. It pulled me up to the Zoid, and put me level with the pilot.
He had cold gray eyes, and had silver hair; his face was as hard as stone. When we looked eye to eye, I could see hatred in him. Then he threw me away and started shooting at me. Apparently he told his men to join in, and I was being pounded to missiles, lasers and ballistics. I was expecting that, and put my shield up. My only problem was, my shield was going down fast, and I was running out of energy. I could shoot at them while I was inside, but there were just too many of them. Damn. They burst my bubble (shield), and I was being hit directly now. All I could do was fly into the air, and try to avoid getting shot down. The problem was, they had locked onto me, and I was being hammered by missiles after missile.
All of a sudden, I was losing altitude and realized that my jetpack had gotten hit. I was going down, and fast; it seemed familiar. Then I crashed into the ground. I was dizzy at first, but slowly I got to my feet, brushing the dirt off my body, and the new wound to my head. I put my hand there, and saw blood trickling down my arm. It was getting a bit blurry, but I could tell that they were around me, closing in for the kill.
I got normal vision again; the adrenaline kicking in no doubt. I looked up, and saw dozens of smoking barrels were pointing at me, and I could see the end of laser targeters pointing at me.
"No one messes with the Desert Marauders and gets away with it" said one of the Red Horn pilots. I closed my eyes, waiting for the hail of bullets that would end my life.
Tsk-Dfff. Boom! All of a sudden, all hell broke loose, and I wasn't dead! I looked at where the Red Horn that just said that to me was, but all that was left was its legs. I looked a bit away and saw the rest of the body strewn over the ground. Tsk-Dfff, Tsk-Dfff, Tsk-Dfff. I looked at the direction that the sound was coming from, and saw a cloud with three fresh holes in it; more bright blue/white balls of energy coming out of them. They were PPC emissions, and there was only one thing that they possibly could have come from. CHOAM.
By now, all the Marauders were giving everything they had to the cloud, and the cloud gave everything it had back, at least all its energy weapons. The Red Horns were being picked off one by one, their chassis not being strong enough to take the sheer force of a PPC emission. The cloud had dissipated by now, since all the explosions that CHOAM had taken forced the water molecules to disperse, and they could see its black metallic hull. It seemed that CHOAM intimidated them enough, and they started to disperse. When they were retreating, CHOAM decided to gun for the Geno Saurer. It scored at least 20 PPC emissions on it, but it still managed to get away with its boosters.
"Hostile environment eliminated. Disabling HES" said CHOAM to me with me CORE module link. It descended and let me board it.
"Status of mission" I ordered.
"Scout mission is a failure. New objective is to either eliminate Xi'an pilot, or keep at bay until the fleet arrives."
"Damn… did you locate the pilot?"
"Yes. He has been bugged, and is still being tracked."
"Oh man! I left Amy on that building. Before we do anything else, let me go get her"
"Location?"
"Don't worry, I'm switching to manual" I said, and flew the ship to where Amy was. I slowly landed next to her, and then got out. I slowly walked up to her, and stood in front of her. I looked her in the eyes, and I could tell she was crying. She finally realized it was I in front of her.
"They killed them all!" she said, and started crying again. I could tell that she was really hurt; she lost everything that she once loved. I went up to her, and wrapped my arms around her. She held onto me, and buried her face into my chest. I just stood there, trying to comfort her and let her cry.