It was admittedly strange having someone tag along, but it was nice. Side-by-side the Shadow Fox and Gun Sniper ran, their pace turning casual only once they'd left the flatlands and deserts behind. Naomi let Brad lead the way, as he seemed to know the rocky terrain well - and the Fox was clearly better at finding good paths for the two Zoids.
They took the scenic routes, stopping every so often to have a snack or relish in one another's company. Their path took them far from any well-traveled routes. As they slipped into the thicker forest, the Fox seemed right at home - at times, nearly invisible, golden eyeglass sweeping the underbrush carefully.
The further they went, the more Naomi understood the appeal this must've held for Brad. All Zoid Warriors were familiar with the idea of camping - spending the night usually beside a battlefield or road, hammock or small tent slung beneath the towering comfort of one's Zoid. But this sort of camping? The kind where one waded into pure wilderness, simply for the love of solitude, aching to disappear from view...
The Fox emerged into a clearing, tamping the earth with its paws as it came to a halt. It trilled at the Gun Sniper as it arrived beside, and the Gun Sniper likewise halted. They'd arrived at what was clearly an established site, and it must've been Brad's. The man hopped out of the Fox and went to a small, rocky firepit in the clearing, eager to start a fire in the dusky light.
It was too late to set up camp fully, but it wasn't difficult to make things comfortable. The two were soon sipping coffee and eating a warm meal, the fire warm and soothing against the growing night.
Naomi watched Brad simply sit with his eyes closed, apparently enjoying the quiet.
"You really do like it out here."
"Mm."
"Don't you get lonely?"
The man took a sip of his coffee. "No."
The Shadow Fox watched them both from across the clearing, eyeglass softly glowing. Naomi glanced at it, then around.
"Isn't this near where you found the Shadow Fox?"
Brad shook his head, and motioned vaguely. "Further north. Mount Iselina. Mackaray range."
"Ah. There's a nice resort town there. Wanna go sometime?"
"Sure."
Naomi moved closer, and Brad loosely draped an arm around her.
"Don't you find the forest a little creepy at night?" She said.
"Nah." Brad took a long, measured look into the dark. Naomi hadn't really ever noticed, but his eyes in this light strangely seemed more than a little reflective - like a cat, or other nocturnal animal's. "Not much out there to worry about. A lot worse in the city."
"There's people around, in the city."
"I know. That's the problem." Brad grinned, clearly only half-joking.
It was quiet for a little bit. Then Naomi chuckled.
"Leon made fun of you for running off like this."
Brad rolled his eyes a little, but his tone was affectionate. "Leon is a daddy's boy with separation anxiety. Can't expect he understands my need for alone time."
Naomi laughed, as this aligned with her experience. Leon had been a fantastic teammate, but he talked about his family a lot. Naomi had much less family to worry with, and couldn't relate. She glanced at Brad sidelong, suddenly aware that she knew nothing about his.
Brad was quietly watching the fire, and met her glance.
"In contrast: I require very little maintenance, as a teammate." He said, and smirked at his qualifier.
Naomi grinned. "But as a person, you're a goddamn handful?"
The man's eyes glinted with mischief. "Hey now. Your contract with me's only for a year. We can renegotiate then."
Another soft laugh. "You open to future changes in terms?"
"Absolutely."
It was later. The evening's lukewarm breeze had become the night's cold breath. The fire was reduced to soft embers, the surrounding dark made deep by isolation.
He couldn't sleep.
Brad quietly rolled away from Naomi and sat up, listening. Usually the nighttime chorus of solitude brought him calm. Tonight however, he felt a growing unease. He glanced at the woman beside him, trying to determine if her presence was simply throwing him off. After all, he wasn't used to company on these forays. And he'd already been troubled, so…
No, that wasn't it. He felt only calm watching her sleep. The man stood from the lean-to shelter and peered into the dark. To his left stood both he and Naomi's Zoids, idle. The Fox's eyeglass brightened, questioning, at the man's glance. Brad slipped his boots on and carefully walked towards the two Zoids. He placed a hand on a corner of the Fox's leg armor, staring out into the pitch-black forest.
Silence.
Actual silence. Sounds of the wilderness had faded, disturbed. Brad froze, breath catching in his throat. Something was out there.
His mind ticked through the possibilities, finding very few. Bandits were known to occasionally harass, mug, and even attack pilots camping for the night - but that was typically a threat along well-worn Zoid trails and the few actual paved roads between cities. These woods were secluded, this site invisible unless one knew where to look. Meaning: they'd likely been tracked.
"Naomi," he strained a whisper in her direction.
No response. She was too deeply asleep. Brad spared a glance her way before looking back to the surrounding woods, scouring them. Twigs cracking. Hushed movement; deliberate and slow. Sounded large. An animal? No; metallic. Heavy. Very heavy. A Zoid. Seemed to be coming from several directions though. What-
With no real warning the jaws of a Geno Saurer erupted from the dark. Fangs and foretalons sunk into the side of Naomi's Gun Sniper with a hideous scream of metal: the Zoid came online to shriek its surprise. The startled Fox reflexively whirled and cuffed at the Saurer, Brad ducking and bolting away from both with alarm.
"NAOMI!" He yelled.
Now she was awake, half-dressed and staggering into consciousness. Brad appeared in front of her and shoved them both back into the shelter, kneeling over her as she sorted herself.
Naomi hissed. "What the hell- "
"I don't know. Geno Saurer."
"Why?! What the fuck! My Zoid!"
The Gun Sniper ripped away from the Saurer and staggered to the side. It groaned as it hunkered and tried to hide, electricity arcing across gaping wounds in both armor and structure. The Geno Saurer didn't pursue it, attention swinging to the Fox. The canid Zoid postured aggressively, but stepped back.
"Get to your cockpit and get out of here," Brad muttered.
"Right, but don't you dare run towards that thi-"
He ran towards that thing.
Brad bolted for the Fox. He snapped a finger at the ground about halfway there, then whistled, crouched, and leapt. In what was obviously a practiced move, the Fox pivoted towards the man and dipped, catching him on the armor's facial flange. It was far from perfect but it worked, and the Fox opened its cockpit hatch just enough for Brad to roll in.
Naomi didn't wait for his move. As soon as he'd taken off she cursed and took off too, beelining for the Gun Sniper. A confusing precursor of broken foliage rained into her path, slowing her just enough to avoid the emergence and halting stomp of a second Geno Saurer. The woman snarled, horrified - these Zoids were clearly piloted, and these pilots clearly weren't terribly concerned with her or Brad's well-being.
The Shadow Fox covered the distance in a single twisting bound, landing in a protective sprawl overtop of Naomi. It flashed teeth at the second Saurer, reflecting its pilot's scowl. Brad slammed the controls for a comm channel, barely tempering the mix of rage and panic in his voice.
"What the fuck are you doing? There's pilots on the ground here!" He gave the other party a few seconds for a response, but didn't get one. "Come on! Stop! What do you want?"
Brad whipped the Fox's gatling level with the Saurer's cockpit. The Fox warily eyed the further Saurer while Brad watched the closer one shift and defensively hold a claw in the way.
"Calm down, cowboy." A male pilot.
"Like hell. Back off. Both of you!"
Both Saurers took neutral stances and leaned back. The gatling stayed trained on the closer Saurer's chest.
"First things first." Brad said. "Let her get in her Zoid."
No response, but no movement either. Naomi correctly seized the opportunity to close the remaining distance to her Sniper and clamber into the cockpit. She hurriedly strapped in, her chest heaving with adrenaline.
"Didn't notice you, sweetheart," Another unknown male pilot voice jeered, presumably the other Saurer's pilot. "Now-"
"Now, everyone leaves." Brad snapped.
"What gave you the idea you were in control here?" A third pilot's voice - female - and a third Geno Saurer emerged from the forest.
Or rather - its claws did, lashing forth on thick steel cables. Said claws sliced into the Fox, having the benefit of both stillness and surprise to aim with. The smaller Zoid shrieked and tried to buck away, but was unceremoniously pitched into the ground. Affording the Shadow Fox no time to recover, the Saurer delivered a nasty shock.
"Brad!" Naomi brought her Gun Sniper to bear, but the second Geno Saurer stepped in her way. She activated one booster to pivot sharply around the Saurer's front, shoving both foreclaw-lasers right beneath the larger Zoid's jawline and firing. "Fuck off!"
It did some damage, but not enough. The Geno Saurer grabbed the Gun Sniper's neck with a foreclaw and hefted the Zoid off the ground.
The Fox loudly endured several seconds of shocking before twisting to face the third Saurer - and in the same move its gatling swung to bear and lit up the front of the larger Zoid. The shock stopped, but the Saurer reeled in its claws, hauling the Shadow Fox in with them. The Zoid's stagger and sharp change of orientation threw off Brad's aim, and before he could recover he found himself staring down the long barrel of the Saurer's laser rifle.
Brad shut his eyes tightly, a wince.
Silence fell once more. Nothing happened.
After a moment, the female pilot spoke. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice."
Brad opened one eye. "Kind of need to know what 'this' is first. What do you want?"
"Your cooperation."
Brad took his hands off the controls, holding them up. Over their video commlink, Naomi saw this, hesitated, but did the same. Words weren't necessary for them to communicate the dire awareness of how disadvantaged they were.
"We don't have any money on us. Her Gun Sniper's stock and my Zoid doesn't play well with others. We don't have anything."
"Don't be so humble, Warrior. An elite pilot such as yourself, and the head of the Class A Fluegel Team?"
"So you know who we are." Naomi said, angrily. "If you're trying to prove something, this isn't exactly a fair fight."
"Never said it was." One of the male pilots again. "Not our thing."
Brad sighed through his teeth. "Backdraft?"
"Smart man."
"And here I was hoping the Commission had taken you guys apart."
"I'm sure you were."
The Geno Saurer holding Naomi's Sniper dropped it, pinning the smaller Zoid flat to the ground with a talon. "So? What's it gonna be?"
Brad splayed his empty hands at the blank videscreens for emphasis. "Stop. I'm cooperating."
"Good. Then get out of your Zoid."
If he'd had hackles, they would've raised. He looked at Naomi on-screen, blankly - to which she replied with a rapid shake of her head.
The female pilot: "Game or not, Hunter?"
Only other mercenaries- or ex-mercenaries -would really ever call him Hunter. He twitched a brow, quickly piecing things together. Likely Team Fuma. "Why do you want me out of my Zoid? I already said I'd cooperate."
Fuma laughed, dourly. "Because nobody really wants to deal with you in it. Out, or the Red Comet's going to have one hell of a bad day." Highlighting the threat, the relevant Geno Saurer's talons moved from the Gun Sniper's side to its head and neck, bearing down.
Naomi froze, watching her cockpit glass split once, twice, three times. She pressed back into her seat, trying to engage its shifting mechanism. The Zoid was too damaged, key components torn or too greatly compressed.
"Fine. Fine!" The Shadow Fox's hatch hissed open, and Brad stood from the seat, hands still Fox emitted disagreeable noises as the man jumped down to the ground, glaring up at the Geno Saurer.
The Saurer's laser rifles swung, locked onto the Fox, and fired at point-blank range. The smaller Zoid shrilled and staggered aside before collapsing, Brad clasping his ears against the unbuffered sounds. The Saurer's cockpit then opened, and Fuma stood from within, a hand on her hip. "See. Wasn't so hard."
Brad scowled at her. "Get him off of the Gun Sniper."
Fuma hopped down and approached, brandishing a simple set of energy-based restraints. With a single gesture she indicated that Brad turn around. He didn't comply.
"I'll do what you want, but get him off the Gun Sniper."
"If you think word didn't get around about your escapade in Mackaray, you'd be wrong. Turn around."
Brad grated a sigh, and shook his head. "No. First- "
Something struck him in the back of the head and he dropped, out cold.