DR: Okay, now let's get on with the story. Stick around, you might be surprised...

Zeke: Too right!

DR: Shadow, since you're up getting popcorn, would you mind hitting the 'Disclaimer' button?

Shadow: Sure

DISCLAIMER: Dragon-Raptor does not own Zoids, or any characters or units from the show. Original characters are his however. (Shadow munches on popcorn)

Zeke: Can I have some of that?

Shadow: Sure.

Chapter 16: Rising Stakes

The next morning the Blitz team was mostly up bright and early. Each having their own reasons for being up so rapidly that day. Bit Cloud was psyching himself up for the battle today. It was promising to be a real challenge. Add to that the stakes at hand, and it was enough to fire anyone up!

Leena too was up early, but for different reasons. She had had a troubled night, thoughts about Bit and Harry running though her mind. The nightmare of Bit losing to Harry played out over and over, and Leena was worried. She knew, deep in her heart where she would never admit it, that she was the weakest link in the team. Oh she had her moments, but rarely did she pull off the kind of battle wining stunts that Bit and Brad, hell even Jamie, could pull out of the hat. If the worst came to the worst and Bit lost, she knew the rest of the team would choose to say goodbye to her. The Blitz Team could not afford to lose the Liger Zero. Too much of their success rested on it.

So she had spent a sleepless night, unable to sleep, the dreadful thought of being married to an insane

Harry dominating her.

Jamie was up simply because he set this alarm to this time, as did Leon. Both knew they had to get to the shower early, before Leena could. She had always taken forever. Doc would sleep in for a bit longer, before bouncing up all excited at the prospect of a battle. He was also eager to see if last night's hard work by Bit and the others had paid off.

The only people who were slow to rise were Brad and Naomi. Ever since she and Leon had moved in, Leon had returned to his old room, while she bunked with Brad. Last evenings discovery had forged a new bond between them, and they held onto each other while they made love during the night even tighter.

Brad laid there, his arms round her, her head tucked just below his chin. He knew soon they were going to need a bigger bed, as the one they had at that time was a single only. With two of them it was very cosy. When their child began to show, she'd soon push him out.

He still had trouble believing it. Their child, conceived right in this bed. What ever happened from now on, they were now tied together in a way that few people could.

She gently stirred, before lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were still red rimmed from last night's tears. Like all the other mornings that she had awoken in his arms her hair was a mess, tangled and interwoven, clumped by sweat from their passion. He thought she looked even more beautiful like that.

"Brad, I wish we could stay here forever…" she began.

"But?"

"I'm hungry." She answered plaintively. Brad smiled down at her.

"So am I…" He gently caressed her under the covers. She smiled back as he lowered his head, and they came together again.

X-X-X-X-X-X

Doc was cramming a second slice of toast in his mouth as he pulled up the latest mail. A couple of death threats against the team from rogue Backdraft members, half a dozen soppy love letters addressed to Bit, couple more each for Brad and Jamie, a heap full of marriage proposals for Leena – from men who had never seen her day-to-day life - and dozens of offers to buy the Liger Zero by various Zoid dealers and collectors. Pretty much a normal days post since they won the Royal Cup. Deleting the junk, he pulled up the only official letter that had come though.

Sure enough, it was from the ZBC, bearing the details of the battle today. Despite the gap in Harry and Bit's ranks, Harry always got his battle requests approved. Steve guessed Harry either had a friend or relative on the board, or he simply used money to lube the gears. When he noted down the location, he saw that the site was the Kampala Crater, one of the strangest geological formations in Europa. It would be like that fight in the ruined city again. Narrow fields of view, sharp bends, blind corners. A game of hide and seek.

After Brad and Naomi joined the others, after her normal bout of morning sickness, they all sat down to consider the battle.

"So Bit, it's going to be rather like that first battle with Harry, in the ruined cityscape." Bit nodded as he recalled that one. Jamie pushed on. "You do have an advantage at close range compared to him, but don't even think about attacking him head on. That extra armour and shield frill will deflect anything you could throw at it."

"Ideally, you should aim to attack from behind." Leon put in around his coffee mug. "He'll have to bring his guns to bear, which will give you a few extra seconds to close the range."

Bit grinned. "I know. Exciting isn't it?" Leena dropped her forehead onto her hand. Bit could never be daunted. She found this trait of his both exhilarating and frustrating in equal measure.

"Say Bit, have you talked to Liger today?" Naomi asked between bites of toast. She was already onto her fourth slice.

"Nope."

"Well, let's go down and see then?" Doc clapped.

Quickly the assembled Blitz team walked down to the hanger. Soon they gathered in front of the Liger while Bit climbed up to inspect each pod externally. From outside the changes since last night were clear. The LRM pods were now white like the rest of the armour, while around the 'Splinters' all the small gaps had been filled with seamless metal. Bit was always amazed at the flawlessness of the Ligers finish. Human intervention sped up the process immensely, but any zoid could self repair almost any damage, given enough time.

Steve looked disappointed. "It looks like you made barely any changes…" He moaned.

"Most of them are internal." Jamie pointed out.

Bit was now sitting in the cockpit, punching up readouts. The systems stated everything was green and good to go. The power levels were about thirty percent higher than normal. No doubt the Liger would take the credit for the extra ten percent over Naomi's estimate. Test firing of all four individual missile pods came back clear, but Bit wanted a second opinion.

"What do you think Liger? All systems go?"

#Oh yea! Bring him on!# The Liger bellowed, rattling the hanger.

Bit grinned as he lent out of the cockpit to look down at the others. "He's happy, so let's get this show on the road!"

X-X-X-X-X-X

The view from the edge of the Kampala Crater was breath taking. The basic shape was formed thousands of years ago, when a large comet had crashed into Zi. The resulting crater was almost thirty miles wide, but only half a mile deep at the centre. It lay on a convergence of fault lines, causing a number of earthquakes each year that were sufficient to alter the landscape within. Due to the nature of the faults, chunks of the bedrock had been thrust upwards or dropped down, creating a maze of rocky corridors and potholes. The ZBC would have avoided the area, since the earthquakes were unpredictable. However it was one of the few spots were they could hold ground zoid only battles.

To add to the strangeness of the crater, a central column of rock, thrown up shortly after the impact, had remained the same ever since. Also there was a strip around the broken region of ground were the craters surface was smooth rock, blasted by the heat of impact. The rim was crumbling after all the years, but the crater formed an impressive arena. Its wide range of terrain always supported amazing battles, and nearly all fans tuned in when a battle was held here.

As the Blitz team surveyed the battlefield, Harry's voice came over the radio. "Ah, at last you're here. About time…" He grumbled. Bit's eye's narrowed as he picked out the dark red hull of Harry's Whale King sitting on the far side of the crater.

The Blitz Team had spent all that morning and most of the afternoon looking over the Hover Cargo and loading the Liger Zeros new weapons. Though none of the other zoids would be fighting, Doc had pointed out that it was a good time to work on the Hover Cargo itself. The massive snail like zoid transport was the mobile home of the Blitz team, and was their means to get their zoids to battles. With the team expanding soon, they needed to consider how to adapt it to accommodate more zoids.

With potentially five extra zoids and their pilots to carry, the interior would have to undergo some serious changes. The central drum storage section had enough platforms for six zoids, but that still left three to fit in. And both the Elephander and Berserker Fury posed problems of their own. Each was larger and heavier than most of the other expected zoids. The Elephander in fact weighed more than the Liger Zero in its panzer armour. Fortunately rooms for pilots were not an issue; the Blitz team only used half of the available space. The Hover Cargo had been designed as a mobile base, complete with support staff and a permanent crew.

Studying the Hover Cargos specifications, Leon noted that the central chamber could handle up to eight zoids at once. It would require some major reworking of the pad system, but it could be done. The only doubt was that the space left for each zoid would be quite small, so would the Berserker Fury fit?

Jamie suggested using Genosaurer data as a base, the closest known zoid to the Fury. However the issue was helped when Sarah and Vega arrived later on in the morning. When asked, Sarah told them that she had talked to her minder again earlier. She had explained that she was considering asking to join the Blitz team, which was why she wished to visit again. The minder had cleared her, wishing her all the luck in her request. He clearly thought she was no longer a threat.

Leon asked Vega if he remembered the stats for the Fury, weight, length and so forth. Those that Vega couldn't Sarah did, her powerful memory proving useful again. After a careful check of the diagrams, Leon breathed easily. The Fury would fit. Now it was simply a case of getting the Hover Cargo to a workshop capable of doing the work. The task called for specialist skills and tools that the Blitz simply did not have.

But now the whole team and the Obscuras put those thoughts out of their minds. Vega had wanted to come along to see the battle in person, and Sarah had no objections. Secretly she was more interested in Leon, but she tried not to show it. Vega knew though, which was partly the reason he had asked her about going with the Blitz in the first place.

"Bit here, ready to mobilise the Liger Zero!" Bit cried over the radio as the Hover Cargos delivery ramp lowered into place. Once his pad was locked in place, Bit had the Liger place its front paws on the ramp. Powerful electromagnets alongside the ramp built up their charge.

"Gooo LIGER!" Bit cried as the Liger was catapulted forward, sailing gracefully though the air before landing almost delicately on the sand at the rim of the crater.

On the far side, Harry's Dark Horn ambled down the main access ramp of his Whale King. The ramp trembled with each heavy footfall. The reinforced front legs easily brought the hugely over armoured head up as it cleared the ramp. Harry pulled up in a near mirror image of Bit and the Liger.

"Ah Bit Cloud. I was half expecting you to have pulled out." Harry sneered from within his cockpit.

"Dream on Harry." Bit countered easily. "Add it to your collection."

"Oh Mr Cloud!" A female voice intruded as a new comm window popped up. "I hope you've been taking care of my darling snowflake for me!"

Bit groaned at the sound of Mary Champ. So did Harry and most of the Blitz team. Vega's face fell in pure shock.

"She calls the Liger Zero 'her SNOWFLAKE?'" He spluttered.

In response, the Liger roared loudly. Bit grinned broadly, Vega flushed and Sarah narrowed her eyes.

"Oh, my darlings happy to see me!" Mary cried in excitement. You could almost see the hearts spinning round her head.

"Actually, he was saying were you could shove your 'snowflake' obsession with him." Bit interrupted. "I won't repeat what he said. Young people might be listening…"

"Too late Bit." Vega told him. "Remember, I can understand him too." But he was smiling.

"Opps." Bit grinned back.

"But I have to agree with the Liger." Vega had to say.

"Vega!" Sarah glared at her son.

In the Liger's cockpit Bit could only laugh as both Mary's and Harry's faces grew redder. Mary was, surprisingly, the first to explode.

"Oh, you'll pay for that! Bit you must be teaching him bad habits, not to mention bad words! I'm going to have to house break him!"

"Actually, he's the fouler mouthed one. Knows a few curses that even I can't follow, and would really…"

"All right that's enough!" Harry stormed. "Let's get this over with so I can have my sweet Leena!"

"Harry, you know you have to wait for the Judge…" Mary began.

As if on cue, the Judge capsule rocketed down from orbit, landing with pinpoint precision on the central column of rock. Once fully extracted, the Judge started its battle speech.

"The surrounding 15 mile radius is now a designated Zoid battlefield. Only contestants and support personal are allowed entrance. Danger!" After a few seconds scanning the crater the Judge continued. "Area scanned, battlefield set…"

"Bit!" Leon yelled.

"Oh, right. Hey Judge!" Bit hailed the Judge.

"What pilot?" The Judge was not happy at being interrupted.

"I wish to registers a few modifications to the Basic Liger Zero."

"WHAT?" Harry screamed.

"Please transmit details of modifications, or have your support personal do so now." Up in the Hover Cargo Jamie quickly sent the file to the Judge on a sub-channel. The Judge began to review the file.

"You…you can't register changes to your zoid just before a battle!" Harry yelled again. "Judge, I protest this in the strongest possible terms! Bit Cloud has broken the rules, and by default I have won!"

"Warrior Bit Cloud has broken no rules within my jurisdiction." The Judge replied calmly. "All changes to the Liger Zero Basic have been documented and filed. Submission complete and approved." The Judge returned to where it had left off. "Area Sc…"

"Bit, you can not do this!" Harry screeched.

"You heard the Judge, it ruled in my favour." Bit smirked back at Harry. "Nothing you can do about it." Within the Hover Cargo, several of the rest of the Blitz were struggling to contain their amusement.

"Oh really?" Bit was suddenly worried by the twisted look that came to Harry's face. "Oh Judge?"

If it was possible for a droid to look exasperated with no facial features, the Judge did it. "What, Pilot?"

"Under challenger's right authorisation, I'm raising the stakes in this battle." Bit felt a coil of dread form in his stomach as Harry continued. "New prize money; One Million credits." A startled hush fell across the Hover Cargo. "If the Blitz team loses, then the Liger Zero, its alternate armours, and Leena Toros would be accepted instead of a monetary transaction."

"Oh brilliant move little brother, though do you have to include that tramp of a girl too?" Mary applauded her brother.

"Mary, you can teach her to be respectful." Harry answered her, an evil glint in his eye. "I'll make sure that she'll be… receptive to your suggestions."

"Deliberating… deliberating… deliberating… Increase in Prize Money amount and conditions… Approved."

Vega felt like throwing up, and most of the others were not much better. Leena was trembling out of fear. Now Bit had to win: there was no margin for error. Leon wrapped an arm round her in comfort, but she hardly felt it.

Bit to was trembling, but not from fear. "Harry, you've gone too far this time!"

"Well, as I was going to have to challenge you again within a couple of days for the Liger, I might as well raise the stakes and take everything all at once."

"Will there be anymore interruptions?" The Judge asked forcefully. When no one answered, it resumed in its normal tone.

"Area scanned, Battlefield set up! Bit Cloud Vs Harry Champ, Battle mode 0992. Ready… FIGHT!"

Shadow: Harry's gone and done it now...

Zeke: Oh yeah!