Chapter2: The Life of an Outlaw.

Two weeks later, Irvine was still on the run, his Command Wolf running low on ammunition, for he had been forced to defend himself against the Republican patrols that were combing the countryside for him. His zoid was limping, one of its front legs having been damaged by the bomb dropped by a Pteras that had found him. He consulted his map, there was a city only a few miles away, but it would probably have army zoids outside the gates, no one of the villages near to this city would probably be a far better bet, and so, turning west, he headed for a nearby village, hoping that the villagers either had not heard the news or did not recognise him, but perhaps that was too much to hope for.

He raised a hunk of bread to his mouth, biting on the food he had claimed from the wreck of an enemy patrol zoid (once he had disposed of its former occupant of course). Finally, an hour later, not long before the sun set, he limped into a village, setting down his Command Wolf on the outskirts before going to look for at least a night's lodging. He started by entering the local pub, quietly asking the barman where he might find cheap lodging with no questions asked- he was directed over to a corner table, where an affluent old man sat with a smartly-dressed young gentleman who appeared to be some sort of manservant, both of whom were sipping glasses of what appeared to be plain fruit juice, although the barman had told him they'd asked for a little something stronger to be added to it, discreetly mind.

He approached the old man, hesitating at first as he inquired, "I was told you might possibly have a room where I could spend the night."

The old man replied, "What, what, oh yes, a room for the night, well I'm sure we could put a young man such as yourself up for the night. Tell me, boy, what's your name?"

"Irvine, sir," he replied, uneasy because although he had been told that this man would ask the fewest questions of anyone around, he was asking a few questions too many for Irvine's liking.

"And tell me Irvine," the old man continued, "might you perhaps be a zoid pilot?"

He nodded, hesitating for a moment before he did so, for this was the sort of information that could lead to him getting arrested.

"Let me tell you a story," the old man continued, "five years ago, I was an explorer, trekking through the jungle at the helm of my Iguan- yes, that's right my boy, I used to be an Guylosian citizen- and on this mission, Irvine, myself and seven others discovered a lost temple deep in the jungle. Inside the temple, a relic of the ancient zoidian race, we thought, there stood a stone tablet, covered in ancient carvings and ancient writing- now this was the most intricately carved stone tablet I have ever seen, it's a pity you've seen nothing of the like- but anyway, we managed to get it out of the temple, and on to the back of the Expedition's Gustav, when one of our number, a man named Friedrich Schneider, turned a gun on us, claiming the tablet and the top zoid of the Expedition, a Heavily armed Red Horn, taking the tablet with him as his very own. Now some of us tried to follow him, to reclaim the tablet so that we could put it into a museum, but we never saw them again. What I'm doing at the moment, young Irvine, is recruiting a team of zoid pilots and other combat specialists to cross the border into the Guylos empire and try to reclaim the tablet, for the good of mankind, from Mister Schneider."

And so it was that Irvine was given both lodging and his first job since he went on the run, bringing his Command Wolf up to the mansion of his employer by means of the manservant's Gustav, where it was taken into the private zoid hangar of his employer to receive repairs, both to its leg and also to the worn out gyro-stabiliser unit in another leg, which would prove essential in keeping the zoid upright. His Command Wolf was surrounded by zoids of any description that you care to mention, with such machines as the Republican Barigator and Pteras offset by Guylosian zoids such as the Iguan that presumably belonged to his employer and a Red Horn.

He was then led to the northern wing of the house, which was housing the mercenaries and outlaws who had been hired for the job. He entered the main room of the northern wing's ground floor, an immaculate chamber that had been originally intended as a second ballroom, but now proved little more than a recreation room for the assorted bandits, who were either chatting, or off in some corner of the room, practising some skill or another, ranging from target shooting to knife throwing.

"Good afternoon," the manservant, who I had now learned was called Morden, said by way of greeting, "I would like t introduce you all to a new colleague of yours, who will also be participating in our little excursion, his name is Irvine, so if you would care to acquaint yourself with him, we would be most grateful."

And then, he was alone with a room full of mercenaries, freshly washed and well-dressed mercenaries but mercenaries nonetheless.

He made to try and find out who the others were indiscreetly, but that was foiled when one of the Mercenaries; a lean, yet reasonably well-muscled young man with fair skin and a scruffy shock of short, medium brown hair; took it upon himself to introduce everyone to Irvine.

"Hi," he began, "I'm Richard Matthews, although I'm known as the Fixer, these here are Rufus and Ezekiel Morgan," he said, pointing at two almost identical mercenaries, both in their early thirties, "you know, the Morgan brothers who robbed an entire supply convoy without help two years ago; and then we have Nathan Roche over here with the throwing knives, known as the black blade the other side of the mountains, and finally, we have our resident mermaid, Miranda Higgins, whose only claim to fame, insofar as we know, is that she's the only pilot outside the military to have made a reputation for herself with the Barigator."

And the conversations went on, with other Mercenaries being introduced to him, but none he would remember as much as those five Outlaws. Soon he could recognise the trademark belt-fed revolvers of the Morgan brothers, as well as Nathan's throwing knives (which were distinctive due to their golden pommels with the engraved initials NR), not to mention the Fixer's self designed diagnostic scanner and the boot-knives that Miranda wore as a matter of habit.

Indeed, their zoids were no less distinctive than their handheld equipment, and Irvine rapidly acquainted himself with Miranda's sand-coloured Barigator, the Black shield Liger of Rufus Morgan and the white Shield Liger of his brother Ezekiel, the Gorhecks of Nathan Roche, whose own sense of style had seen the his zoid painted in a combination of White, Silver and Jade; and finally the Antique Zaber Fang that Fixer had retrofitted for battle (having stolen it from an imperial collector when a little lean on money).

Within the space of days the six of them were firm friends, the fixer even installing the old 150mm rifle from his Zaber onto Irvine's Command Wolf when he replaced it with a pair of customised 120mm Beam Rifles, and although it did need a bit of messing around to fit the magazine for the monster cannon, not to mention cleaning the rifle itself and repainting it where the sand had almost scoured the supposedly "weatherproof" paint into non-existence. But this rifle would allow his Command Wolf to compete with the vast majority of tank-duty zoids, bringing the zoid out of the minor leagues and into a level of respectability previously unattained by the design.

Those days, Irvine thought, had gone by like a blur...

The next thing he recalled was nothing more than Nathan showing him the ropes with throwing knives. It was mid-afternoon, a time at which the assembled throng of mercenaries and outlaws had become complacent, content to live in the lap of luxury under the protection of their host, who always seemed to be away sorting out some minor detail in their scheme.

Anyway, the way Irvine remembered it, Nathan had let him throw one of his spare knives to start with, to see what he already knew, and then moved in to give the lecture about where his technique was wrong.

"No, No, No," Nathan said, "if you're doing something like this you need the right mindset, the ability, if you will, to become the knife, to send it straight at your target within the space of a second, just ask any of the cutthroats, gunrunners, thieves and other lowlifes we have here, each one of them'll tell you the same thing, if you don't become your every action, you become dead in short order."

Another dozen such moments came to mind within the space of an instant, little things that had shaped the rest of his life, but all of them fading into nothingness now as time's relentless march captured detail after detail of his memories. It had been like that for the past year, ever since he had taken that glancing shot to the head on Guardian Force business, the one that had barely cracked the side of his skull and had forced him to accept desk job at Guardian Force headquarters, Red River Base...

And that's where I'll leave it for now, so stay tuned for the next chapter of Irvine's life, as it might have happened if I actually owned zoids, which, as you might be able to work out for yourselves, I don't.

Anyhow, Merc Pen signing off, Over and Out.