A/N: I would like to take this time to talk one on one with my three reviewers. Heheheheh, I can do that because they are so little in number. While this may be amusing it is also a little bit of a downer. tear . Well here we go.

Rai Kinoshin: From now on this will all be stuff you have not read at all and will only be allowed to read on So try to put better reviews in now that new material is coming at you. I will be very happy and it is always good when I am happy. KITCHEN RAID!!!!!!!!!!! Oops, sorry about that. Anyway..........

Gero: Thanks a lot for all the good comments about the story. Ego boosts really help people... especially people like me. Well stuck with it and I promise there will be a good bonus for you. I will find a good one.

Bladesdeath: Ahhhh, my critical viewer. I thank you so very much for reviewing it helps get things to me which I might not have seen. But I have a plan to when you said I make my characters seem invincible. I make them look good early in the beginning, even unbeatable I guess. But I do this only to make the challenges or the bad guys later look better. Trust me plot is about to go crazy here in a few chapters. (And between us, Mr. Ultimate fighter Kase... Well let's just say he gets his ass kicked like a beginning Martial Artist versus the Grand Master. But It is another made up character...even though he is a bad guy. ) But the Backdraft has not even introduced their main players yet, so there will be less invincibleness later. Plus the Core team has yet to show back up in their real zoids. Hehehe. Well stick along for the ride.

Everyone stay tuned. Things are just beginning to heat up!

Chapter 7: Plans

Harry yelled triumphantly as the blast hit Kouri dead on. It made a brilliant flash and roared up into the air. When the Wing Liger exploded it clashed with a violent red color with the purple plasma blast. Harry danced his victory dance in his zoid. Dust and other debris were kicked up from the blast.

"I can't wait to see his tattered remains!" Harry said excitedly as he waited for the dust to clear.

"He is not dead you naïve fool. I didn't even hit him." Ben said staring into the dust.

"What do you mean!?" Harry asked incredulously. "How would the blast have missed him? We even saw it explode." Harry said unbelievably.

"But only another plasma blast can destroy my blast." Ben said charging another blast. "And learn to watch your radar, a whole other group was coming in plain sight."

"Well who else has a plasma cannon?" Harry asked.

"We do!" He heard over the com-link and a violent, red colored blast traveled right for him. Ben fired off his blast and it meet with the red one making the same explosion that was witnessed only seconds ago. And from the dust cloud they came.

An orange Liger jumped out of the cloud and aimed straight for the Iron Kong.

"Seven Blades Attack!" Bit yelled as he tore into the right side of the Iron Kong.

"Damn, that bitch and his Liger 0 are here!" Harry cursed as a system freeze came up on his screen. Jamie came at his tremendous speed and started to chase the only air zoid left another Raynos. Then a black streak whizzed by everyone hitting his target head on.

"Sonic Boom!" Kase yelled as he slammed full force into the Bear zoid knocking it on to its side.

"Come on Griz, stand up!" Ben yelled to his zoid. Then him and Kase locked themselves into combat. A Dibison took aim on Kase but he met his demise soon enough. A blue zoid now came from the dying cloud ready to issue death.

"I don't think so friend." Rai said as her two side blades left a huge gash in the side of the Dibison and her tail blade disconnected the cockpit from the rest of the zoid.

"Oops, did I do that?" Rai asked innocently.

Jamie flew in the air after the Raynos. Jamie easily kept up with the zoid.

" Please do not make this an all day thing. It is starting to get annoying." Jamie said in his deeper voice when he got this way. Doc said it had something to do with his father, who is a well-known zoid pilot, and was called the Wild Eagle. Jamie decided to stop playing games and just shoot down his opponent. "That is what you get for tempting the Wild Eagle!" Now the only zoids left were Ben and the two Landsharks.

Katelyn finally walked into view of everyone else, with a red blast charged on her gun.

"Kase leave him alone, get the Landsharks." Katelyn said.

"What are you talking about? I can not let you fight him!" He said avoiding a machine gun attack.

"I think I deserve to fight him! I will let you fight Taiko! And Rai can fight Jade! I don't care as long as I can fight him. Maybe I can do something to help bring him back!" Katelyn said between yelling and being about to cry.

"But you cannot beat him because of how you feel! And we need to win this fight, or else more of us will be taken!" Kase said. Ben shot again and Kase avoided the shot once more. But unprepared he took the attack the zoid Griz was made for.

" Domination attack!" Ben yelled as his grizzly paw came down with more force than most things known to man. It connected and battered the Liger Saix across the battlefield. Systems freeze showed up on Kase's screen and he slammed the controls and cursed angrily. But he soon passed out from the pain.

"Well it looks like I have to fight him now." Katelyn said as the bear zoid turned to stare her down.

Katelyn looked at her opponent now, her objective is to beat this opponent and help save her friends. But her opponent was not your normal zoid pilot. It was the love of her life for two strong years. She now fought the same person she had her first kiss with. The person she cuddled to during a scary movie, or when she just wanted to feel his warm body against her. But now she fought him as he tried to kill her friends, his friends. And now it was up to her to stop Ben .

"Ben, this is not necessary! I know you can break free of whatever chains that hold you hostage! Please come back to us... come back to me." She pleaded. But it seemed he would not listen to her anymore.

"Who said I wanted to come back. And to you especially? You were only a person to keep me satisfied. You were only a wench among many others. My life is much better now that I am with the Backdraft!" He said defiantly making sure that everyone heard him.

"Ben... I thought I meant more to you than that. And... I... I am no wench...I was more to you then mere satisfaction..." She trailed off as she silently started to cry. This was no time to lose her composure. Whatever they did to Ben, Katelyn swore that she would make the Backdraft pay. Now Ben hated her, did not even acknowledge her as a part of his life. Oh yes, they would pay.

" Katelyn, stop stalling! Get him now! Kase is out of commission and Kouri we have no word from, for all we know that blast could have killed him. You heard what he said, he is not the same person anymore!" Rai yelled as she sliced one of the Landsharks into pieces with her side blades before putting three more quick cuts in the side with her tail blade.

"Shit guys, we have problems!" Jamie yelled as more zoids started to fill the sky. Zabats swarmed through the sky, with about twenty attacking Jamie. The rest helped on the ground fight.

Katelyn started to receive fire fast, and the damage was building with every second. She started to run from the shots, making the Zabats miss her by a long shot because of her camouflage equipment. But one person still knew her secret.

Ben fired his blast straight to where Katelyn was going to be. She stopped in her tracks and readied her gun. Even though she was not moving and no where near where the blast was headed, the Zabats thought she was moving and increased their speed to catch her. When they flew over he she shot the tails of their zoids, making them plummet to the ground. And they were headed to the same spot of Ben's blast.

The Zabats landed and the blast came right after. Five Zabats fell to the explosion and parts fell everywhere. It looked like all the pilots were extremely hurt. They would not be fighting anything for a while. Then Katelyn turned and fired her plasma cannon at Ben. He shot back quicker than she thought he would. He did not have enough time to charge a full blast, but his blast was big enough to stall hers. Thus giving him enough time to get out of the way and start to fire his machine guns. Katelyn took every single bullet.

No matter what she did she could not dodge. Ben was now a more gruesome opponent than Katelyn would have ever thought. He seemed much better than he was before. And he always knew exactly where Katelyn was at, no matter what she did.

"Looks like you are just as sorry a zoid pilot as you are a girlfriend! You are and always were useless." Ben said taunting. Another silent tear fell down Katelyn's now tear stricken face. She now had no choice. She had to do the attack that would stop him. She checked her ammo as her two machine guns came out of the side of her zoid. The hidden claws in the zoid came out and they were also fully operational. Katelyn charged a plasma blast to full capacity. Ben did the same.

"Kase said I could not beat you but I was right, I can, and I will." She said defiantly.

"We have already won, take a look around." Ben said. And Katelyn was shocked to see the situation around her. Rai was badly damaged because she could not fight back against the army of Zabats. Jamie was taking damage fast; he could barely fight back. The Wing Liger was lying on its side and there was still no word from Kouri. Then something else hit her. Kase and his zoid were not there!

"What... where did..." She trailed off lost in her own thoughts now.

"He was taken while he was out of commission and unconscious. All of our pilots were escorted to safety as well; it was easy since you all were tunnel visioned onto the fight. He will serve our master now. Just as I do. Forfeit this all right now and maybe you too can join me once again." He said trying to sound romantic.

"How can you even try to talk to me like that! We will win today, and then we will rescue you all!"

"We are fine, we do not need to be rescued. We hate you all and love where we are at now. So prepare yourself and fight me O' valiant one!" Ben yelled and Katelyn could tell he was about to fire. She was about to commence her attack but then something unexpected happened. A huge, red zoid flew across the sky. It was moving so fast that no one could see what it was.

The red zoid tore through the ranks of Zabats sending them all to the ground in a heap. It took him or her about a mere ten seconds to destroy all the air zoids. The huge red zoid then flew off into the distance until finally no one could see it at all.

Ben was outraged at the situation now at hand. All of his zoid partners were defeated and he was the only one left. He now had to fight Jamie, Rai and Katelyn.

"Ben to base, send the Whale King down. We have all been defeated except for myself and I request immediate evacuation." And then from the sky it came. The giant vehicle that seemed to house unlimited power for the Backdraft. The Whale King. It landed on the ground and a hatch opened up behind Ben. Ben and the Griz slowly walked backwards into the ship. It lifted up into the air and flew away above the clouds.

"I will be better next time. I will win Ben... my love." Katelyn said. She just stood around and looked around at the aftermath of the battle. Zabats lay everywhere. Dibison lay on the ground side by side. Explosion marks were everywhere. And Kouri still lay still on the ground. But it seemed that Jamie was checking on him when the Hover cargo and Brad finally appeared to pick everyone up.

They loaded all the zoids into the cargo and repairs were started right away. Rai said Kouri would be fine, just his vitals were a little low right now. Doc hooked him up on a machine that would monitor him in case anything happened and then they put him on a bed. Brad and Jamie went to work on repairing the zoids while Rai, Doc and Katelyn started to formulate a plan. Because that is what they needed the most.

"So all we know is that now, Ben, and possibly the others now are super pilots?" Doc asked.

"Well Ben defeated both Kouri and Kase. And probably would have beaten the rest of us as well." Katelyn said.

"And he seemed like a totally different person. He hates us all now and loves the Backdraft!" Rai exclaimed. "But remember, when he beat Kouri he had plenty others helping. And Kase was trying to help you Katelyn when he was blindsided."

"So it looks like they are dappling in a little bit of everything. Kidnapping, brainwash and then some kind of enhancement to them as well. Looks like we have a lot on our hands now."

"But why do they even need all of our friends? Why are they doing all of this?" Katelyn asked. The three were silent for none of them had a legit answer.

"Wait... Doc I have a question." Rai said. "For the brainwashing or whatever they do, how long do you think it would take to make everyone into what they made Ben?"

"Well I imagine they can only do one a day. That also depends on the will of the person and the strength of them."

"How long until the zoids are back into commission?" Rai asked.

"Well, one maybe two days and we will have them running good again."

"Yes!" Rai exclaimed as she started to jump into the air.

"What, what is wrong with you?" Katelyn asked.

" Nothing this is perfect. Look, the zoids will be ready soon. And it takes a while for the Backdraft to turn our friends. So if we get in there really fast we can save a few of our friends."

" Remember Rai, what I said was only a hypothesis. It may not be true."

"But still. To enhance someone has to take a while. And brainwashing has been done before. And it is harder to do that to strong minded people. The same with stubborn people. It takes a while. And if they could have done them all at once they would have sent them all at once. Either to wipe us out or convert us. But only Ben was there. So that must mean they have a timeframe in-between the people they can do." Rai finished.

"You do bring up valid points but how will we find them?" Doc asked.

" Surely we can not try the same way Kouri did it. May be just another trap.

"Well we were prepared today. Kase is perfectly fine, and he has a tracker on him. This was our plan as soon as Kouri rushed in. We both have a tracker on us and we each can tell where each other is by this little handheld." Rai said and pulled out a little silver handheld that looked like a planner.

"Well I think we have a plan now. Rai monitor them until they stop. We will launch our attack then." Doc said.

"Now let us see where they are headed." Katelyn said as Rai flipped open the handheld.

A/N: Mwuhahahahahahahahaha! This chapter is short. Now I laugh at you because this is super funny. I made you wait all that long time for me to update so you could read a few measly pages. Well please no flamers cause I do not like that stuff and I am a very violent person by nature (if you couldn't tell already. Well the next chapter will be longer. I promise. And it will be super awesome and full of action. You know how I know???? I have already written it. Mwuahahahahahahahaha... cough... cough. Damnit where the hell are my Halls Fruit Breezers. Screw it. Well tune in for the next chapter.