DR: Well here we are people, the main event at last! Let's get ready to rumble...

Shadow: Yea yea...

DR: Now, before I start, let me explain something. I've noticed with FF writers that when they do large battles (especially space battles), it becomes a little... dull. Sort of '...These guys lose 4 type A ships and 9 type B's, while those guys lose 5 ships...' (ack, hard to describe) So, to hopefully counter this, I've A) concentrated on the Blitz team's actions, & B) tried to show the flow and overall feeling of the battle, rather than give a running body count.

Zeke: Did it work?

DR: (sighs) I don't know.

Irvine: Well, good luck.

DR: Thanks. Now fasten your seatbelts, make sure your tray tables are in the upright and locked positions, and hold on to your hats! We've got despair, incredible bravery, hope, hideous destruction, the clashing powers of gods, and a few cliffhangers up ahead!

Chapter 53: Honour The Brave

All but two beings that saw the demise of Hiltz were shaken to his or her core. True he was considered one of the most evil men who had ever lived, but to die like that! It was horrific! The marching Cybrids advanced, the ground trembling from the thousands of footfalls. The Death Saurer itself towered over the mountains, glaring across at the city, the air around it seeming to take on a bloody hue.

Zoid Eve however remained resolute. She was terrified, but she was also tired of running. And even if she did run, he would eventually track her down. His new army would scour the planet looking for her. She could never escape. This had to end, now!

Taking a deep breath, she reached out with her power, infusing all the zoids with her strength. All the zoids who had participated in the destruction of the Cybrid factory were suddenly refreshed, their power cells fully charged again. Each zoid felt in their cores the touch of their god, their literal mother, and a new surge of confidence and defiance filled them. Eve redirected her power, giving her greatest servants a small fraction of her strength, before she had to withdraw. She had to conserve herself, to assist the cities shields withstand the coming storm.

Christian was the only man who did not quail at the sight. In fact his only reaction was a narrowing of his eyes. As Eve touched Mnementh, the zoids strength returned. The dragon zoid stood tall again, and a pale light shone from him, as if in rivalry to the blood hued light of the Death Saurer.

"All units, FIRE AT WILL!" He bellowed into the comm system before engaging the boosters. The blue dragon rocketed into the air, a bellow of defiance splitting it and snapping all the City Guard members out of their shock.

With a deafening bellow, the huge three-horned zoid broke into a run, closely followed by the Unicorn zoid, the HERC, Zeke and Shadow. Van had asked Bit if he could borrow the Schneider armour, and Bit had allowed him to do so. Raven also borrowed the Storm unit from Vega, since it suited his combat style better.

As the five zoids charged headlong, Bit quickly began to prime his missiles. "Let's do this! Doc, get ready to mobilize the Zero armour!"

All along the wall, Pilots began to open fire. The towering Gojulas zoids were rocked back on their feet by their shoulder-mounted cannons, while the Dibison's hunkered down and opened up with their own cannons. Leena started firing her Hybrid Cannon again, each bolt smashing a Cybrid apart. As Bit unleashed all his missiles at once, Jamie and Pierce kicked their engines to full power and rocketed after them, while Derek and Cassandra began to charge their charged particle cannons up again.

The siege had begun…

X-X-X-X-X-X

The young emperor of Guylos sat at his desk, watching the faces of the President of the Helic Republic and the Commissioner of the ZBC. The three of them were holding a videoconference to discuss how to deal with any raids that Hiltz and his troops might make.

"The core of our problems is the wilderness regions," The aging president stated tiredly. "With no towns, or even hamlets for miles, an army could search for years out there and not find anything."

"Yet if we don't find Hiltz's bases, we will always be attacked."

"I agree," the Emperor nodded. "So we have to extended our long range surveillance, and track each attack as it comes in. Maybe they will be careless enough…"

A side door to his chamber was thrown open, and man rushed through, despite the best efforts of his guards. As he raced towards the Emperor, he saw that the man's face had a look of pure terror. The Emperor felt a lump of ice settle in his gut as the man dropped to one knee before him.

"Emperor, please forgive this intrusion, but a report just came in. Patrol zero-nineteen has discovered a path carved right through the Misty Mountains!" Everyone's attention was focused on the trembling man. They witnessed a massive explosion within the chain, and…" the messenger's voice failed.

"What is it?" The Emperor asked as gently as he could. That block of fear was creeping up his spine now.

The man swallowed audibly. "The team report that they have sighted, in their words, 'A towering saurian zoid that dwarfed the mountains, exuding pure evil.' Since then more gunfire has been heard."

There was only one zoid in Zi's history that such a description fitted. All three men were pale faced in shock.

"He did it. He brought back the Death Saurer…" the Helic President gave voice to their fears.

"And it looks like Christian was right. Hiltz and his minions are attacking them first."

"Didn't he say that 'She' was there too?" All three of them knew whom the Emperor meant.

"Aye…"

The man reached up to touch his comm headset. "Sir, the team sent their Redler up the path to scout out the situation. It's transmitting the data back…"

"Bring it up here, now!" The Emperor ordered. With a nod the man spoke a few words, and a large section of the floor opened up to reveal a holo-projector. Quickly it powered up and formed the raw data sent by the distant Redler into a three dimensional image.

"Holy mother…"

Spread out before the Emperor was the entire plain that was before the City. The outer wall was lined with zoids, their guns firing constantly. The City stood tall and proud, defiant and stately. But across on the other side of the plain stood the towering Death Saurer, projecting evil and malice. Across the plain marched a tide of Cybrids, advancing relentlessly into the fire of the city's defenders. Massive detonations encased dozens, but most of the affected Cybrids emerged seemingly unharmed. In the air a pair of zoids danced amongst a cloud of Cybrid flyers, and a small team of zoids charged headlong towards the ranks of death machines. The lead zoid was a juggernaut; it's massively armoured head deflecting all hostile fire. The zoids behind it seemed encased with good, and as they charged forth they fired back.

"Look at the size of that army!"

"They can't survive that! Their all doomed!"

"Wait, is that… it is! The Blitz Team is there!" The Emperor sat up at the Commissioner's words. Sure enough, the zoids of the expanded Blitz team could be seen, all bar the overloaded Gunsniper. The Hover Cargo was pulling back within the city, its job done. The Liger Zero stood besides a much larger zoid, firing away. The Emperor's keen eyes quickly noticed that one of the Genosaurers standing on the gateway was Captain Cortez's, his best zoid pilot. Both zoids sent beams of destruction sweeping across the ranks of the Cybrids, but the losses were a drop in an ocean.

"That pilot is out of his mind! No single zoid can challenge the Death Saurer like that!"

The Presidents words brought the Emperor's eyes back to the monster zoid. Hovering just before the massive head of the Death Saurer was a zoid that compared to anything else would be massive. But compared to the Death Saurer the dragon was nothing more than a large insect. Yet somehow they both were equal and opposite, one shining knight of good, the other a master of evil.

The dragon zoid roared at the zoid version of the devil and fired its missiles, but they barely scratched the monster. In reply the Death Saurer tried to bite down on the smaller zoid, but it darted out of the way just in time. It slashed at the monster's shoulder as it flew past, but the claws just sparked off. The Cybrids were firing back at the city now, balls of energy slamming into the walls or raining down on the shield that protected the city behind them. Beams stabbed out and slammed into the zoids on the walls, some pitched off the back by the impacts. The zoids were hopelessly outnumbered, but they continued to fire back.

"They can't win, but they still fight…" The President's voice was filled with awe.

"Aye. And even if they take out that army, the Death Saurer will destroy them all. And 'She' will be taken, and that will be the end of us all…" The Commissioner slumped in his seat, the very image of despair.

But the Emperor of Guylos was still young enough that his blood was afire and he refused to consign everyone to their doom. Setting his face, he turned to the Captain of his guard.

"Alert all our forces. I want everything zoid and pilot that can fight ready to leave in ten minutes!" The captain took a look at the holo-display, before nodding and turned away to do as the Emperor commanded. He had been the young mans tutor for a long time now, and he knew what the Emperor was planning. And in his heart he knew it was not only the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do.

"You're… you're not sending your forces to help them!" The President cried.

"I am. We cannot allow such brave people to die needlessly. Maybe they won't have to, if we can get there and help." The Emperor rose from his seat, a grim expression on his face. "If the Death Saurer wins, we are all doomed anyway. I for one will not let that happen!"

The Commissioners face shifted his expression stern. He sat upright once more. "Nor will I."

The President's eyes flicked back and forth, taking in the expressions of both men. At last he nodded.

"Agreed. We will help them. If this is the end of our time, then let us go out with one final act of glory."

X-X-X-X-X-X

"Watch out Brad, three from the left!"

"I've got them. Cover me!"

"Don't these things ever just die!"

"Not easily…" Bit answered Jane's question as he body tackled another Cybrid. Both teams had moved forwards to engage the army, and now they were embroiled in close range fighting. Leena had told them her observations from her chase in the canyons, and the Blitz recalled the almost disastrous attack on their home. Now they tag-teamed the Cybrids, concentrating their fire on a couple at a time. Derek, Vega, Cassandra and Jacob remained on the gates, breaking up the Cybrid force with their fire. But the Cybrids withstood even the charged particle cannons very well, and both Genosaurers were reaching the limit of their endurance. Of the other zoids only Leena had the firepower to take one out alone. Stoller and Michael remained either side of the gateway, both engaging the same target. Their combined fire had shredded several Cybrids, but for every one that fell, another two took their place.

'At least our Laser Blades are still effective, once the shields are down.' Quickly the pilots had worked out a tactic to beat the Cybrids powerful shields and heavy armour. They would batter the shields down, then they would close in to deliver a strike laser claw or sideswipe with Laser Blades. Leon and Anna had already racked up a lot of kills each, with Bit and Brad not far behind. Leena's continuously barrage was almost as effective, and the Iguanosaur was nearly as powerful close up. Despite not having any laser blades or claws, the zoid had a lot of mass and could deliver powerful kicks. When one Cybrid had tried to flank her, the zoid had kicked out, sending the Cybrid flying. Others that got too close were simply crushed beneath the zoids feet. Bit suspected that Leena liked doing that a lot, judging from the maniacal laughter that came over the comm system when she did.

'Speaking of flying Cybrids…' Bit glanced again to where the five legendary warriors continued their charge towards the Death Saurer to help out Christian and Mnementh. They simply bulldozed through the Cybrids lines, the huge triceratops zoid either tossing them bodily aside or trampling them beneath its huge mass. The others following it fired left and right continuously, raking the Cybrids they passed with fire. The Liger Zero copy had all the Laser Blades formed into the Seven Blade Attack, and was carving its own path through the machines. Every now and again the Apocalypse lashed it with its Electron Flux weapons, the same kind of weapons that had been used to devastating effect on the Fury. Fires from downed Cybrids marked their wake, but the machines advance was relentless.

In the skies above the battlefield Pierce and Jamie wove through the cloud of Cybrid aircraft almost delicately. Finding that the flyers lacked the shields of their land-bound brethren, the two of them were extracting a bloody toll of the lumbering craft. But their massed fire had almost cut them both down several times, and both pilots were pushing themselves to the limit.

Even with them both fully engaged and the mass that Bit had taken down at the start with his Burning Big Bang, several hundred were still free to strafe the city and the zoids on the walls. The Rev Raptors fired up at them when they could, and AA emplacements on the upper walls filled the air with tracer and flak. But it was like hitting a swarm of bees with a baseball bat. Each swing took out a few, but there were still masses of them.

Along the walls themselves the defending zoids blazed away recklessly, not even bothering to aim. The attacking force was so thick that they couldn't miss. But the Cybrids were coming into range now, and their return fire was as precise as it was deadly. The huge lumbering Bulldogs had been pounding away ever since the start, their guns pounding the walls, or blasting zoids clean off the walls.

But all that paled to insignificance when compared to the titan that stood across the plain. The Death Saurer, now backlit by the setting sun, twirled and spun, trying to remove the nimble dragon zoid Mnementh. The golden eagle zoid made incredibly high-speed strafing runs, but nothing seemed to hurt the monster.

Bit smashed another Cybrids sensor eye in with the Ligers Claws, before charging another that was attempting to flank Leena again. Suddenly the machines eye was smashed apart, the shield glowing and for a second buckling. The Cybrid, blinded by Naomi's precision shot, began firing wildly, unable to see. Another hyper-velocity round smashed into the machines knee, shearing right through and pitching it to fall face first into the muddy ground.

Bit grinned as he skidded to a stop to fire on another machine, the Ligers paws slipping in the mud. The smoke from the burning factory, along with the steam he had created earlier, had combined with a large swath of cloud that had rolled in to form the mother of all thunderstorms. In the twilight, the main sources of light were the raging fires and weapon discharges, with lightning flashes completing the picture. 'At least with this rain we don't have to worry about over heating!'

Brad sawed his laser fire across one Cybrid, before Jane's pulse cannons smashed the things knee apart. As the Diablo fell, Brad saw behind it something that ran his blood cold. "Watch out! We've got one of those Cerberus things here!"

Leena cursed as she chewed another Cybrid apart with her lasers. As the machine fell, fire bursting from the neat holes in its armour, she spun round to face the approaching monster. The Cerberus was already firing away at the others, long chains of tracer snapping at Leon's heels.

"LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!" She snarled as she fired the Hybrid Cannon again. The high-energy beam smashed the shields down before punching right through the Cybrid. The machine was rocked by the impact, but it remained standing. It turned to face her, an evil glint in its blood red eye. Energy began to gather on the prongs that formed the Zoid ELF weapons…

"Oh no you don't!" Leena yelled as she triggered her shock cannons. Mindful of the limited ammo supply, she had been conserving them for the really tough targets. Both shells slammed into the Cerberus with the force of a speeding freight train, their charges going off a millisecond after the shell hit. The twin detonation rocked the Cerberus back, its front armour shattered apart. A twin set of missiles finished it off, the mass of arms falling away as the body was ripped apart.

"Nice one!" Bit commented as he swiped the 'head' off a Diablo. Several of the Cybrids around them paused for a second, before they began to act again. But they were acting less fluidly, no longer trying to combine their fire.

"That Cerberus must have been the control unit for this lot!" Brad smirked as the Shadow Fox leapt onto the back of another Cybrid, bearing it to the ground, where Brad had the Fox tear the Cybrids back off with the Laser Claws before ripping out the central computer gear with the zoids jaws. A chain of detonations marked where Jacob unleashed another barrage over the team's heads into the oncoming horde.

"Don't get cocky." Cassandra's ice-cold tones didn't show a hint of the effort she was putting into the battle. "There's still a lot more of them to come."

As if to punctuate her point, another row of Cybrids appeared from the gloom, their red eyes blazing with hatred and their weapons already spitting fire.

X-X-X-X-X-X

Above them, Jamie swept down on another Land Skimmers tail as it prepared to make another run on the City Guard lining the wall. His lasers ruined the Cybrids left hover pad, sending the machine tumbling to crash just before the scarred wall. As he flew past, Jamie could see how the continuous bombardment was pounding the cities walls part. Cracks were forming in the old stone, and small piles of rubble were collecting all along its length. Yet the walls seemed as strong as ever. 'They sure knew how to build that wall!'

Pierce carved her way through another set of flyers, all three of her laser blades extended. Her lasers were almost white hot from continuous fire, and there were still more flyers to engage! Pushing the Storm Sworder to the max, she weaved her way through the return fire, the lightning discharges overhead throwing the silvers zoids skin into sharp relief.

X-X-X-X-X-X

Stoller sweated underneath his clothing as another set of Cybrids came into range. He and Michael had decided to work together and hold the gate down while the others messed with the Cybrids advance. As such both zoids had their shields deployed and were immobile, hosing down anything that came within range. Michael started the barrage, his twin impact fusion cannons pounding away at the central Diablo. Stoller added the fire from his assault gatling unit to the mix, launching a set of missiles in the bargain. They had quickly found that as the shields power fell off, the slower moving missiles could get through while other weapons would still strike the shield. The detentions rocked the machine, just as another linked blast of Michaels guns punched through the armour. The Cybrid seemed to fold in on itself, before crashing down into the ground, the machine breaking apart on impact.

Behind them all, virtually invisible to the attacking Cybrids, Naomi lined up another shot. The Snipe Master had already proved it's worth, the AZ-18 sniper rifle proving just how powerful and accurate it was. She had started by slapping shot after shot into Cybrid 'eye's, blinding the machines so that they could not tell friend from foe. However it seemed that after a few seconds they began to receive data from other units, allowing them to see again. She had switched to targeting leg joints, predominantly the 'Diablo' units, as their legs were thinner. The others were too thick for her rifle to take out with one shot. As she scanned for another target, she spotted something massive close in on her team-mates.

"Bit! To your left! One of those Bulldogs is heading right for you!"

Bit cursed as he looked at the monstrous machine. The sensor eye was almost hidden by the massive body, shaped a bit like a shoe from the side. The huge turret swung round to point at him, all four strange barrels glowing.

The Liger dived forward, but the mud slowed him down. Even so three of the beams fired missed.

The fourth slammed into the Ligers rear leg. While the particle beam didn't breach the armour, the impact was powerful enough to kick the legs out from underneath Liger, who ended up sprawled on the ground. Bit swiped at his forehead were a little blood was trickling down, before gripping the zoids controls again.

Unfortunately the Liger had fallen into one of the small streams that criss-crossed the plain. The soft mud provided almost no traction, and the Liger struggled to find grip. As a darker shadow fell over him, Bit looked up to see the Bulldogs guns slowly aiming at him again. Laser bolts fired from Brads laser Vulcan sizzled against the huge machines shields, but the Cybrids took no notice.

Leena's heart leapt into her throat when she saw the situation Bit was in. "BIT!" She screamed as she threw her zoid towards him, but another Cerberus blocked her path. The Iguanosaur bowled the machine over, but in doing so fell onto its side…

Leon tried to assist Bit, but a hail of cannon fire cut across his path…

Naomi fired her rifle, but the Bulldogs shields were far more powerful than even the Cerberus's, and the round skimmed off…

Liger tried to find grip in the streambed, but the soft mud refused to give it. All he could do was roar in defiance as the Bulldog lined up the shot…

Zeke: 0.0 Epp!

Irvine: Yikes!

O'Neill: Oh...

DR: I did warn you guys!