I know it's been a long wait, but here it is! Chapter 3 of The
Aftertaste of Victory! And here it starts to become a crossover of so many
different anime shows that it's difficult to put them all here, but mostly
this is starting to become a DBZ/Zoids crossover, just to warn you. You'll
understand when I introduce the infamous Mara, and that dastardly Malone.
But for right now, I'm just going to play around with Kyle and completely
scare him with the oddities of the Void Base, not to mention introducing a
character that will add a nice touch to the coming events. Anyway, r & r!
@_@'
Kyle stirred, opening one bleary hazel eye. The other one flew open in an instant and they both widened, gazing around and trying to adjust to the darkness. He froze, feeling around with a hand, as he couldn't see anything. His fingers told of something soft underneath him, so he wasn't in Fury's cockpit...
He sat up, his eyes finally having adjusted to the darkness, and saw something slinking around in the darkness. He tried to stand, but.
"OW!" He screeched, clutching his now aching skull, having just cracked it over the ceiling. The lights clicked on, blinding the very confused Kyle. Quickly muttering colorful curses under his breath at the low ceiling, he took in his new surroundings.
"I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore." He muttered, raising an eyebrow at the seemingly prison like room.
"So! You're awake! 'Bout time too!" Someone said, the voice sounding like that of a pimply teen computer nerd. Kyle swung around, looking for the person that spoke, his eyes burning from the sudden light. Squinting from the light, he didn't see any human in the gray featureless room he was being held in.
"Uh. . . Where exactly are you?" Kyle inquired, trying to get up off the cot he had been laying on.
Instead, he flipped it over, landing not too gently on the metal floor, knocking the wind out of himself, then received insult to injury when the cot flipped itself over, grew a steel tongue, and blew a raspberry at him. His eyes widening even more, he scrambled away from it, running into the metal wall with a small thud.
"Will someone PLEASE explain why I'm suddenly in wonderland!?"
"Up here moron." The voice from before hand said dryly, and Kyle did so, and got another shock. From the air vent above him, peering at him with a pair of bright orange eyes, was a Shadow Fox. It dropped to the floor in front of the stunned pilot, and to Kyle's surprise, the normally massive zoid had been shrunk down to the size of a German shepherd.
"Please, don't stare." The small zoid said egotistically, posing ever so slightly. "It inflates my ego, and makes the ladies jealous." That got an even stranger stare from Kyle, who was by now thoroughly freaked out by all the very interesting things that had happened to him.
"Might I ask who you are?" He said, standing up and sticking his hands in his pockets, staring down at the zoid.
"The name's Troden." The fox said, sitting down. "I've been assigned to show you around, as you're in no fit state to travel. You're probably very confused, but I'll try my best to make sure you partially know what's going on around here." Kyle nodded, still wide-eyed. And he thought that Fury was the only zoid who could speak English. Troden nudged him towards what looked like a door, only with a long slit right down the middle. "Well come on! Can't stand there all day!" He said, his teen-like voice sort of grating on Kyle's nerves. Sighing, the human followed Troden to the door. The zoid commenced to do something very odd. Troden started pounding on the metal, looking annoyed.
"Don't make me come up there to get you down Jupen!" He screeched, whacking the metal doors until a dent started to form.
"Stop it, you going to pound in the door!" Kyle said, covering his ears at the sound and wincing. He didn't know how hard he had hit his head when he flew out of Fury's cockpit, but surely not hard enough to cause this! He looked up again, and gaped, stepping back slightly. The door metal had melted in the middle, and had formed a face; one that resembled the cranky librarian Kyle used to know when he was ten. He gulped; hoping the door didn't have a whip either.
"Troden Troden Troden, do you enjoy pounding my face in? Good creator, I'll call the flippen elevator for you, just ask next time!" It screeched before becoming a normal door again, opening with a small bell noise to show an elevator. Kyle was still recovering from the sudden shock of seeing a door argue when he stepped into the chain link elevator, hoping that it wouldn't start talking either. Troden trotted inside after him, grinning at the now white-as-a-sheet pilot.
"Not exactly used to having a door talk to you?" He quipped, grinning at the look he received. It was a moment before the doors opened again and Kyle nearly fainted on the spot when he stepped out onto the hanger floor and saw the activity going on there.
"Whoa. . . holy spit. . ." He whispered, looking around at everything.
It looked like a huge town square, complete with huge stores, window shops, a center fountain, a statue of the two founders, and massive cobblestone streets leading away elsewhere. Hundreds of zoids were roaming around the massive hanger, of almost all types, shapes, sizes, and colors, running about various tasks, keeping shop, arguing with each other, haggling with the shop keepers, buying the latest in zoid armor fashion and the best battling cannons available with coins the size of hubcaps, escorting what appeared to be child zoids around the square, and generally doing what humans in a normal small town on Earth would do. Troden grinned at the look of shock on Kyle's face and grinned.
"And this is only one level of the hanger." He said, now starting to lead Kyle through the crowds of huge zoids. "The top level, the only one visible above ground-" The pilot stopped right there.
"All this . . . is below ground?" He said, staring up into what seemed a bright summer sky, almost cloudless except for a few developing rain clouds. The small fox nodded, orange eyes glimmering.
"Yep. There are 40 levels in the void base, and that's not counting the sub levels. As I was saying, the top level looks like a normal hanger, but from someone on the outside looking in, you'd think it was an abandoned car factory because of the holograms we've set up."
Another pause from Kyle, his hazel eyes glimmering with child-like curiosity as a very realistic breeze tossed his hair around, smelling a little like freshly cut grass and cherry blossoms, a grin lighting up his face, now flushed with a held-in delight. He had never seen anything like this before, never even dreamed that a place like this could exist. The various zoids passing by stared at Kyle for a moment before assuming their business again. They had never seen another human in their base before, other then Audrena, and it was fairly new to see one.
"Why would you want to keep this place a secrete? This is paradise! All these zoids, working together and interacting like normal human beings, as though they weren't machines at all!" He murmured, internally giddy as a schoolboy. What a discovery he had made! He'd have to at least write about this place when he got back home. Troden's grin dropped and he looked tragic.
"All of the zoids here are valuable beyond belief. If someone were to discover us, and how many of us are here, the base would be torn down; the zoids would be separated from each other, and the peace that Audrena and Audreniliger have worked so hard to build and keep would be lost." There was a very uneasy pause from both of them.
"Don't worry, I won't tell. Now tell me, what other kind of floors are there?" He asked, trying to get off that very depressing subject. He exceeded with flying colors, as Troden rounded on him with a grin.
"All of the floors and sub-floors have their own particular level. For example, sub-floor 82 is for all aquatic zoids, it being pretty much nothing but a water environment."
"You have specialized levels for each?" He said, still walking alongside the German shepherd sized Shadow Fox. They were starting to come into a massive park, large trees towering overhead and providing shade for the zoids underneath, who were dwarfed by the sheer size of the plants. Thick grass crunched under their feet as they strolled to a small bench, placed in front of a very large and exquisitely carved stone fountain. It was going merrily as a few smaller zoids had a good game of tag on a large field nearby, their childish laughter floating up on the small warm breeze. As Kyle sat down, he stared at the group of miniature machines running around in the field of grass, hazel eyes glimmering with deep thought and more curiosity. His face contorted, trying to think of how they could have gotten so small, and why the a few of the larger zoids were so protective of them. . .
"Troden?" Kyle uttered, his curiosity coming to a peak, not taking his eyes off that one group. "What's the deal with those zoids over there?"
Troden glanced over and grinned. "Duh! They're zoids!" Kyle fell over anime style, getting up to a knee after a moment and putting an elbow on the bench seat, eyeing Troden evily and sweat-dropping. "I knew that." He said dryly, glaring at the now sniggering zoid. "But why are they so small? They not like the larger ones, they're almost childish."
"That's because they are children!" He rolled his eyes, a very difficult thing for a zoid with fixed eyes. "Come on! How thick can you get!" Kyle blinked, raising an eyebrow.
"Children? Kid. Zoids? But what about the larger zoids that they seem to follow around?" He got another eye-roll from Troden.
"Those bunch are their parents! Good creator, do you have a CPU in that skull or not!?" He blinked, looking over towards Kyle.
"Uh . . . Kyle?" He said, poking the now almost frozen form of Kyle. His attention was somewhere else, eyes fixed on one point. You would think that he was staring at the fountain, but he was staring past it. He grinned wildly, standing so suddenly that he startled Troden.
"Fury?" He whispered, looking at his zoid, now plodding through the rim of the trees. The zoid looked as stunned as Kyle did when he first came here, his midsection completely fixed, even newly armored, and with the remaining pieces polished completely to a mirror-like shine. The liger that had blasted him apart in the first place was accompanying him, and the two were chatting like a pair of childhood friends. Kyle ran towards them, not even watching where he was going and slammed headlong into something that felt remotely human. The both of them fell back onto the grass, and sat up in the same moment. Audrena growled at the person she ran into.
"Watch where you're going!" She snapped, standing up while Kyle simply stared. This was the woman who had helped him after he flew from the cockpit of his zoid. He stood after a moment, when she had already past by him in a whirl of brown monk-like hooded robes, watching Audrena as she walked away. Fury noticed his staring and grinned as he pulled up beside his pilot.
"Fury? What's her name?" Kyle said, still staring in the direction in which she had walked off. Fury chuckled.
"Haven't you heard? It's Audrena."
Kyle smiled, hazel eyes glimmering blue for a moment.
"Audrena . . ." He muttered slowly, as though trying to taste the word itself.
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Fwee! Sorry about making you peeps wait so long, but to make it up, this chapter was really long. Stick around for the 4th chapter, 'A Year's Greeting and a Minute's Goodbye'. See you then!
@_@'
Kyle stirred, opening one bleary hazel eye. The other one flew open in an instant and they both widened, gazing around and trying to adjust to the darkness. He froze, feeling around with a hand, as he couldn't see anything. His fingers told of something soft underneath him, so he wasn't in Fury's cockpit...
He sat up, his eyes finally having adjusted to the darkness, and saw something slinking around in the darkness. He tried to stand, but.
"OW!" He screeched, clutching his now aching skull, having just cracked it over the ceiling. The lights clicked on, blinding the very confused Kyle. Quickly muttering colorful curses under his breath at the low ceiling, he took in his new surroundings.
"I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore." He muttered, raising an eyebrow at the seemingly prison like room.
"So! You're awake! 'Bout time too!" Someone said, the voice sounding like that of a pimply teen computer nerd. Kyle swung around, looking for the person that spoke, his eyes burning from the sudden light. Squinting from the light, he didn't see any human in the gray featureless room he was being held in.
"Uh. . . Where exactly are you?" Kyle inquired, trying to get up off the cot he had been laying on.
Instead, he flipped it over, landing not too gently on the metal floor, knocking the wind out of himself, then received insult to injury when the cot flipped itself over, grew a steel tongue, and blew a raspberry at him. His eyes widening even more, he scrambled away from it, running into the metal wall with a small thud.
"Will someone PLEASE explain why I'm suddenly in wonderland!?"
"Up here moron." The voice from before hand said dryly, and Kyle did so, and got another shock. From the air vent above him, peering at him with a pair of bright orange eyes, was a Shadow Fox. It dropped to the floor in front of the stunned pilot, and to Kyle's surprise, the normally massive zoid had been shrunk down to the size of a German shepherd.
"Please, don't stare." The small zoid said egotistically, posing ever so slightly. "It inflates my ego, and makes the ladies jealous." That got an even stranger stare from Kyle, who was by now thoroughly freaked out by all the very interesting things that had happened to him.
"Might I ask who you are?" He said, standing up and sticking his hands in his pockets, staring down at the zoid.
"The name's Troden." The fox said, sitting down. "I've been assigned to show you around, as you're in no fit state to travel. You're probably very confused, but I'll try my best to make sure you partially know what's going on around here." Kyle nodded, still wide-eyed. And he thought that Fury was the only zoid who could speak English. Troden nudged him towards what looked like a door, only with a long slit right down the middle. "Well come on! Can't stand there all day!" He said, his teen-like voice sort of grating on Kyle's nerves. Sighing, the human followed Troden to the door. The zoid commenced to do something very odd. Troden started pounding on the metal, looking annoyed.
"Don't make me come up there to get you down Jupen!" He screeched, whacking the metal doors until a dent started to form.
"Stop it, you going to pound in the door!" Kyle said, covering his ears at the sound and wincing. He didn't know how hard he had hit his head when he flew out of Fury's cockpit, but surely not hard enough to cause this! He looked up again, and gaped, stepping back slightly. The door metal had melted in the middle, and had formed a face; one that resembled the cranky librarian Kyle used to know when he was ten. He gulped; hoping the door didn't have a whip either.
"Troden Troden Troden, do you enjoy pounding my face in? Good creator, I'll call the flippen elevator for you, just ask next time!" It screeched before becoming a normal door again, opening with a small bell noise to show an elevator. Kyle was still recovering from the sudden shock of seeing a door argue when he stepped into the chain link elevator, hoping that it wouldn't start talking either. Troden trotted inside after him, grinning at the now white-as-a-sheet pilot.
"Not exactly used to having a door talk to you?" He quipped, grinning at the look he received. It was a moment before the doors opened again and Kyle nearly fainted on the spot when he stepped out onto the hanger floor and saw the activity going on there.
"Whoa. . . holy spit. . ." He whispered, looking around at everything.
It looked like a huge town square, complete with huge stores, window shops, a center fountain, a statue of the two founders, and massive cobblestone streets leading away elsewhere. Hundreds of zoids were roaming around the massive hanger, of almost all types, shapes, sizes, and colors, running about various tasks, keeping shop, arguing with each other, haggling with the shop keepers, buying the latest in zoid armor fashion and the best battling cannons available with coins the size of hubcaps, escorting what appeared to be child zoids around the square, and generally doing what humans in a normal small town on Earth would do. Troden grinned at the look of shock on Kyle's face and grinned.
"And this is only one level of the hanger." He said, now starting to lead Kyle through the crowds of huge zoids. "The top level, the only one visible above ground-" The pilot stopped right there.
"All this . . . is below ground?" He said, staring up into what seemed a bright summer sky, almost cloudless except for a few developing rain clouds. The small fox nodded, orange eyes glimmering.
"Yep. There are 40 levels in the void base, and that's not counting the sub levels. As I was saying, the top level looks like a normal hanger, but from someone on the outside looking in, you'd think it was an abandoned car factory because of the holograms we've set up."
Another pause from Kyle, his hazel eyes glimmering with child-like curiosity as a very realistic breeze tossed his hair around, smelling a little like freshly cut grass and cherry blossoms, a grin lighting up his face, now flushed with a held-in delight. He had never seen anything like this before, never even dreamed that a place like this could exist. The various zoids passing by stared at Kyle for a moment before assuming their business again. They had never seen another human in their base before, other then Audrena, and it was fairly new to see one.
"Why would you want to keep this place a secrete? This is paradise! All these zoids, working together and interacting like normal human beings, as though they weren't machines at all!" He murmured, internally giddy as a schoolboy. What a discovery he had made! He'd have to at least write about this place when he got back home. Troden's grin dropped and he looked tragic.
"All of the zoids here are valuable beyond belief. If someone were to discover us, and how many of us are here, the base would be torn down; the zoids would be separated from each other, and the peace that Audrena and Audreniliger have worked so hard to build and keep would be lost." There was a very uneasy pause from both of them.
"Don't worry, I won't tell. Now tell me, what other kind of floors are there?" He asked, trying to get off that very depressing subject. He exceeded with flying colors, as Troden rounded on him with a grin.
"All of the floors and sub-floors have their own particular level. For example, sub-floor 82 is for all aquatic zoids, it being pretty much nothing but a water environment."
"You have specialized levels for each?" He said, still walking alongside the German shepherd sized Shadow Fox. They were starting to come into a massive park, large trees towering overhead and providing shade for the zoids underneath, who were dwarfed by the sheer size of the plants. Thick grass crunched under their feet as they strolled to a small bench, placed in front of a very large and exquisitely carved stone fountain. It was going merrily as a few smaller zoids had a good game of tag on a large field nearby, their childish laughter floating up on the small warm breeze. As Kyle sat down, he stared at the group of miniature machines running around in the field of grass, hazel eyes glimmering with deep thought and more curiosity. His face contorted, trying to think of how they could have gotten so small, and why the a few of the larger zoids were so protective of them. . .
"Troden?" Kyle uttered, his curiosity coming to a peak, not taking his eyes off that one group. "What's the deal with those zoids over there?"
Troden glanced over and grinned. "Duh! They're zoids!" Kyle fell over anime style, getting up to a knee after a moment and putting an elbow on the bench seat, eyeing Troden evily and sweat-dropping. "I knew that." He said dryly, glaring at the now sniggering zoid. "But why are they so small? They not like the larger ones, they're almost childish."
"That's because they are children!" He rolled his eyes, a very difficult thing for a zoid with fixed eyes. "Come on! How thick can you get!" Kyle blinked, raising an eyebrow.
"Children? Kid. Zoids? But what about the larger zoids that they seem to follow around?" He got another eye-roll from Troden.
"Those bunch are their parents! Good creator, do you have a CPU in that skull or not!?" He blinked, looking over towards Kyle.
"Uh . . . Kyle?" He said, poking the now almost frozen form of Kyle. His attention was somewhere else, eyes fixed on one point. You would think that he was staring at the fountain, but he was staring past it. He grinned wildly, standing so suddenly that he startled Troden.
"Fury?" He whispered, looking at his zoid, now plodding through the rim of the trees. The zoid looked as stunned as Kyle did when he first came here, his midsection completely fixed, even newly armored, and with the remaining pieces polished completely to a mirror-like shine. The liger that had blasted him apart in the first place was accompanying him, and the two were chatting like a pair of childhood friends. Kyle ran towards them, not even watching where he was going and slammed headlong into something that felt remotely human. The both of them fell back onto the grass, and sat up in the same moment. Audrena growled at the person she ran into.
"Watch where you're going!" She snapped, standing up while Kyle simply stared. This was the woman who had helped him after he flew from the cockpit of his zoid. He stood after a moment, when she had already past by him in a whirl of brown monk-like hooded robes, watching Audrena as she walked away. Fury noticed his staring and grinned as he pulled up beside his pilot.
"Fury? What's her name?" Kyle said, still staring in the direction in which she had walked off. Fury chuckled.
"Haven't you heard? It's Audrena."
Kyle smiled, hazel eyes glimmering blue for a moment.
"Audrena . . ." He muttered slowly, as though trying to taste the word itself.
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Fwee! Sorry about making you peeps wait so long, but to make it up, this chapter was really long. Stick around for the 4th chapter, 'A Year's Greeting and a Minute's Goodbye'. See you then!
