Zoids Rhapsody

Into the Mist

Chapter Two: Endowment

As the unforgiving desert's sun finally sank to the horizon, cooling the air a fraction, Chesnee pointed vaguely towards a hotel. Not getting the message off the bat, Josh stared dumbly, blinking. It was Jamie, who broke the unbearable silence that ensued, saying,

"The bloke means we need to get a room for the night!" Chesnee nodded satisfactorily, and Josh mimicked with a bemused air. Jamie shook his head, what had he gotten himself in to?

The clerk behind the receptions desk was a massive man who looked like he had just eaten an Evil Pegasus, and looked like he'd kill you at the drop of a gyro cap. Sensing this, Jamie stood back and let Josh step up to do the talking. A few brisk exchanges and they had a room for the night, at a mere 850 credits.

"Eight hundred HOW many!" Jamie demanded as he dropped the suitcase he always kept in his Gunsniper onto a creaking bunk. There were only two bunks, at that.

"Well…" Josh began stiffly, "He made it sound like a good deal…" Jamie slapped his face. He hated it when people sugarcoated things; they always managed to frick something up. Chesnee shook his head gently and squeezed between the two, dropping two bags onto the nearest bunk.

"The floor is metal. Metal, Josh, metal! Do you know what that means?" Jamie demanded, stomping over to an obnoxiously large window that overlooked the gloomy town.

"Um… cold feet?" Josh offered stupidly, shrugging. Chesnee flashed a smile that neither of them saw. Jamie turned on the taller man fiercely, snarling comically.

"No, Josh, not just cold feet! A cold fricking ARSE! I am NOT sleeping on this floor!"

There was silence.

-----

The next morning, Jamie became increasingly aware of warmth about his midsection that hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. He looked down nervously, and saw a darkly tanned arm draped snugly about his stomach. He freaked, for lack of a better word.

"CHES!" He screamed, leaping from the cot and clinging to his own arms. The older man peeked one eye open lazily, then noted the red mark around his comrade's belly—it was shaped like an arm.

"'Phobe," he said sleepily, rolling over and snoring immediately. Josh, however, did not go back to sleep, but stood lazily, stretched languidly, and said pointedly, "Well, you're the one who did not want to get a…cold arse. I daresay it was quite warm during the night."

"Dude, stop it!" Jamie screeched, his voice shooting up two or three octaves. "That crap's wrong!" Josh merely smiled an all-too-knowing smile and walked, clad only in his shorts, to the bathroom.

Jamie stared at the bronze back of his other comrade before daring to dive into his suitcase for clothes of his own. He hastily pulled out a red silk shirt and brown cargos, and then waited patiently by the bathroom door, trying to slow his beating heart. He didn't hate homosexuals by any stretch of the imagination, it was just…a long story. He preferred not to think of it.

Josh left the bathroom clad in his dull grey pilot's suit, now fully shaven ("Damn, where'd Josh go?"), and Jamie entered, slinging his clothes onto the sink. He reached into the narrow excuse for a shower stall and fought a good six or seven minutes to get the hot water on before it finally obliged, causing him to slam his head against the wall from effort, and the water to shoot out with a genocidal vengeance.

"HOT!" He screamed, leaping out, "HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, and HOT!" He cursed under his breath as he forced the cold nozzle into existence, notably cooling the water, but adding to its menacing spray. Just before he stepped in, he heard Chesnee's voice say rather loudly,

"Everyone knows that Slash Liger racing is carried on mainly for the delight and profit of fools, ruffians, and thieves."

'Man, that guy needs to work on learning some one-liners, if he's gonna be a one-liner,' Jamie thought peevishly as he stepped under the soothing warm spray of the showerhead. As his entire body began to relax, he thought, 'So this is why it's eight-hundred and fifty credits for this scaremonger of a bunghole."

-----

After the three of them were bathed, dressed, and packed (Jamie pointedly not looking at Chesnee), they left, simply enough. Or so it seemed.

Ka-BAM!

"What the –" Jamie began.

"Saber," Chesnee said slowly, pointing in his vague way, "Kitten."

"Eh?"

"ZOIDS! NOW!" Josh screamed, harsh with them for the first time. As they turned and bolted for the hangar, a Saber Tiger pealed the skies with a blood-chilling roar and unloosed a volley from its chest-mounted impact cannons.

Jamie smiled inwardly as his Gunsniper crouched down low to let him in as soon he stepped into the hangar. He hastily threw his bag into the cockpit behind him, shut the canopy, and pulled on his safety harnesses. Josh's face appeared on the screen shortly thereafter.

"We need a plan, because me sensors say that there's four of those damned things."

"Four!"

"Cats have bangs of malice…"

Silence.

"Right, so what do we do?"

"Well, I would seem to be the only one truly outfitted for close-combat, so I'll engage thusly. Jamie, see if you can get around them and find a good sniping position. I know what that Zoid is capable of. Chesnee, I want you to pick on whatever feline isn't in your sights at the same time as me or Jamie. All clear? GO!"

Without another thought on the matter, the three Zoids trampled out of the Hangar. Unfortunately, that also meant that Chesnee ran smack into a Saber Tiger. He thrust the Dibison's horns into the dull red Zoid's side and threw it a good hectometer almost casually.

"I stand corrected," Josh said through the PA as he charged the nearest enemy, blades alit, "He's outfitted for melee warfare as well!" Jamie allowed himself a laugh at this remark, but soon enough returned focus to the task at hand: getting to a safe sniping range.

"Here, kitty, kitty," Chesnee muttered as he and a Saber Tiger paced at standoff, circling each other slowly. He had the Dibison's head lowered enough to give his opponents a clear view down seventeen large gun barrels, but had it high enough to pose a rather "horny" threat were he to decide to charge. His Zoid pawed at the ground in challenge, snorting steam through its mechanical nostrils, which acted as air vents for the cockpit. Growing bored of formalities; Chesnee opened up the throttle and rushed the enemy, taking him unawares.

"Night-night," he said as his smashed into the Saber Tiger, which was, by a fashion, much more brittle than the Dibison. Unfortunately, he sent the Zoid skidding arse-over-teakettle into a building, which promptly crumbled. "Oops," he muttered, clearly unconcerned. He even discharged a ferocious seventeen-shot barrage into the heap of rubble to ensure his kill.

"Hey, Ches… lay off the property damage a bit, man," Jamie said over the COM Link. Ches smiled and closed the connection before searching for his next foe.

Josh was in the middle of playing a game of angry-blade-strewn-kitty versus pissed-off-gun-laden-kitty; he'd happened upon a Great Saber. The red Zoid was darting in and out of sight, using its flight pack with extreme skill. Every now and then he found himself leaping over a trio of missiles that came from seemingly nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"This is making me very, very up—" he was cut of as an explosion rocked his Zoid, and the Great Saber fell to the earth in a heap. Reflexively, he dug a blade into its side to ensure that it was out of action.

"You owe me, silk-mouth," Jamie said, his face appearing on the screen with a smug curl to his lips.

"Silk-mouth?" Josh stated plainly, coolly extending another blade and letting a Saber Tiger impale itself on it. "I don't much care for nicknames, Jamie. But thank you, you're doing you job wonderfully. Top marks."

"Blah, blah, top-marks, schmop-marks," Jamie said to himself as he closed the COM Link and swiveled back around into Sniping position. He found the last of the enemy Zoids, and noted that Chesnee was closing in on it, the Dibison bellowing.

'What the hell's he doing?' He thought to himself. The fool was charging, not shooting. The next thing he knew, the Saber Tiger went up out of his viewfinder's range, then fell again a few moments later, smoldering gently. He heard Ches's voice say something to the effect of "Put rabid vermin to sleep," but couldn't swear by it.

"Well, only one round of ammo fired, and no damage to our Zoids," Jamie said after he rotated his chair back to piloting position. His Zoid gave a yawn and again shook like a dog.

"Identity crisis," Chesnee muttered resolutely. Jamie pursed his lips, but was cut off by Josh thus:

"Yes, indeed, a fine job, considering it's our first battle together. Granted, only a bit of teamwork truly took place, what with Jamie sniping down the Great Saber. We'll have to work on coordinating our attacks just like that. Jamie, kudos. Chesnee…well, what can I say? You got two kills; I got one and shared one with Jamie. And you didn't fire a round. I'm impressed. Whoever it was that was attacking you when we found you must have been—"

"Stop talking."

Josh blinked, surprised and slightly offended. All conversation ground to a halt with that one. Then, a civilian came running up to their Zoids, hands waving frantically. He looked friendly enough, so Jamie stood, opening his canopy, to greet the man.

"Can we be of service, kind gentleman?" He asked as politely and buttering-up-ly as he could possibly fathom, smiling. The Gunsniper bent down slowly to let its friend out so he could speak at eye-level.

Or close enough. The man that approached was literally a ball, grotesquely overweight and somewhat disproportionately lacking in height, to put it delicately. He came up to Jamie's navel. Panting voraciously, the man put a monocle to his eyes, and said,

"Oh…but…you already…have. Those…pesky tigers…were terror…rizing…our city…daily. Thank you very…very much!" Jamie nodded modestly and shook the proffered hand, but what came next floored him.

"I would like to offer you our most grateful thanks . . . say, an upgrading armament for each of your Zoids, and…50,000 credits?"

Jamie was speechless. Abso-fricking-lutely speechless. His jaw hung in slack and he nearly fell over, but Chesnee caught him. He hastily regained his balance and stood as far away as respectfully possible.

"We will humbly accept your rewards, though we performed the service with the humble intentions of voluntary actions," Josh stated delicately, bending over to pat the small (?) man's shoulder. Everyone now grinned, though Chesnee's excuse for a grin was slightly…depressing.

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Fin.

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