Well, not much to say really, except that I'm enjoying this. I like writing this fic, so please review, okay? I'm doing this for you guys, so you better review. Alright, alright.
Disclaimer: I don't own Zoids, so don't sue me.
*************************************************************************************************************************
For an entire week, they did nothing but test out their skills. The warriors were actually much more skilled than Rainer had first considered. It would be hard to rank the warriors, but he was going to do it. He was enjoying watching them. All the warriors stayed at the gigantic base during the trials. The base was mostly underground, so it was a lot bigger than it appeared to be. An announcement had been made that they would continue the trials and training for another week and no one argued with the decision. In fact, they all seemed happy and eager, which made Rainer start to think about it. Why? Why were they all so eager to go to war? He decided that he was going to find out no matter what. When they were all eating dinner, he went to the front of the room.
"Please be quiet for a moment," he said. They all went silent eventually and turned their eyes to him. "I want to know something, and I want an honest answer. Why? Why are you all so eager to go to war?" It was silent. "Please tell me. I need to know. I'm sure you all have your own reasons. Some of you want to protect your families, others want to protect all of Zi, some are doing it because it's something to do, and others, I'm sure, enjoy fighting and the risk of getting killed."
"What about you?" asked one of the warriors.
"Yeah, why are you fighting? Why do you want to go to war?" asked another. Rainer just bowed his head and stared towards the ground.
"I have a number of reasons, but the strongest isn't what you think. Most of you probably think I'm doing this to get revenge for my father, but it's not. In fact, that's the last reason. Revenge won't bring my father back to life, so there's no point in that. So what am I fighting for? Everything. I'm fighting for myself, for my friends, for all of Zi, and for the future. I don't want zoid battles to turn into death matches. I want it to be a sport, a job, a way to let yourself be free. I don't want the Dark Blazers to rule over Zi, so I'll do everything in my power to stop them from winning this war. I want to make my father proud of the ZBC and I want to make everyone believe that I'm qualified for this job. That's my reason. I'm fighting for all of you…for your future." It was silent for a while, until someone started to clap. Suddenly, more began to, and even more, until the whole room was clapping. Rainer seemed surprised.
"You're already qualified to be our leader," spoke one man.
"No one could do better."
"Yeah! We're behind you all the way!"
"We'll fight for a future!" Rainer smiled. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as he thought it was.
******
It was late and Rainer had decided to retire to his room. He wore a smile on his face. He couldn't shake the feeling of the applause he had gotten. They believed in him, and he wasn't about to let them down. He would show the entire planet that he was qualified to be a leader. He would lead the ZBC to victory, no matter what happened. He soon reached his room. It was dark out now, but something didn't feel right. He reached for his key that would unlock the door and eventually found it. He placed it in the hole and tried to turn it, but the door slowly opened on its own. Rainer just stood there.
"Strange. I could have sworn I had locked it when I left," he said. The door opened slowly and Rainer looked in. It was dark, just as he had left it. Rainer began to walk over to his desk as light spilled into the room. The hallways were still lit so that the warriors could find their ways back to their rooms. However, the warriors were already mostly asleep. Rainer walked towards his desk slowly. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew he didn't like it at all. He knew he had locked that door. Something didn't feel right to him, and he wasn't sure what it was. When he got within a few feet of the desk, he heard a click. Rainer stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around and looked over at his table that sat near the right wall. His eyes widened as he saw what had caused the click.
"Oh sh-." But he never got the chance to finish as the bomb on the table went off, sending out a huge explosion. Rainer braced himself as the bomb exploded, but it didn't help. He was thrown back into the hallway and right into the wall.
"What was that?" shouted some of the warriors who had woken up from the explosion and the sound of people running down the halls. Some of the officials at the building were now running towards the explosion.
"Sir Rainer!" shouted Captain Gordon. He had retuned in a week. He wanted to check up on the young leader and had left one of the other captains in charge at Jostan City. He quickly left his room and began sprinting down the hallway towards Rainer's office. He joined up with some more officials who were also heading in the same direction. 'Please let him be okay. I would never forgive myself if he died,' thought Gordon. They reached the hallway that led to his room and noticed smoke coming down it. There were some zoid warriors following the officials, but they stopped as they saw the smoke.
"What's going on?" asked one. Among the rowdy warriors were Taban, Risai, and Miharu. They were looking on in curiosity. The officials decided to go further, so they did. They ran down the hall, followed by the warriors, who still wanted to know what was going on.
"Sir Rainer, can you hear me?!" shouted Gordon. "Sir Rainer!" The warriors all lost their curiosity, replacing it with fear. Had they just lost another leader?
"Sir Rainer!!" shouted Gordon. He had to keep trying. They ran more and eventually came to the area where his office was. The office had been engulfed in flames and in the hallway was Rainer, who was slumped over in a pile on the floor. He was unconscious and there was a crack in the wall where he had undoubtedly made contact with it. The officials were at his side in an instant.
"You warriors," shouted one of them. "Go get the fire extinguishers and put out those flames!" Quite a few warriors left to go and do the task.
"Sir Rainer, can you hear me?" asked Gordon, but there was no response from the young man. "Please be alright, Sir. You need to wake up." However, there was still no response from him. He was, however, breathing, but it was shallow. Rainer had really gotten himself hurt this time. His black jacket had been burnt to the point where it was just a bunch of tattered cloth. The sleeves to his shirt were gone and he had burn marks all over his arms. He had tried to block the explosion, so his arms had taken in most of the damage. His legs weren't any better. There were burn marks everywhere on them. His pants had been ripped and now had holes in them. There was a huge gash on his head and the back of it was bleeding as well, most likely because of the impact he had with the wall.
"We need to get him to the infirmary," said Gordon. "You three." He pointed to Taban, Miharu, and Risai. "Please, go get a stretcher to put him on." They nodded and quickly left. The infirmary wasn't far, so they quickly got a rolling stretcher and wheeled it down the hall, back to where Rainer was. The crowd parted for them as they pushed it towards the officials. By now, the men who went to get the fire extinguishers had returned and they began to use them to put the fire out. The officials carefully lifted Rainer up and set him on the stretcher. The three warriors gasped as they saw the full damage that had been caused. Rainer was in bad shape.
"Hurry. Take him back to the infirmary. The nurse there will know what to do." They all nodded and then began to wheel the stretcher down the hallway. It seemed ironic that they'd be the ones. The three closest warriors to Rainer were the three of them, and they planned to stay until he woke up. In one week, he had helped them more than ever. They eventually got to the infirmary and the nurse quickly got to work on fixing him up. The three of them stayed there until they were told to go to sleep. Reluctantly, they went back to their rooms. Each one was lost in thought. Rainer had done a lot for them, and now there was nothing they could do to save him. It was all in the hands of the nurse and Rainer himself. When they had lifted him onto the stretcher, they saw the puddle of blood that was under him. He had lost a lot more than what they had thought. Risai was lying awake in her bed, thinking. 'Please don't die Rainer. You can't die yet. You're our leader. You have to lead us in this war. Don't die.'
******
A few days earlier, Rainer had been watching the battles. He had gotten bored so he let someone else take over on gathering the data. Meanwhile, he searched out the three of them. They had been sitting in the hanger, talking. Rainer had approached with a smile.
"I'm impressed," he said. "You guys are really good for beginners."
"Thanks," said Taban.
"You don't need to thank me. You guys earned it."
"Well, thank you anyway, sir," said Miharu.
"Please, don't call me that. I get enough of that from the officials at this building. I'm just Rainer, alright?"
"Alright," they all said. Rainer just smiled.
"I have a question," said Risai.
"Ask me anything. I'd be happy to answer."
"What is it that you've been doing lately? You always seem tired and we hardly ever see you." Rainer's face grew serious for a minute.
"I've been working in the lab, finishing my father's invention."
"What is it?" asked Taban.
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you yet. However, once it's done, it will be amazing. Just thinking about it gets me all excited. However, even when it's done, there's no telling what may happen. The side effects may be too horrible to even think of using it on people."
"But how will you know if you don't test it on someone?" asked Miharu.
"Simple. I'll be testing it on myself first." All of them were shocked at hearing this.
"You can't do that! What if you die? Who will lead the ZBC then?" asked Risai.
"It'll be alright. I don't think anything will happen to me, and besides; if it really works, then it's worth all of the pain I may end up going through. I will be able to defy all logic. I'll be able to defy time itself!"
"Time?"
"Oops. I've said too much. Pretend you didn't hear that. Well, I should probably get back up there. See you guys later!" And with that, he turned around and ran back out of the room and towards the room where they monitored the zoid battles.
Risai also recalled that night. She had been out for a while, since she couldn't sleep. She wandered the halls and eventually ended up on the inside balcony that hung above the arena. The doors that led to the arena opened, which shocked her. She stopped walking and turned around to watch what was happening. The doors that were opening were hidden doors, so it made her all the more curious. It was still dark in the area, but the lights soon turned on and she ducked down so she wouldn't be seen. From the doors came a blue zoid. It was amazing, since Risai had never seen one before. It was a lot like a Genosaurer, which she had only seen in books. This was slightly bigger and had more artillery.
"Okay sir, are you ready?" asked someone in the observation booth. The intercom was on like it was during their trials.
"I was born ready." The voice was incredibly familiar and Risai quickly matched it with the blue haired leader of the ZBC. The targets came up from the ground and were quickly shot down by the zoid. "Wow. This thing has some nice weapons," said Rainer to himself.
"The Geno Breaker is equipped with a wide variety of weapons, sir."
"I think I want to test its speed and agility."
"Alright sir." The arena changed to that of a track like one. A timer was placed above. Risai watched with interest as the timer started and the Geno Breaker launched itself. It dodged all of the obstacles and got an amazing time.
"Oh yeah! I could definitely get used to this!" shouted Rainer happily. "From now on, I think I'll pilot this zoid."
"I'm glad you're happy sir." Risai stood up and began to leave the arena area. 'Rainer sure is something. He'll make a great General.' She walked back to her room and went to sleep.
******
Risai sighed as she lied awake in her bed. Now, that amazing teenager was lying unconscious in the infirmary and there wasn't anything they could do to help him. She lied awake a little while longer and watched as the officials passed by her room. Gordon was in the back, holding a piece of paper. Risai got up and walked out of her room.
"Captain!" she shouted, getting the attention of the man. "What is it? What's that paper for?" Gordon just turned to her sadly and handed her the paper. She read it aloud.
"Dear ZBC. I hope you liked the present. We killed your first leader and we won't stop until his son is gone as well. Mark my words, if that didn't kill him, something else will. Either way you look at it, he will eventually die. Look at this incident as the first shot fired. No matter how you look at it, there's only one conclusion. This war has begun."
*************************************************************************************************************************
Look, look! I did do it, see?
Hahahahaha! Anyway, that was a lot of fun, so please review! I like reviews a lot, so review and I'll write more soon. Sound good^.^
Happy Independence Day!
Audi^.^