DISCLAIMER: I don't own Zoids, but I do own the concept of this story and my original chars. I also don't own James Bond, as I make a reference to him once.

You ever have a gun pressed right against the back of your head? After the initial panic it's kinda nice, like a head rest.

"What was your name again?"

I was currently face down on the concrete, Vega's mystery guardian had come back and found me screwing something onto the Fury. Two seconds later, here I was at gunpoint.

"…it's Trey."

The barrel pressed harder.

"Last name…"

She had an odd voice, soothing, yet when you thought about what she was saying it made you want to crap yourself..

"Brand."

There was a little stretch of silence.

"…you're the new Chase Brand?"

So she read the media logs, how nice. Now back to me being her bitch.

"Yep, that's me. I was at the arcade, met Vega over there, he asked me to fix a zoid, and led me here."

"He's telling the truth, Sarah!"

And the kid was on my side, great. But she kept grilling.

"…didn't you make those zoids for the ZBC?"

I shrugged, a bit hard to do when spread out with your nose pressed against cement.

"It's a living."

I felt the little circle of metal pull away.

"Get up."

I stretched and stood up, turning to look at the scene. We were next to the Fury's left leg. His guardian, wearing a dark jacket and pants, wearing her dark brown hair down to her shoulders, was still pointing the handgun at me.

"…you know who we are."

Her tan face looked like a protective grizzly bear.

"…no, he just told me his name."

"Vega here is telling everyone he meets his name is Keith. We're laying low."

Crap. I reached down and grabbed my hat, it fell off in the struggle.

"Um…"

Vega looked worried, dancing on his toes a bit.

"Sarah, he said he knew how to fix the Fury!"

His guardian stared at him, then looked at me and relaxed her grip on the gun.

"…is this true?"

I nodded slowly, how could I not? She finally holstered the gun in a strap under her jacket and relaxed her posture. Hopefully she forgot I knew Vega's name.

"…well, you may want to know our situation…"

Ten minutes later we were sitting in a bare office attached to their underground warehouse, I was sitting on a box, she at a small desk, Vega still with his zoid.

"…and as you know, Vega is a bit of a good pilot."

I rolled my eyes.

"He's the King…"

She smiled warmly and kept on.

"Well, after the Royal Cup, the Backdraft came down on us. They wouldn't fix his zoid. Vega, for some reason, is emotionally attached to that thing."

I nodded and swung my feet on the edge of the crate.

"The best pilots are."

"They gave us this space to lay low. I've been trying to get us this deal for years, I want Vega to have a childhood. But here's no way for me to get out of the Backdraft, let alone their best pilot."

I looked at her a bit closely under the bare bulb in the office.

"…you mean…neither of you are loyal to those guys."

She shook her head, swinging her hair at me.

"No. But back to the details. They're storing the Fury here nowhere close to our apartment, Vega keeps coming here to visit it. He talks to it. The Backdraft 'punished' him for the Cup by not fixing that thing, Vega seems to be feeling its pain."

I kept nodding like a bobblehead. Now, time to get some real goods.

"…so he currently isn't doing any pilot work…"

She gave a blank look.

"…actually he's doing tests for a prototype of theirs."

Bingo.

"I see….well, Vega showed me the tools they have down here. A wrench and a butter knife. Would your boss know if this thing was moved?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"…no, they more or less gave up on the Berserk Fury, all the focus is on the new prototype."

This gets better and better. They should get me to play the next James Bond, actually the 234th movie comes out next week.

"…if you can move it out into the desert my Whale could pick it up, we have cloaking technology."

She got up from her small desk chair and started toward the warehouse to check on Vega. I followed, still talking.

"My workshop has the supplies to work with an unusual zoid. I usually build or upgrade zoids, but a major repair job should be easy."

We walked up to the scarred Geno-type zoid, Vega was sitting on the head, chatting away with it. Sarah smiled at this and called up to him.

"Vega! Your friend from the arcade says he'll help Fury get better, but we have to get him to Trey's house. We need o get out to the desert."

Without a word Vega hopped into a hatch into the Fury's head. Then the jets fired up and it disappeared, a small glowing flash going down a tunnel in the wall. I had just noticed the tunnel heading eastward, so that's how the zoid go in here.

…wow, that Geno is pretty fast…note to self, steal technology from it.

Sarah led me to the elevator, then I led her a few blocks to a parking hanger.

"…that's your zoid?"

She as staring open-mouthed at the Psycho Saix, crouched down as I hopped into it.

"…nice, ain't she?"

I felt the seat shake a bit as Psy bristled. Sarah got into the cockpit behind me and closed the hatch. Five seconds later we were in the desert, going about 500 toward the signal Vega was sending from the Fury. I heard a groan behind me.

"…I hate fast zoids…"

Thankfully she didn't puke over the seat covers. I hit the brake when the silver dinosaur appeared on the horizon. As we jogged up to the elegant but damaged Ultimate X I signaled the Whale. By the time we were next to Vega my sensor was picking up a cloaked transport incoming.

I'll cut their tour of our Killer Whale and the introductions. On to the important stuff.

I fixed the Fury. Took me two days straight but I got the systems up and running, rewired the damaged parts, even went as far as to restore the battle systems. But let me cut to the Chase. This is an amazing zoid. I found out from Sarah that in the Cup the Fury lost its head armor and both claws, well, apparently it had either regenerated or reattached its claws. The head armor probably grew back. How, I'm not sure.

But the not so major damage, to the living zoid at least, was healing slowly. Namely the outer armor scuffs, chest damage, and limb twisting. At first it was a bitch to even find the damage. Then when I checked it over the damage had shifted into my line of sight. Call me crazy, but it was like this zoid had to trust me before I could fix it.

I used to think they called it an X because of its speed, firepower and close range combat. But I think it's alive. Mute, but it seems to have personality. And as for the firepower, I'd kill Vega in his sleep to have this zoid. I did some testing on its speed capability, this thing is just half a notch below Psy going downhill. The maneuverability? These claws can let it do a handstand if needed. The guns? It's a Geno Saurer on steroids. And to top it off I can't find a blaring weakness like most other zoids.

I mean, I admit right now, he Psycho Saix doesn't fare well against other speedsters, I have to pilot around that. But this thing…I can't find a dent. No launch angles left open. No armor weak spots. Not even a long charge time for the CPC. How, in the Arctic Hell, did that Bit Cloud guy take this thing out? It ain't his piloting. Vega is obviously one of the best. I hear he fought this thing without the Panzer armor even.

Psy kept bragging on that one. He keeps saying the Liger Zero armors are handicapping the thing. I kind of agree. That Toros guy just slapped on some boosters and guns, and on top of all that it was a gimmick. If the Zero could take out the fury, in its white armor, what if the Liger Zero X is weaker because of the Lightning Armor?

I thought all this up after hours of inhaling grease fumes and cockpit polish. I also invented a superhuman persona, but this stuff sounded important. After I gained some independent thought, saw the job was finished and the stuff was mostly out of my system I trudged into our quarters to see Sarah and Sue chatting at the table, Rax and Vega playing in the toy room, Clara was in her Molga waiting for her zoid to leave that cocoon, it's been in there four days now. One long evolution.

After wandering around in a fume-induced daze I ended up in my room, watching fish swim by our underwater home/insane asylum. I just sprawled out on my couch, drenched in sweat from the last two days, waiting for my mind to stop racing. As I'm writing this I'm still in a daze. I've been thinking about where my path has been taking me.

Let's see, bad childhood, abused by parents, saved old zoid from being demolished, get ditched by my only parent figure on the planet. Peachy. I found out I'm a workaholic/skilled mechanic. I have to struggle to adjust to this way of life, when my zoid gets burned to a crisp. Right when I'm about to kill myself, surprise, it just evolved into a super talking speed machine. Then we get stuck in the freakshow battles.

I find out my life is being orchestrated by Zoid Eve, whom I never really believed in, let alone worshipped. She gives me good luck, a sponsor, money, amazing zoids, but does she ever apologize for my childhood? Or is she a part-time goddess who just deals with zoids, not little kids being whipped by their parents every night for no reason. Did she ever come out and talk to me? Instead of relaying files through Psy?

I've done everything she's told me to do. What do I get for it? I haven't seen Max in months, I spend my life hoping to live with him in peace someday and it gets pushed aside for this celebrity freakshow. Sure I have friends, I have a home and money, but in exchange I can't live the real life. Upgrade a zoid for the ZBC, give them info about some prototype weapon, fight the rare battle that the ZBC manages to give out, and deal with the constant zoid evolutions.

Why repair or manage a zoid when you know it may change the next week? I put my sweat and blood into that Command Wolf, and now it's just going to turn into one of Eve's freak zoids. I can't handle this. I'm not some puppet anymore. I'm Trey Brand. Not Chase, I'm not even really a Brand. Who am I.

Much Needed Author's notes

…in case you didn't pick up, Trey has gone nuts. Not all the way, really.. You see, two sleepless days of working on a zoid nonstop got to his head. He started thinking about things he usually blocks out. Notice as his journals went on he stopped mentioning a few things. Things he wanted to forget. Zoid Eve has been running the show, some of you may have predicted. Trey isn't stupid, he just doesn't want to know a few things. This isn't some last minute character change. I've had this going since this story flashed into my train of thought. No, he's not going insane. He'll recover soon enough and explain a few things. They'll be back into battles soon, the ZBC has been too wrapped up with the Liger Zero X to schedule any battles. Things will be back to normal soon enough, but things are going to hit some deep points.