Hey folks, its Mercenary Pen here, and I hope you've enjoyed the previous eleven chapters, and suggest that if you haven't you should either go back and read them or find a story more to your liking, because if you've read the last eleven chapters and really dislike the story that much, its probably because you don't get on too well with my personal writing style, and to be perfectly honest that won't change all that much.
Also, some of you are probably wondering why I've been dragging characters out of chaotic century just for the purposes of character torture, one of the main elements of a high quality piece of fan-fiction, I am now required to admit to you guys that its cause I just don't have the heart to truly release my evil streak on characters of my own devising, yet-that particular heart is arriving tomorrow, I ordered it three weeks ago.
Now let's get back to the story, capisce (for those of you who have not knowingly dabbled in a variety of european languages that is pronounced capeesh).
Chapter 12: The evolution of a legend (part one).
On the plateau of the royal cup, an energy field had formed, surrounding the wreckage of a mighty zoid, which only three years before had shaken the world with its power, but now lay almost completely forgotten in the dust, a useless wreck, until now. Sitting nearby, watching over this energy field was a young boy, barely in his mid-teens, his name, known to few, but respected after a fashion anywhere it was known, was Vega Obscura. Now all he had to do was wait, wait for the wreck that had been the Berserk Fury to be born again, this time in a form that would match to Vega's strengths as much as it would to the worst nightmares of his ultimate rival, Bit Cloud of the Blitz team.
Meanwhile, the Paladin team were facing a team who had in the past few weeks become their greatest rivals, the King team, whose trio of Iron Kongs faced them on the battlefield. The Paladin team's selection of zoids was, in such a battle as this, still fixed while their fourth member looked after his dying grandfather, and so with a battle mode of 0982 the Ursazerk, the Dragowing and the Liger Zero stood upon the field, their armour glinting in the twilight.
The leader of the King team, Steve King, nicknamed Tarzan for his fascination with Iron Kongs, was a man whose ego was not lightly dented, mostly because to do so was to ask for a serious pounding, either on the battlefield from his zoid team or in person if you didn't have a zoid. However, recently Jake had performed a specialist potential measuring test on the Ursazerk, testing his skills with it against a computer simulation of the zoid that matched its capabilities most closely, the Iron Kong. This test, although not without flaws, had resulted in the victory of the Ursazerk in the battle simulator, leading Jake to consider himself, with the sixty five percent synchronisation he had already achieved with his zoid partner, to be a superior zoid pilot to just about any of the Iron Kong pilots out there. In short, if there was an Iron Kong pilot around, Jake became completely insufferable.
However, that is too long a story to tell, and to cut it short, Jake managed to offend the King team to the point where they decided that they must give the job of pummelling the Ursazerk into the dust top priority, and now they were about to try it for real. Their zoids represented three of the latest high-performance variants on the standard Iron Kong design, and were armed as follows:
The first, armed with a pair of retractable wrist-mounted blades and a single shoulder-mounted rocket launcher was the Iron Kong XS type, a zoid that specialised in close range combat, and was the zoid of Steve King himself; the second was the Iron Kong RX type, a version of the zoid designed for mid-range combat and armed with a pair of shoulder-mounted plasma disruptor cannons, blocky three-barrelled energy weapons whose remodulating pulse frequency could render most energy shields ineffective, while the weapons themselves possessed most of the firepower of a long-range buster cannon when charged to maximum power and this was the zoid of Liam Brandt; and thirdly and finally came the Iron Kong X-9, a prototypical model of Iron Kong, whose long range arsenal, in the form of a rack of high-explosive miniature cruise missiles, had in tests proved at least the match for a force of Gojelos', demonstrating the ability to take those mighty zoids down before they were in range to target their long-range weapons, and had also proved to be the match for most standard airborne zoids, and under the control of the plot Neville Grant, a skilled bombardment specialist, this zoid would probably test the Paladins to their limits and quite possibly beyond.
Then, snapping out of his reverie, Garth noticed the arrival of the judge capsule that would, as ever, adjudicate the match. As the judge continued its spiel, going through the usual rigmarole, the entire Paladin team breathed a sigh of relief, given that it didn't seem that the forces that made up the Chaos Storm would attempt to hijack this battle. Then, with a word from the judge, the battle commenced.
Jake, having waited impatiently for just this moment, charged forward in the Ursazerk, rearing up as he came face-to-face with Steve King, the Ursazerk and the Iron Kong slamming together with such force that all the combatants watching winced, anticipating that both parties would leave with bruised arms from the jarring impacts their zoids would undergo.
Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Chaos Storm organisation, a new matter was being discussed by those that made up the council of chaos, a matter of some delicacy.
Altyle broke the silence that had followed Baron Danthorn's report, "If Vega Obscura wishes to use his soon-to-be-evolved Berserk Fury he would be forced to sign on with the Chaos Storm, there is no way that the Commission would permit such a zoid to participate in official zoid battles, mostly because Vega Obscura can only control the Berserk Fury up to a point, he cannot shut off the charged particle cannons of his zoid beyond the ability of the Berserk Fury to re-activate them itself, and given that the Commission has recently clamped down on the weapons systems that can be used in battle, any zoid with a charged particle cannon is forbidden to participate under their new rules, therefore it is clear to me that if we sent an emissary to make a deal with Vega, he would have no choice but to join with us or surrender his zoid to the Commission, in short, since I know he would not give up on his partner, would not be capable of giving up his partner due to his bond with the Ultimate-X organoid system of the Berserk Fury, we cannot lose!"
At that precise moment the Paladin and King teams were locked in tense combat, their zoids a near perfect match for those of the other team, Jake was in fierce combat against Steve King and his close combat model Iron Kong, Adrianne faced off against the medium range firepower of Liam Brandt's Rex type, as the RX series was known, and that left Garth to tangle with the cruise-missile equipped Iron Kong of the remaining pilot, Neville Grant. Suddenly Jake roared over the comm-system "That's enough Monkey-Boy, time to show you the true strength of the bear, Strike Laser Claws!" and with that the front paws of the Ursazerk, which currently stood upon its hind legs, glowed gold with the build-up of laser energy, launching out in a titanic one-two blow into the stomach of the Iron Kong that stood before it, rending its foe until the once-mighty Iron Kong was almost cleaved down the middle.
Above them Garth flew his zoid in what seemed like a dance, destroying the cruise missiles of the Iron Kong that he faced with a veritable hail of rapid fire laser bolts, taking the trouble every now and then to scare his adversary into submission with a feinting head-to-head assault, usually just as the Iron Kong was replacing its rack of cruise missiles from a stock on top of the Guysack of the King team, which was being used as a mobile artillery platform. Then Garth considered things anew, thinking, if I keep up with this I'll make him waste his entire supply of missiles, but I'll also wear down my zoid, especially since the sun has set meaning I have a limit on my auxiliary power supplies because they come mostly from the solar panels in the wings of the Dragowing. Then, reaching a decision, Garth acted, only to pull out of his dive as Jake stole his kill, blasting the magazine of cruise missiles beside the Iron Kong, engulfing it in the fire of its own warheads, knocking it straight out of the battle.
At that moment Adrianne had her hands full, trying desperately to evade the plasma disruptor fire of the remaining Iron Kong, she swerved and sidestepped with her zoid until she was almost collapsing from dizziness, many times attempting to counterattack, only for her firepower to impact against the energy shield that her opponent had fitted. In the distance she witnessed, through the corner of her eye, the defeat of each of the other two Iron Kongs, but she stood no chance of pulling off a similar victory at the moment.
Garth's voice crackled over the comm system, "Adrianne, fall back to the transport and modify as you see fit, I'll keep this guy occupied while you do so. If you modify to Panzer Jake's gone back to the transport already, he can bring the transport into range to drop you off."
At last, Adrianne thought, a chance to actually take this guy, now which modification armour to choose, yes, I will go for the Panzer. Within seconds she was aboard the hovercargo, her zoid clamped securely to the modification deck.
"Activating Liger Zero Panzer modification armourâPanzer CAS completeâLiger Zero Panzer returning to main deck, Zero Panzer ready for deploymentâAdvance the Hovercargo."
With that the Hovercargo began its advance, picking up speed while still looking slow, ponderous and ungainly, suddenly the side hatch swung open, the Liger Zero Panzer with its green armour sliding out to take its first shot. This version of the Panzer armour, like every other piece of combat materiel that the Paladin team owned was cast from the versatile Ultimium alloy, however, in the case of the Liger Zero Panzer, the objective involved in replacing the traditional armour had not been to increase the durability of the already heavily armoured Panzer, although this version was ever so slightly more durable than the original, but to decrease the sheer weight of the armour to within safe levels, thus decreasing the chances of the zoid overheating to far safer levels. Immediately Adrianne focussed upon her objective, the defeat of the remaining Iron Kong, which was barely managing to keep the Dragowing at bay, despite the fact that Garth wasn't trying very hard to destroy the Iron Kong that remained, having racked up enough individual points in the last few battles that he could afford to go easy on a few opponents, and let his team mates catch up with him a little. Then, out lanced the pair of double beams from the hybrid cannons of the Liger Zero Panzer, overwhelming the already active shielding of the final Iron Kong to achieve victory for the Paladin team.
Vega was doing his best to remain calm, but how much longer was the Berserk Fury going to take to evolve, he wondered. Already the energy cocoon of the zoid had expanded to melt most of the wrecked Ultrasaurus which would otherwise have been the final resting place of the Berserk Fury, its form now clearly a perfectly hemispherical dome which glittered red with silver lightning cascading across its surface periodically, speaking volumes about the powers at work in the creation of this new zoid, even in its silence. In the background Vega heard the mournful howl of the wind as it whistled its way across the plain on which he stood, the steady clattering of a Gustav the only noise that intruded from the wider world to which Vega would return soon enough. Suddenly, behind Vega, there was a freak gust of windâno, the downdraft from the landing of a large airborne carrier zoid. Vega turned, before him stood a large jet black Whale King, upon its back a familiar man, Altyle himself.
"Vega," began Altyle, "you've kept well I trust. Listen, we need to talk"
Okay everyone, this is Mercenary Pen here, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and aren't too cheesed off that I turned it into a two-parter, just I think you'll like the evolution of certain zoids, although I will now take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who belongs to the "Ultimate-X's don't evolve" school of thought, but to be realistic with you, any zoid can evolve further, external organoids just speed up the process. Now all I have to do is work out the arsenal modifications for the Berserk Fury and the other zoid due to be evolving during the second half of this chapter and I'll be fine, hope you guys keep until the next chapter, see y'all round dudes, MP signing off.