Things changed after the Royal Cup.
Not terribly, but they changed.
With the unscheduled break in battling while the worldwide Satellite issues were being sorted, a lot of catching up was done. Parties held between rival teams, spendy celebrations by high-tier victors, Zoids given thorough, doting maintenance.
Team allegiances changed. True to his word (and much to Naomi's delight), Brad ended his employment with the Blitz Team and signed onto Team Fluegel. Despite much playful prodding to stay, Leon took this switch as his cue to return to his father's Team. With Brad gone and Leena deciding to go off to college after the Royal Cup's harrowing events, the Blitz Team would be in need of another warrior.
Toros could no longer deny that Bit had paid off his outstanding debts. For all intents and purposes, Bit was now the Liger's sole owner - not that anyone had ever contested that, or would dare try take it away. The blonde could've gone anywhere, done anything, but decided to hang around the Team he had no real reason to leave. They were basically family at this point, and it wasn't as if he had anywhere else to be. Besides, Jaime was a really good cook.
Layon recovered from the injuries he'd sustained during the Royal Cup within a few weeks. He was surprised when, ultimately, no ZBGF personnel showed up. He'd expected to have to come up with some long-winded tale to disavow his involvement with Backdraft. Instead there were just nurses, doctors, and Toros, who showed up to have a solemn talk with him early on.
Toros was genuinely grateful that Layon had saved Leena. For once, the leader of the Blitz Team didn't jeer, he didn't jab, didn't try to one-up Layon in the slightest. Just said his piece and left, cautioning the man against getting mixed up with the wrong crowd again.
After being discharged from the hospital, Layon promptly ignored that advice.
With some of his on-hand cash, Layon picked out a small Rev Raptor with which to get around. Agile, fleet, and more than capable of defending itself, it was a good, cheap holdover until Layon figured out how to proceed.
Proceed… not only with his life and work in general, but with how he'd go about replacing his destroyed Whale King. Whale Kings weren't common and usually had to be custom built. He was hoping that Backdraft might have a spare, or at least one he could use. But returning to the main Backdraft HQ proved impossible. It was abandoned, in ruins, and cordoned off - presumably by the ZBGF.
His young Rev Raptor craned its neck at the destruction, curious. Layon idly began to wonder if the amount of times he found himself leery of and/or cursing the ZBC and ZBGF pointed to a problem.
With them, of course.
Layon didn't think for a second that the Backdraft Organization was gone. And he knew he'd still be of value to them - as were likewise they to him. Backdraft, with its rich donors and deep pockets, had sophisticated bases all over the world. Many of those had large transports. Surely they could spare one for their resident genius. None of the comm channels or frequencies he knew were transmitting, however. Unable to make contact, he debated his next move.
The Rev Raptor chuffed at its pilot's long inaction.
Layon actually had a small house - well, small base/lab - of his own. It was closest to Backdraft's Mackaray base, an extensive and well-hidden underground complex largely used for R&D. Because of its resources and closeness to where he'd been living anyways, it was the base he'd worked at most, and was thus most familiar with.
He shrugged to himself, and set off that way.
The room was dark and smelled of medicine and electronics.
Sara stood beside a medical bed, looking down at her unconscious son. Vega was practically smothered by leads, wires, tubes - he was in a medically-induced coma. Silent and still bar the rhythmic hum and hiss of the ventilator.
She knew someone was there, behind her, watching. She said nothing for a long time, waiting to see if Alteil would announce his presence. Walk closer. Do anything. But he didn't, just stood. Dangerous blue eyes finally slid with a sharp glance.
"This is your fault."
The man looked down his nose at her. "Who, exactly, couldn't wait to give away what I found?"
"You lied to me. Lied to the Committee."
Alteil's face twisted. Smug, but terse. "Perhaps. But you've been lying since you got here. I had some catching up to do."
She turned to the man, expression tight with anger. "How dare you. How dare you take your petty bullshit out on him!"
"I tried to stop this."
"You tried to kill him."
"Sara. Who in their right mind gives such a powerful force as an Ultimate X Zoid to a child, with minimal testing or oversight?"
Her eyes went dead with the effort of withholding emotion; she had no answer. Alteil held up a data-tablet in her direction, but it was an item that clearly came with conditions. Sara glanced at it, then him.
"Step down, and tell the Committee you were wrong." Alteil said. "Then you can have this."
She refused to give him the satisfaction of betraying the desperation eating her alive.
"What is that?"
"These are documents we unearthed with the Berserk Fury and the Geno Saurers. The information was unfortunately well-encrypted and took us quite some time to get into." Alteil wasn't as good at masking his inner state: his jaw set, cold. "There was a reason they buried the thing."
"What reason?"
Alteil shook his head, withdrew the tablet, and turned away. "No resignation, no information."
"You're lying. That's not real, is it."
Sara watched Alteil's face tick through a spectrum of surprised microexpressions, but none of them revealed what she wanted: verification. She'd always had an inexplicably sharp sense of others, and it told her with its unwavering precision that Alteil really wasn't lying. He did have the information he claimed to.
"Sara. The Berserk Fury is dangerous. We've made a mistake."
"What kind of mistake!?"
Alteil silently shook the tablet. Sara sighed.
"Fine. I'll do it."
"Then let's go speak with the Committee, first. They should know as well."
"So… it's genuinely Imperial?"
One obscured member of the Committee of Seven leaned towards the videscreen curiously. Alteil twitched a brow at the wide row of monitors representing the Committee's presence. It'd be a while before they convened again in any physical sense, given how thoroughly they'd scattered from the recent duress.
"Yes." Alteil replied. "As you're aware, it was found buried in the sea, with a number of rare Geno Saurers buried nearby. Only the Guylos Empire ever produced Geno Saurers, and this documentation indicates that the Berserk Fury, itself a unique and unrecorded Zoid, is an… an evolution, of the Geno Saurer."
"Zoids don't evolve." Another of the Committee scoffed. "They're built."
"I... I don't think Ultimate X's are."
This drew various laughter. Alteil scowled. Even after...
Sara stood to one side, shrouded in darkness, chagrined and disgraced by what she'd been forced to admit only minutes prior. She glanced up and glowered at Alteil, but her rage burned hot at the Committee as well. She had been voraciously combing through the documents on the tablet. Alteil wasn't embellishing a damn thing. Yet...
"Do you mean to say you've discovered Organoids too?" Another of the Committee said, humored. "Have you found wild Orudios gallivanting about as well?"
More roiling laughter. Snide, unpleasant. Alteil looked at Sara blankly. Sara, however, snapped.
"We did this so we could down the Satellites, so we could isolate the Royal Cup participants, so we could provide you all with the best entertainment. He went on his wild goose chase and came back with a peacock. And you still won't take him seriously. This isn't a joke. These are military Zoids. That's why they have charged particle weapons. Alteil's ridiculous persistence is the only reason we even had access to a charged particle weapon to begin with. Given these Zoids' performance and what we've seen out of them, why would any of this," The woman brandished the tablet at the row of screens, "be funny? What reason do you have to think it's not true?"
Silence, for a few moments.
Then, chiding: "Organoids aren't real, Sara."
"Ultimate X's certainly are." Alteil muttered.
Various murmurings from the group. They discussed something amongst themselves. Then:
"This doesn't really matter. When will the Berserk Fury be available for use again?"
The room went icy, hostile.
"Vega is very ill." Sara enunciated carefully, walking a razor wire of composure. "I don't kn-"
"You shouldn't have let Obscura pilot such a dangerous Zoid. It's our sincere hope that our King recovers, as our clientele do love seeing his extraordinary battles. That wasn't what I asked."
After seconds of quiet, Alteil realized that Sara had no response. He spoke up in her stead. "We'll let you know as soon as repairs are complete."
"Very good."
Polta stood off to one side, also having been present in the dark the whole time. At a gesture from Alteil, he shut off the comm-link and carefully idled the equipment. His terse expression never changed, his attention fixed on Sara.
Sara simply stared at the empty screens. Alteil wanted to smirk at her, but it died halfway to his face. A pyrrhic victory.
"We have to get rid of it." He said.
The silence hung. After a few seconds she shook her head and mumbled something about Vega.
"Sara. That Zoid was condemned. By Gunther Prozen himself."
Sara didn't know her history books as well as Alteil did, and her confused, dismissive scowl said as much. The man grunted, unimpressed.
"The Imperial Army decided not to use it. In a war."
The woman shook her head again, more rapidly, clicking a fingernail on the screen of the tablet. "No. This says the pilots all died. Quickly. Vega piloted it for days. And he isn't… he's not dying. He's fine. He's just…" She lacked a good descriptor.
"Caught up in it?" Polta offered.
"Yes."
Alteil couldn't really argue any of that, but his expression made it clear he didn't care. "The Fury goes crazy if Vega's awake. We can't - what options do you think we have here? That thing has charged particle weaponry. It can easily kill us all. HE can easily kill us all."
"He w-" Sara thought better of a complete denial, and that alone pushed a note of fear into her words. "The Fury's been stripped down. It's contained. And they know they can't fire the cannon without-"
"Sara." Alteil's voice surged with hostility. "I'm not interested in risking the lives of everyone here for the sake of your brat."
Silence. The woman leveled a severe gaze. "You are asking me to kill my son."
Alteil didn't speak but his answer was obvious, etched into every line of his face.
The two looked like opposed vipers, cold study balanced with a lofty ponderance of when to strike. Polta glanced uneasily between them.
"Sir. M'am. What if we- what if we tried to find it another pilot?"