Legacy of the Ancients

Chapter Eight: Shadows of the Past

By: Sci-Fi-Raptor

Disclaimer: I don't own Zoids. Period.

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, but I think the wait will have been worth it (I hope =\). Laterz~

"It's been too long since we've seen each other" said a voice. Bit opened his eyes and saw himself looking at some guy. He was about to reply, but the words came out of his mouth before he could do anything.

"It's only been two hours!" said Bit? His eye caught a mirror and he saw he was in a woman's body! ~Get me out of here!~ screamed Bit to himself. But to now avail… the words did not come out of… his mouth, and no one responded.

"Well, hours seem like years without you" he put his arms around her. "But this isn't the time for us to express how we feel" he said with a smirk. Then he looked serious. "Our informants have told us that the Rebel's army is mobilized, and it's going to attack the port tonight."

"What?! It's to soon. The city isn't prepared for an attack!" said the person Bit was.

"I know Haru" ~Haru? Don't I know her? Yah, she's that chick that just joined us. But it cant be her. Haru looked different…~ "but don't you see? This is the perfect time to attack. Tomorrow is when we evacuate, and there wont be anything to protect the port."

"Well, I guess our unit is going to be held back to protect the ship then, aren't we?" said Haru

"Yes. But the Masters are going to leave a ship for us to join them with. So all we have to do is hold out long enough" said the guy.

"Oh Hiro, what will I do if I lose you?" said Haru ~Hiro… that sounds familiar… Oh ya, I met him at the resort… with Haru… this cant be a coincidence. But they don't look like them…~

"You wont. We are the indestructible Guardians." Then he kissed her. ~Oh God! Get me outta here!~ After the embrace, the two left the building they were in, and went into what looked like a pill mine. They stayed there, late into the night. For the most part, there wasn't anything amiss; all was quiet and calm. Eventually, they looked back at the city that they and their unit were protecting.

When Haru looked back, memories of their civilization came flooding into her head. It was the last testament of their creators, a peaceful race that just wanted to survive. They were very ancient, and had very advanced technology. They were so ancient, that their planet was dying of old age; and they were starting on a long journey to find a new home.

But there were some among them that believed that they should die with the planet; that their race had lived their time, and they were doing anything they possibly could to stop the trip. They had traitors among the highest ranks with the mainstream, but they had all been terminated, thanks mainly for special units similar to Haru's. They had lost all their aerial assault ships, and most of their land-based heavy assault platforms (thinks like Ultrasauruses on a hover platform), and they had lost a lot of their men. Now they were to make their last stand; their last attempt to wipe out their kind from history. It was believed that they had lost their most threatening and destructive weapons, but their leader was not an idiot, he could make things that their civilization couldn't even dream of.

So here they were, in front of their creators' city (which was converted into a spaceport to transport their race to the fleet of ships waiting to start their grand journey). They continued to watch it until they heard some noise in the distance. They looked out and saw rows upon rows of foot soldiers, tanks, helicopters, a command ship, and one massive dome with a pin-like protrusion coming out of it; it was near dawn. The scheduled time for the commencement of the launching of the transport shuttles was very soon, and they had chosen the worst time to strike. There was no way that they could fight all of those enemies and that monstrosity!

"HQ just gave us the command to make a preemptive strike" said Hiro "we are to take out that huge domed thing, its some kind of super-weapon. I've called our unit to meet here, so we could discuss our plan. Damn! The transports will surely get annihilated if they dare try to launch"

"Damn… what can we do?" asked Haru ~you could just go for the domed thingy and ignore everyone else…~suggested Bit, but not expecting a response. "Hmm… you know, we could just go for the domed thingy and ignore everyone else" ~Hey! That was my idea!~

"Yes" Hiro replied "that's probably the best thing to do" By now, their entire unit had arrived at their mine. "Ok, this is what we're gonna do. Colonies 001-010 will attack that super-weapon. Colonies 011-020 will attack the command ship. Once the super-weapon is destroyed, the transports will stand a good chance to make it out alive. But their other units may try to attack them, so we have to take out the command ship, so they all fall apart and are forced to retreat."

"Right" said the unit in unison.

"From what our scanners say, they have no atmospheric defense or sensors, so the best way for us to attack will be to morph into rockets and go right above them, then dive down into our objectives. That way, they wont expect us, and they wont be able to attack us until its too late. Now go!" ~ Morph? What's he talking about? ~

What happened next caught Bit unawares. Looking through Haru's eyes, he could see that everyone around him was changing… they became elongated, and their skin became gray, until its seemed like silver. Their heads became pointy until they looked like the warhead of a missile. Their bodies turned into shafts with a strange symbol on it. Their legs merged, and became the thruster of a rocket. He could see Haru's reflection on someone else, and she too was morphing into a rocket. ~ So that what he meant. And maybe that's why our Haru looks different from this one, she can change her shape! ~

All of a sudden, all the rockets launched and went high into the sky. Haru was watching the enemies, and they shrunk until they looked like they were the size of ants. Then suddenly, all the rockets stopped, and fell one group towards the super-gun, and the others to the command ship. And then they started morphing back to their human form… at least what looked like it. They were now covered in some kind of armor. Hiro was covered in red armour with glowing spikes coming out of it. There was a pair of especially long and sharp spikes on his wrists (like Wolverine's claws), his eyes were red and fiery, and his hair was spiky (like a super sayan) and was on fire. He also had dragon like wings on his back, and a huge sword secured on his back. Bit saw the reflection of Haru on it and saw that she was also different. She was covered in blue, her eyes were a deep blue color (as if she was a spice addict), and her hair was frozen, with ice crystals coming out of it. Her armor looked like it was made of ice, and she had a pair of ice-sickles on her back. All the other people had similar changes. They were quickly approaching the domed structure.

"Give it all you got guys!" said Hiro, as he shot a wave of fire/energy at the thing. Haru also shot o wave a ice/energy and the rest fired whatever they had. When they realized that they had an energy shield protecting it, they landed on it and used their weapons in an attempt to rip the thing apart. Hiro slashed through the skin, and everyone went through the puncture that he had made. They had infiltrated the complex. They headed to where they thought the command center would be.

On their way, they met some light resistance. Two men with laser/emp guns tried to stop them, and sound the alarm, but Hiro's men took them down. But one of them had been shot, and needed time to recover from it. They heard a soft and slow rumble as they walked away from the battle scene.

They finally reached the command center, and that soft rumble was like a roar. They looked out the window and saw that most of the enemy was disabled… the other team must have destroyed the command ship, and were on their way to help them. They looked around and found the whole crew of the ship there, and their leader! But he wasn't cowering like his men; he was smiling. When they got closer, he started laughing, menacingly.

"What's so funny?" asked Hiro

"That… you're here… when we're about to destroy the city with my gun!" said the leader.

"What do you mean?"

"That rumbling sound you hear?" the leader asked, "It's the sound of our Fire Storm Generator charging. In a few seconds, it will fire, and destroy the whole city, and any chance of escape.

"What? No! said Hiro. He and his unit started to annihilate the control center hoping that it would shut down the cannon. "This isn't going to work" he said, after destroying almost all of the center. "The only way to save the city id to cut off the Generator's energy source"

"But there's no time!" said Haru. She suddenly took Hiro's head into her arms and made a very long and loving embrace with him. "I love you…" she said, and broke the window to the outside. The gun was finished charging, and was about to fire. She heard Hiro telling the rest of the men to get out of there, and moments later, she saw near twenty rockets shoot off into the distance. ~I'm not gonna lose you, you're strong enough to take the hit~ she heard Hiro say.

"I hope I am" said Haru to herself. By this time, she had entered the needle-like shaft of the weapon, and was trying her best to morph into something that would block the gun from shooting. Then all Bit saw was white…

Beep…beep…beep…

Bit woke up to the noise of a heart monitor. He opened his eyes, but he had to squint. When he could fully see, he saw the white ceiling of a hospital room and the fluorescent light that blinded him earlier. He tried to get up, but his whole body was limp. But he could feel his feet, hands and a little bit of his arms. He felt something holding onto his right hand. He looked towards it, and saw Leena sitting on a chair next to him, holding his hand. He tried to say her name, but his mouth wouldn't respond. So he just waited for her to notice him.

MerHaru was going over all she had just learned about Bit by probing his mind. The connection happened at a long distance, so there might have been a possibility that he would have gone through her memories. She felt some of her older memories flooding back, but she had it under control. And besides, even if he did learn something personal about her, it wouldn't matter; not after what she had in store for him…

He finally realized what was distracting her. A doctor was talking to the Doc. He could finally make out what they were saying.

"Will he be all right doctor?" asked the Doc.

"He should recover in a few weeks." Leena squeezed his hand a little tighter. "It seems that something was taking control of his brain's control over his motor movements, and since it left as quickly as it came, his body is trying to get used to it again. It also seems that he lost 10 pounds during the course of the battle, so you're going to have to feed him more so he gets back to his normal weight." replied the doctor. "Now, are you sure you don't know what had happened?"

"Yes Doctor, we have no idea what happened out there. But at least we know he'll be all right" said the Doc

"Perplexing… well, just give him all the medications I told you to give him, and he'll be back to normal in no time" said the doctor

"All right, thank you Doctor" said the Doc

"Since noone knows what happened out there, can I take a look at the Liger?" asked the Doc.

"Sure" said the Doc "I'll take you there."

"Alright dad, I'll see you later" said Leena with a smile.

"See you later" said the Doc, and led the doctor to the bay.

No one remembered what happened out there earlier today. All they remembered was an explosion; then the Liger was in front of the totaled Gogulas. What really happened was lost to them; Haru had managed to make all the people there, except Bit forget what happened; she didn't want anyone to question what happened, but she didn't want to cause Bit any more harm.

"Leee…" Bit struggled to say.

Leena looked in his direction in surprise. "Hello there. You're finally awake." She said, with a smile on her face. She got up and sat next to him on the bed and stared deep into his eyes.

"Leee…" Bit tried to say again. Leena put a finger on his lips.

"Shhh… you need your rest. It's too soon for you to try to do anything yet. She layed down next to him and stroked his face. They just stayed there for hours, staring into each others' eyes. All Leena cared about right then was that Bit was safe. All of a sudden, his eyes went completely open, and then the heart monitor wasn't registering a heart rate…

"Dad!" Leena screamed into the intercom.

"Shadow!" some boy called. Bit was looking through the eyes of a small dark, dinosaur-like machine. All of a sudden, it flew into the air and merged with a nearby Zoid. ~What kind of Zoid is this…~ thought Bit. It was something black and red, and looked like a T-Rex. "I'm gonna finish you off, once and for all Van!" said the boy. ~Oh no! Not this again…~ thought Bit, remembering the absence of freedom from his last dream. By this time, Shadow had merged with the Zoid, and he could hear what the two were saying to each other.

"We'll see about that Raven" said Van. Raven and Van were facing each other near a canyon, which they were parallel of. Neither of them was moving, trying to anticipate the other's next move. A small could of dust got picked up by the wind, and danced away. All of a sudden, the Blade Liger started running, blades fully extended and glowing.

Raven engaged all his medium-short range weapons and started shooting like Leena at Van. Van tried to dodge all the weapons fire; he zigzagged, slowed down and sped up, jumped and twisted to get out of the way. He had managed to stay out of the way until Raven engaged his short-range weapons. He got hit head on by a red laser, and was blinded for a second. When he could see again, he found out that Raven had anchored onto him with his Zoid's hands; Raven started to pull Van towards him, jaws snapping.

"Hahaahaaa!" laughed Raven in delight.

"rrr…dammit!" said Van in frustration. Then he started to try and turn his Liger around.

"Its useless Van, you can't escape" said Raven coldly

"Really?" asked Van. All of a sudden, one of Raven's arm anchors snapped, and Van was free to turn as much as he wanted. "That's what you get for using those weak anchors when my blades still work" sneered Van. He cut the other anchor off. This made Raven's Zoid stumble backwards, and Van used it to his advantage. He started charging up to Raven, and got a clean skull bash on Raven's underside. This caused Raven to flip over, but he managed to land on his feet.

Van was already starting his second charge at Raven, but he was prepared this time. He used the remnants of his arms to hold onto one of Van's legs, and his head to chomp on the other. He increased the pressure that his head was biting onto Van's leg with, threatening to crush it off. All of a sudden, Raven was hit in the head by something. He looked off into the distance and saw a lone Command Wolf, smoke coming out of its gun's barrel.

"Having fun?" he asked Van.

"Irvine?! I thought I'd never see you again! Thanks!" said Van enthusiastically.

"Fool!" yelled Raven. He flung Van far away, and set up for his CPC. His legs clamped down, and vents opened up along his Zoid's spine and tail. His mouth opened wide, and a barrel came out; it started to accumulate energy, charging itself for one of the most devastating attacks known to Man. Irvine was not a fool, and knew when he was screwed, so he tried to get out of the way, but to no avail; Raven had fired, and the Command Wolf was engulfed within a ball of energy that made a crater 50 feet wide.

"Irvine!" said Van in disbelief

"Don't worry about me kid" he heard Irvine reply, "I got out with my escape pod" They saw something speeding away from the ground zero.

"phew" said Van "who would I be able to pester if I lost you?"

"Enough!" said Raven in frustration. Raven turned to where Van was.

When Raven looked to where Van was last standing, he was nowhere to be found. All of a sudden, his radar located a body moving at a very fast speed towards him. He did a 180-degree spin, and found Van charging him for a Strike Laser Claw attack. "Strike…"

"Don't think I'll fall for that again" said Raven to himself. "Laser…" Raven charged at Van, probably using boosters under his feet to propel him at speeds that Bit could only dream of. Van and Raven were getting extremely close, and Bit could feel that even Shadow was getting nervous. "Claw!" All of a sudden, Raven added a burst of power to his boosters, and he made his Zoid jump right over Van's Liger just as they were about to collide.

"What the hell? Where'd you go!?" said Bit franticly, turning around and looking for Raven.

"Right behind you" said Raven, as he unleashed a volley of short-range munitions from his wrist guns. Van had turned around enough to see the attack, and had enough time to evaded it. He started to fire his mini-guns at where Raven was standing, but just made holes into a dust cloud. "ARGH!" said Van in frustration.

"I told you I wouldn't fall for that again" said Raven as he landed on Van's Liger. His Zoid used its leg claws to clap into the Blade Liger's back, and started to tear the Zoid apart with its power jaws.

"You dirty little!" said Van as he rolled the Liger over, and tore Raven off of him. Since Raven's Zoid was still clamped onto him, his whole back cover got torn off, and his internal circuitry was exposed.

"You pathetic excuse of a Zoid pilot" said Raven, as he kicked the debris off his feet. He slowly made his way towards Van, ready to deliver the final blow. Bit noticed puddles form under Raven's Zoid's feet.

"Lets se what you have to say after THIS!" said Van, as he shot his mini guns at Ravens feet. BOOM! Raven's Zoid was flung a few hundred feet from where it was once standing.

"What the hell?" said Raven not believing that Van had just one-upped the one-up king.

"That's what you get for letting your fuel leak" replied Van.

Raven examined his ruined Zoid in disbelief, but true to his words, Raven's Zoid had lost its fuel cells; it was also missing a chunk of its rear-end. He started walking up to Van, again at the pace he last approached him, but this time because his Zoid could go no faster. Frustrated by its sluggishness, he clamped down his Zoid, and charged up the Charged Particle Cannon. This had really gotten Van's attention, and he started walking towards the opening of the canyon.

"Damn you!" said Raven, as Van got out of his range. He unclamped himself from the ground, but didn't stop the charge on his cannon. He turned the Zoid in the opposite direction of Van, and pointed slightly down. ~What the hell does he think he's doing?~ thought Bit. Before the realization came to him, Raven fired the CPC. BOOM! Raven's Zoid was flung between Van and the lip of the canyon. Where Raven once stood, was a trench that lasted for 200 feet, and ended in a devastating crater about 50 feet wide.

"Thanks for making it so much easier for me" said Van.

"What do you mean?" demanded Raven. "Oh no… how could I have no seen this" said Raven as the realization dawned upon him. "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" he said in fury, and set up his CPC, without the clamps.

"No you wont!" said Van, as he stared running towards him. When he was close enough, he said "Strike…laser…Claw!", and strike laser clawed him in his midsection. It flung Raven's Zoid a few feet from where it was standing, but when the CPC fired, it forced the Zoid to go straight into the canyon. Shadow ejected, but he was not fast enough to get Raven out of there. All he could do was watch Raven fall into the abyss, cursing Van the whole time; he never heard the crash…

"Bit?" said Leena. "BIT! Stay with us Bit! Don't scare us like last time." She had rushed to Bit's side, and helped him sit up.

"Bit, what happened to you?" Leena's eyes were tearing up.

"I don't know. All I remember is this dream about Hiro and Haru, and this other one about two really old people."

"Oh, alright. But what we really need to know is what happened to you out there" she said.

"Lemme see…" said Bit. By now, everyone had come to greet Bit, and walked in when he was about to say what happened to him while he was in the battle. He spent about one minute in deep thought. After five minutes had passed, they could hear him snore slightly.

Brad's sweat dropped. "He fell asleep…"

"Yup, that's Bit for yah…" said Jamie. Everyone agreed that Bit needed his rest, and they all dispersed.

"But I want one!" screamed a little boy.

"You already have the whole collection!" said his mom.

"No, I don't have one of those" he said, pointing to the sky.

The woman gazed in the direction of her son's finger and saw it… something she hoped was just an urban legend. She let out a scream that could be heard for a few blocks. Moments later others noticed it too, and the whole city turned to havoc. But they would not expect what happened next… MerHaru crash-landed…

What happened to MerHaru?

And will Bit ever stay awake for longer than five minutes?

Find out in the next chapter "Rebirth"