Two Days Later
Today our little bar patron is a happy little fellow. His wife came home and surprised him, apparently she was insecure enough to stop by the plastic surgeon on her way home from work. So everybody just got a free round of drinks, and he's only staying to see one battle. And its one with Team Reckless, his life could not be any better. A good battle, a bar full of friends, and a silicone wife back home, what could be better?
It's only a three on three, so most likely they won't have that Command Wolf out. The other team, with no registered name, floats up in a dark green Hover Cargo. They deploy their zoids single file, nothing too flashy. A black Shield Liger, a standard Pteras evolution, and the main attraction, a gray Konig Wolf. A bar favorite, who doesn't like a giant metal dog with a sniper rifle?
The Whale King drops off the Reckless squad, the cameras focusing on them automatically. Nothing new this time, same old amazing zoids. That Saix, the urban Liger, and of course the Geno from Hades. The two cats dropped down while the Geno, to everyone's surprises, kept on floating, staying suspended in the air. Soon we were all whispering, wondering how the heck did that thing work. The Judge touched down, did his thing, and called it.
Instantly the Saix disappeared to the human eye. The network was still trying to make a way for the viewers to keep up with that freak zoid. Maybe they can have a separate camera for it or something. Well, two seconds later the focus was on the Shield and Slash Liger charging each other. Then a slow-motion replay of the shield Liger flying back and nailing the Konig Wolf in the back. It shuddered a bit but held strong, it is a good zoid after all. It bucked the downed Liger off its back and making a beeline for the slash Liger.
Meanwhile a type of chase was going on overhead. The Geno chasing the Pteras, and not catching it. The Geno COULD fly, but it didn't have the aerodynamics to keep up with a flight zoid. It settled for nailing it with blasts until it started flying crookedly.
Down on the ground the Wolf had a handful with that Liger. It was suffering limb damage, while the Slash was just getting beat back a few yards with each hit. Suddenly the Konig leaped forward in its trademark pounce, then lit up with energy, and collapsed to the ground. The camera caught two bony claws unhooking from the limp wolf, the Reaper then switching its aim back to the stray fly boy. The cameras watched Reckless, without the Saix, shoot without avail at the flyer.
Then in replay we saw out of nowhere a black cat jump in front of the Pteras, like a house cat onto a counter, grab the thing with its paws, stuff it in its mouth and fall back down, landing like a cat with a mouse. The bar just stared. Then slowly started clapping, still dazed. That cat jumped nearly as high as the Geno could fly. And caught the dang thing. The Judge called the battle to Reckless, the Saix placed the flyer carefully on the ground and the winners ran off to their Whale.
…these A Class battles were now challenging to Reckless, but they still managed to turn it into a cartoon chase. Needless to say the announcers had a field day with Brand's little cat and mouse tactic. They also liked Rax's blade work and Ryder's aiming. Our bar patron asked some one to tape the discussion afterwards, he had a wife to go home to.
Yep, that was the battle. But the joke about our bar patron's wife has a bit of a basis. Eh, in the last couple days Sue has been talking about plastic surgery. I'm not sure why, but our quarters are currently littered with pamphlets and magazines about it. I can't even check a phone book number without digging through a pile of pictures of silicone celebrities before and after they supposedly DID NOT get plastic surgery. Needless to say this whole thing scares me, so back to zoids.
I got my check for the Pierced Sniper. I honestly have no clue why they paid so much for it, but whatever. I'm not sure if they're going to release it to the public or keep it as a Special OPS weapon. Either way they wrote that they're sending me a Hel Digunner. I have no clue what that is, but it's a living.
As I read the paycheck again, I was sitting on the back of the Slash Liger surveying the damage. I'd rebuilt all the major armor denting but the blades would need to be re-aligned. We didn't have any upcoming battles scheduled so maybe I could take this at a more human pace.
2.6 Hours later.
"Liger's done."
"…wow, really taking it easy, Chase."
I sat down next to Sue and looked at her magazine. One of the headlines was about us.
"…well, what's it say?"
"…muscular leaders are out of style."
Muscu…what?
"…wait, who are they talking about?"
She flipped an eyebrow at me.
"…go look in that shiny thing on the wall…"
I decided to let that die. I noticed on the page was a picture of us sitting in a restaurant.
"…dang paparazzi…"
She tossed me the magazine and left, I started reading the finer points.
Man, the press did not know a thing about zoids. Every zoid name was underlined and misspelled. They couldn't find a word to describe our battles. And oh yeah, this was all tabloid. The pages were plastered with candid photos of us, each with captions. The best one was a wide shot of all three zoids, and the Command wolf that one time we used it. Caption. 'Are these zoids made by the Backdraft?'
And a whole article to match. Six pages of traits that define a Backdraft zoid. So, they think I'm working for the Backdraft because our zoids are painted black. 90 of privately owned zoids are painted black. They state my background is a bit shady. No kidding. I stopped reading the article before I broke something. It flopped back onto the table, and I jogged back into my workshop. I forget what I ended up doing, took six hours though.
The Next Day
I woke up to find Sue and Rax standing over my bed. Waiting.
"…um, Mornin'?"
"Trey…look out the window."
I did. There was a school of fish flying by, and a coral reef in the background.
"…eh…Rax…did you hit the forest green button in the control room while you were playing with your model kits?"
"Nah."
"…Sue, did you get royally hammered and hit the forest green button?"
"…well, woke up without a hangover."
I was still in bed, them standing next to it like I was some dying rich guy and they were my children. I tapped the intercom.
"…you called?"
"Psy…why are we on the bottom of the Lake?"
He hesitated.
"…you ever see that movie with the submarine full of drunk college kids?"
"…no."
"…crap."
Why aren't we panicking? Whale Kings are designed to work in the air, on the ground, on the water, and under the water. We were basically in a really spacious submarine.
"…so you hit the damn button?"
"Hey, I was bored."
And he clicked off. I sighed and crawled out of bed.
"Well, at least we're stable down here."
Sue was staring out the window.
"…was that a shark?"
I looked.
"…this is a freshwater lake…"
"Nope, salt water."
I looked at Rax, wondering how he knew that.
"…I drink it when we run out of soda."
Um…isn't salt water…o-kaaaay…
"…yeah, that looks like a shark."
Sue ran to grab her camera, Rax ran off to watch her look for her camera, I ran off because I hate being left out.
For some odd reason, we stayed underwater for a day. Then two days. Then a week. We surfaced to go get some supplies then went back down. We'd found something and gotten hooked on it. Solitude. We hadn't had any reporters. Any last-leg talk show offers. No telemarketers. No religious people knocking on our metal hatch with their holy book asking how we feel about Zoid Eve not existing.
Of course, at night we surfaced and went for runs in the zoids but by day we were just a little house under the water. Sue loved the view. Rax loved the lighting from his window and in his toy room. I loved the peace and quiet in the garage. Psy liked those seat covers I got from the ZBC, he's got like five on him right now.
Author's Notes
...the plastic surgery gag is inspired by my sister, going through the same thing right now. More zoid mods next chapter.Thanks for the reviews.