Reviews!!! *shrieks*
@Rocke&Roll: Glad it's amusing you! Writing battles is kinda hard, but it helps when I put music on my head set and start imagining what happens. It tends to get very…explosive, depending what I'm listening to…Anyway, I'm going to try and write more Jamie into future chapters, but unfortunately I haven't actually seen that much of the series to be really, really true to it. But I'm trying. And yes, Redlers rock. The one in the story in particular – it's one of the Eisenbeck Redlers from the old war -_^ *writes down, more Mute/Redler battles, and more Jamie to her list, then gives her a cookie*
@Mark Kallen: Jamie is! An introvert is someone who is not outgoing and is very quiet. The exact opposite of Bit :) More Leena and Bit soon, just be patient…In particular, chapter 4, when Leena decides she's going to try and do something a bit…odd…*gives him a cookie*
@Maelgywn: Brad plays a very big part in this story. Very big. I've already told you his life is going to change, and believe me, it is… *pats CW* Have a cookie sweetie! Both of you in fact!
@Aardwulf: I'm a very sarcastic person when it comes to the pairings, so just to let you know, this is just me taking the piss. However, I did notice that Jamie has an unhealthy attraction to his Zoid. Mute, the character who will be introduced in the next chapter, is my voice of reason, and the character who addresses all of this with cynicism and sarcasm that is so favourable to his character. I'm glad you're enjoying it – Sometimes I come up against blocks, but then it becomes clear again. I'll try to keep it up, okay? ^^ *cookies! Yum*
@Paladin Dragoon: Hey, it's because I write all the time. I was raised on a diet of Terry Pratchett and Tolkien, so it kinda got me thinking…I can do this! I've been writing since I was 11. *tugs her hair thoughtfully* Just keep practising, that's all I can say. As for everything else, thank you very much! I always appreciate the reviews I get, bad or good (keep that in mind people) Actually, the 'half a man' comment is important. I want you to remember that…:)
Chapter Two: The old family curse…
He'd been staring at the wall for over an hour with no sign of movement nor actual interest in anything, apart from when the lizard scuttling across it had fallen off and hit the floor with a thunk. It wasn't dead, just stunned, but Vega Obscura had gotten up and trodden on it. It was dead after that. Very dead. No doubt at all it was dead. The blood and guts smear on the expensive carpet was proof. The squelch was satisfying, but his mother screaming at him over the mess he'd made however, wasn't so satisfying. Vega's dark shiny eyes regarded her with a kind of hate reserved for the spoilt little brat style of child, and Vega was as spoilt as they came. Well, he had been. Not any more.
"I'm bored Sara."
He always called his mother by her first name. It was just a quirk with him, but probably due to the fact Sara hadn't actually raised him as a mother would. Oh, she loved him, yes, but he'd been raised by a number of nannies in the massive estate that the Obscura family owned and eventually picked up on the whole 'Miss Sara' thing going around. If he had a father, he didn't know, because as far as anyone else was concerned, Vega was in the belief that his birth had been divine and he didn't have a father. No one bothered to tell him otherwise.
"Honey, please be patient."
"I want to go home now."
"Not yet."
"Why?" Such a horrible whiny tone, unbefitting for the boy known as 'The King' on the battlefield. The dreaded question that could go on forever…why, why, why?
Sara's own cold eyes drifted to that of her son's, and for a moment Vega saw something he wasn't used to, a flicker of something deeper and something he didn't want to know about. Sometimes his mother felt like his beloved BerserkFURY, but while he could control the force of the FURY his mother was different, unfathomable, and at times frightening.
"Why do you think Vega?" Her perfect mouth became a sneer. "Because we…or should I say you…lost."
Lost.
One word that made Vega sick, one word that made him hate.
Vega had always gotten his way. He had always won, always been the first, always been the best. He was a child genius; growing up with the best education money could buy, his peers clearly inferior to him, and always made to know that. Such joy when he had been brought up to the front of the class, his hand held high by the withered teacher and seeing the faces of his classmates fall when they heard the scores, and how once again, Vega Obscura was first. At sports day he blitzed…pardon the term…everyone else. He was the best at everything. Always. But then…oh then, some ragged little low-life had managed to beat him. Make him second.
The little ass-humping, cock-sucking, shit-eating, mother-fucking bastard.*
Vega may have put on a brave face, but loosing meant his family of two were on the run from the authorities and had to leave his Zoid behind. His Zoid…his beloved BerserkFURY. And his pride.
He had told Bit he wouldn't mind fighting him again. But he'd loose. And he'd loose in a spectacular way. Bit Cloud would die.
"Sara…"
Softer now, temper brought under control. "Vega, I told you, we have to stay here. Some nasty men are looking for us."
"But…"
The phone rang. The phone would ring for only two reasons, one, they had been found, and two…they'd been found and there was still time to bargain. The harsh tinkling hurt the boy's fragile ears, and Vega frowned at it and watched his mother glide over the pristine room (apart from the bloodstain), lift the phone from its cradle and began to speak.
Bored of it all, he stood up once more and wandered out of the room into the beautiful beyond, the many rooms he had lived in as a little boy, the rooms that were once so familiar but now so terribly alien to him. Vega was not a bad boy, at least, not in the conventional sense. He had been spoilt by those around him, so it was little wonder he treated the world and it's people like his subjects. After all, he was the descendant of the great Raven, was he not?
This house was reputed to have been left to Raven by his foster father Minister Gunther Prozen, and upon death of the minister (which death the little lad wasn't sure) Raven started to return to it more and more. Eventually of course, he decided to settle there, but seeing as he was still a wanderer, it was left to his descendants to live in and take care of. The Obscuras had leeched off the money left behind, using whatever means necessary to get all the money within the Prozen family into their own. Vega remembered being told this by one of his private tutors, his uncle Julian. It turned out there were other benefactors who had more power should Raven die. Turned out the Shubaltz family were also pretty high on the list as well as a bunch of nobodies called the Hardins. Vega had explored the vast libraries within the halls, and looked at the massive blood line tomes that existed there, where Uncle Julian** sat and wrote for hours and hours, recording each birth to what family. The Taskers, he remembered, were distant relatives of the Hardins. Yes.
Family histories were fascinating.
Four hundred years ago, his ancestor had lived and died in a time of great upheaval, eventually falling in love with the ancient Zoidian Rhyss** and doing what came naturally. Of course, it never said they married, nor why Raven died after conceiving a son with his partner, but all that mattered was that he, Vega Obscura, was a direct descendant. Yes. Even if a number of other people had to be brought in because inbreeding was illegal, or at least had been in the last forty years.
But Rhyss…she was an ancient Zoidian, and they were supposed to live for a long time. So why had she died too? There had been a lot of terribly things happening ten years after the destruction of the DeathSaurer…cities burning; people dying…divine retribution was always mentioned in the texts. But what did it have to do with him…?
Hey, where'd that thought come from?
As if rising from a dream, he stared at the staircase in front of him, noticing the acute detail of the tiles, the ironwork on the staircase itself, the dying plant on the stand, his own reflection in the mirror-
His mother's voice, ranting and raving like a mad thing at the person on the other end of the line cut across his consciousness, and he turned to face her, standing there, her eyes wide with fear, hand to her mouth. He had never seen his mother like this before, and quite frankly, it was scary.
Very scary.
"…S-Sara?" He whispered.
His mother slammed down the phone and leaned against the wall, her bosom heaving like a honeymooner's blanket. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, it was just like when they were assessed by the taxman.
"Sara!"
"I'm okay…" She regained her composure and stared at the wall in front of her, her beady eyes flicking about, as if expecting the shadows to leap out and catch her at any moment. "Vega…sweet Vega, come to mummy…"
The little boy ran forward (squelching, let's not forget he stepped on a lizard, here.) and into his mother's arms. She was shaking – he had never seen her like this. Not all together, his mother was always the one with power, always the one in control. What had she heard that made her so upset?
"Vega, Vega-dear…I've got to go and take care of some things, okay?"
"What's happened? Are we in even more trouble?"
"No, not exactly…It's just…a long time ago something very bad happened. A lot of people died, and so did a lot of Zoids. Altile…the idiot that he is…has released the thing that caused it. A few of my friends in high places tried to track it down and destroy it…but they failed."
"Why?"
"A few old friends of ours. The Blitz Team have invited a viper into their midst…" Sara straightened. "It seems we must reveal ourselves to the world once more, Vega, because there is no other way."
"You mean I can fight Bit? I can have my Zoid back?"
"Vega, dear…" Sara purred. "You can have it with bells on."
"Coooorrr!" Vega responded, his beady eyes bright. "That would look cool."
Most children do miss the point. But then again, that's the beauty of it all, isn't it?
~*~
Perhaps it was best Vega didn't know. The Obscura family had always known about it, seeing as they had been a part of it themselves all those years ago, only under a different name, for a different cause. The knowledge had been carefully written down and hidden away because, quite frankly, humanity was stupid, and would be eager to awaken the shifting sands and the being that slept beneath it.
Sara knew why her great-great-great grandmother Rhyss had died – she had meddled where she shouldn't have. Her great-great grandmother and granduncle had watched her die a horrible, horrible death. Messy. But after than, things had quietened down, the Shubaltz boy had managed to coax the creature into sleep, sleep that was not eternal but hard to awaken from. Sealed away, hidden from prying eyes, a creature that would not die, unless you found its core, which seemed impossible.
What was it exactly?
Julian had searched for years to try and find the answers, ever since their father had told them about things. No clear picture had ever been given. Photographs deteriorated. Text was misinterpreted. Information lost over time because the Obscuras didn't believe in making life simple. But Sara remembered sitting at her father's knee and listening to the story, listening to the descriptions, listening to the private hell her family lived in.
Truth is, my dear, no one is quite sure when it will come…
But what is it daddy?
Maybe it was a Zoid. Maybe it was…dread the thought…an organoid. But for every hack, slice, for every injury it seemed to bounce back. Wounds healed. Flesh restored itself. Once, she had heard, an arm had been torn off – the creature had simply picked up the arm and slid it back into place watching his flesh mould back to what it was supposed to be like.
Sara knew what would happen now that it was awake…what would it call itself now? It had had three hundred and eighty four years to think about it, so it would have to be good, right? Damn it!
She had always dreaded its return. It would always come back – sometimes it just appeared, not in person but in spirit – her father had died of a heart attack, but the coroner had mentioned it was a very strange death – the heart had been crushed within his chest, as if someone had reached in, through skin and bone, and simply squeezed the heart until it burst.
She remembered the funeral, standing beside her brother and listening to the sermons, at the soft whispers of how sorry everyone was. They weren't, the Obscuras were alone in everything they did, asking for no support from anyone or anything. Not one of them living past the age of forty thanks to the Ragnarok curse, reputed to have been sparked by the birth of the beast. You married into the family at your peril, was the rumour, and don't bother getting close to them. They'll die soon enough. That was precisely why Sara had did what she did, against Julian's wishes, and started to flirt with danger. How many men had she lain with until she conceived her son? Seventeen years old, home wrecker, slut, whore, twisting in the agony of birth, screaming curses to all. But she had Vega to show for it. She had never married, been branded an outcast for life, but it was worth it. She'd been trained for it, by her father and her aunt, trained to be everything she could be, manipulate every situation to her advantage. She was the one, they said, who would give birth to salvation. To Vega. The product of genetic engineering over generations. People like her Aunt Nadine, and Julian, were merely dropped to the sides of the road to tread towards victory, by-products of a carefully thought out plan. They would fall to the curse, just as the people before them had. And…so would she. He was coming for her.
Only in person this time…instead of simply stealing life away on a cool breeze or a dark whisper.
Doctor Shubaltz had only just managed to win the creature's confidence, but after the world's superpowers found out, they demanded the facility be shut down, and the creature killed. But instead, the soft hearted moron had simply buried the creature. The ground had been pelted with bombs of all sorts, even…and this part frightened her deeply…the odd gravity shell or two.
Catching her breath, she allowed a maid to run out to the patio outside and drop off a small over night bag while she waited for Vega to catch up with her.
"Where's uncle Julian?"
"Forget him."
Sara called around the car, grabbed Vega and slipped inside, looking up at the house she had lived in all her life. From the library window, she met the same pale blue gleam of her sibling's, and watched his face tighten as he accepted his fate as the weaker of the pair, the one who would die first.
There was no mistaking it.
The creature they called Mute Ragnarok was back. And who knew how many people he would kill this time?
~ to be continued.
*I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. But Vega has learnt a lot from the BackDRAFT group. Blame anonymous henchmen #234 and #31.
**Okay, I admit it; I am a bit of a fan of Julian Crane from that bloody Passions show. He's funny. There's a real quirk about him that always makes me giggle when he's on screen, probably because he's such a bastard and a wimp at the same time.
*** Oh, that is so clichéd. I can't believe I wrote that. Ah well, this isn't my real universe in Zoids fiction – if it was, well…would be telling.
Hey…I kinda need some help, some situations, so if you can think of anything, please tell me. I need Leena and Bit to go out on some dates and stuff, and Mute to get into trouble with the others. He's good at that. I have some ideas…but if you could think of anything that might be of some help, I'd really appreciate it…I've got the same problem with 7even days at the moment too…X(
Catch you guys later!