Rebirth of the guardians

by Wingshad0w

Six years before the end of NC0 a war engulfs the continent and the modern hellic republic and guylos empire resurrect the Guardian force to battle their foe. At the forefront of this war, the last earthling and a strange spirit both from ages ago

3. Chapter 3

-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter 2

Chapter 3 – The new base the new people

Well here's chapter three, no disclaimer no nothing.

-Ahem- DECEMBER FIFTH INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE NINJA, CELEBRATE IT

Blunt, but exactly what I plan to do. Now you should too.

-Begin-

When he arrived at his new encampment, well within enemy territory, tom, as a general rule, got along well with the people. Save for his overwhelming, well his overwhelming-ness for lack of a better word. The one exception to this was the apprentice of Tom's soon to be friendly rival Fred smith, Jaina. God he made that poor girls life hell.

-Excerpt from interview with John Reynolds about Tom-

The return to the front was not a stressful thing for the ghost fox. Being an elite warrior with well over two dozen kills in solo situations, and several more in group scenarios, not including the headache of the battle of Gael, as the media was calling it, Thomas Reynolds stressed not over combat. So his return to a post in fact ahead of the main front line was at worst something that excited him. He prayed to have something to do in his life.

Luck handed him a scenario very rapidly. Almost the moment of his return.

Having just arrived in the hangar Tom was re-acquainting himself with Oliver, Perrone, and John and mocking the major in charge Relena. "Oy, remember back at day 1. Oh god that was great!" Tom said with a thick fake odd accent. "Man we put the shrimp on the Barbie that time eh fellas?" (Yeah it's supposed to be the worst Australian accent you've read all your life, if you tell me something about insulting Australians I could care less, this statement was hardly meant to flatter them either, it was to make Tom look like a nut job) (Screw observations, I'll point it out on my own!) Then he was slapped. As was to be expected considering what happened on that first day.

Then the two new pilots came. On an aerial triple ace, in the service for several years, Fred smith was the type of legend Tom would become if the war lasted another six months. He was a man in his later thirties who piloted a storm sworder. His young female apprentice, Jaina, was the best looking female in the complex, slightly more skilled than a pilot fresh out of training; however most of that skill was in her incredible ability to withstand extreme g-forces. Having survived a fall that had her at 15g's without blacking out. That was her main skill.

The older Fred had an average crop of brown hair as was normal for men to have. He wore the standards uniform and his tallish relatively well built figure suited the uniform he was given.

The young Jaina, fulfilling whatever character stereotype I know I designed her in mind with, was very young, actually having joined the army at 17 by some strange twist, and was just now 18. Her bust was very large and every single curve of her body made men stare, save tom who lacked romantic feelings, as well as any sort of serious interest in the feminine gender. But that was because he was odd. Admittedly she was a brighter girl, capable of doing the mathematical portion of piloting easily enough. Other than that and the g-force thing, she had no special piloting qualities. Those she was learning from Fred.

"So you're the legendary 'Ghost fox'. You don't look all that special." Smith commented as he looked with disapproving eyes.

"I dunno, I think he's pretty good looking, unlike all the other available guys on this dump." Jaina said with a bubbly little grin. (Yes I know I've created a monster, I did it with this personality in mind, sort of as a comic aspect for me to laugh at if no-one else does)(God what character type is she!?!)

"I mean as a pilot. I really don't care how good looking you think he is."

"Well as a pilot. Hmm…" Jaina walked over to Tom and observed him from all angles she could. "Nope he's got nothing." Then she fell over, a fist attached to an extended arm took up the space where she had been.

"Stupid bitch can't recognize talent." He said in reference to Jaina. "That asshole won't admit to seeing it either." He motioned his thumb at Fred. Tom grumbled, "I guess I have to deal with you for perhaps the whole duration of the war." He grumbled some more, nothing coherent at any rate. "Names so we can get this over with please."

"This 'asshole' is named Fred smith. I suppose you can't recognize talent either."

"That is where you are wrong. I know you're good, I know she can be better." A knowing and feral grin appeared. "Oh what I know."

"I'm Jaina." Said Jaina bouncing back from her fall in a heartbeat.

"Right. So who else is new?" Tom asked his old crew that was present.

"There's another gunner, new tecchie boy and a new mechanic." Oliver said as he went back to whatever task he had been doing when Tom arrived.

"Hey!" Relena shouted, "You people all should have something to do, now go get it done!" She waved them all off. Oliver and john stayed, they didn't have to move to get their stuff done. So did Fred and annoying bubbly girl Jaina, and Major Relena, and Tom.

Tom managed to get out of the way of the crowd and went to his command wolf.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked.

"I've got a training device; it installs a custom made training program. I want to see how I do against the guardian forces second best pilot."

Much later that same day both pilots got out of their Zoids cockpits exhausted from the five simulation matches. True there had only been five complete ones but those had lasted ten hours in total. Jaina, Oliver, John and the new mechanic were the only other ones in the hangar. "Man." Tom said as he bent his head back with a sigh, "I'd hate to have to face off with you for real no matter what the outcome. God we'd probably both end up dead or crippled."

"I have to admit to being a bad judge of skill. We had three tied matches that each lasted three hours and each of us won and lost a match, in less than eighteen minutes for you."

"Yea, well that's just because you underestimated me the first time. The second match I had to leave the designated battlefield to call it a tie."

"Third and fourth matches we both were dead. Last match I only disabled your Zoid, and in forty two minutes."

"I took longer to beat cause I'm much better at judging skill, you took me for nothing and lost because of it." The two shook. "I'm glad to have you as an ally."

"I hope that we will both learn much from each other."

"So Fred how did you do?" Jaina asked.

"Didn't you just hear us?" Fred said exasperated.

"What?" Jaina asked cupping her hand around her ear.

"I get it." Tom muttered. "Stupid crane, why are they using it now. We had even records what's your name. So deal with it." Tom shouted the last part as loud as he could. Jaina fell over from her standing position at the volume he blasted her with. John, who was passing by looked hard at the fallen over Jaina. "You keep going, I'm not staring."

"That's because you're inhuman." John said as he walked away grumbling.

Fred looked ready to kill like a father would in that situation. Tom just placed a restraining arm in his way. "He's my apprentice, I'll deal with him as I see fit."

"And that is."

"Immediate verbal rebuke, not much more. I leave the worst of it to Relena."

"Not much 'dealing with'." Tom grinned his knowing grin; Just how much does this damn guy know. Fred thought, I'll say I lost the first match because of and underestimation mostly because of pride, but what I did has beaten Zenebas elite, and other Guardian force elite in practice hundreds of times, he treated it like it was nothing and ripped through me! "Ah well I shouldn't intervene in someone else's affairs."

"That's fine; I won't pay any attention to your little thing then."

"HEY!" Jaina started but then tom walked off. "And where are you going?" But then the crane started up and he couldn't hear her if he tried, but he didn't want to, so the crane honestly did little.

Upon arriving in the kitchen he saw Relena, who immediately went into discipline mode. "What have you been doing all this time? You have not done any reporting based on your mission nor have you been updated on events!!!"

Tom glanced at her with an almost lusting look. But it carried distaste, disgust and his favorite emotion, disinterest, too. "You mean this?" He said as he turned away and flapped a small packet, "It's all the crap I had to turn in. I was informed of what you had to tell me during some simulations I did."

"And how long did your simulations last?" Relena asked, waiting to hear the absurd response and then call it stupid.

"Read the machine, it can't lie." He threw the simulator installer at Relena, it arched and landed right between her breasts on a lucky, or unlucky, you decide, toss.

"What the hell!?!" She swore as she pulled the machine out. Looking at the fact that there had only been five matches recorded, and that they took up the whole time he had been absent she stared blankly. "Ten hours, five matches. You dueled Fred smith to a standstill three times?"

"That's what the machine says, ain't it?"

"But, ten hours!?!"

"I don't really care about your opinion, just watch the recording." Tom then left; he was tired from ten hours of sitting in the cockpit of a zoid. And he wanted to see the inn, two. If only one bed of it.

While he slept he dreamt of Relena, not strange awkward dreams, well they were but not in the sensual sense. They were rather strange dreams, mostly nonsensical, a few semi-morbid. One was sensual, but all were a welcome change from what sleep normally led to. Borderline insanity. Where he had been, what he had seen, wars, famine, plague, algorithms, facts, everything he had ever learned heard about or seen flashed across his mind and he hated it. He knew too damn much. So tonight's dreams, no matter what they were, would be a welcome relief. And perhaps the oddest moment was when he actually died within a dream and his body carried a smile. Happy about death, or happy about a dream, which was it would be a question he would ask if he ever knew.

The next morning, after his first good sleep in ages, he awoke early. He went down and met chef Perrone once more. "You return. Honestly I'm surprised you're still here after that toss yesterday."

Tom made single barked out laugh, "After enough experience with death little scares you away from something you're interested in."

"Yeah, well don't let Relena hear you say that." Perrone said as he cut up various ingredients at an almost mind numbingly fast pace.

"You know I had some odd dreams last night."

"Odd huh?"

"Yeah. Uh… Crap I forgot them!"

"But you know they were odd right?"

"Yeah, I forget what they were. AH, and I really found them interesting. In a weird way." Tom went from mild frustration to wonder and back again constantly while he thought.

"Really, from what I hear you thought them odd."

"Well I'll tell you they were nothing like what I usually dream."

"Which is?"

"Intensely boring." Tom lied even as he expressed genuine frustration. "I feel like I've been dreaming the same dream for 10,000 years."

"That's a long time." Perrone said as he did various cooking motions without pause.

"So how was your night?" Tom asked without sounding inquisitive, somehow.

"Alright I guess." Perrone tried to keep the focus on the man who really was the star of the show, if, albeit, not the most important one in the show. He was curious, 10,000 years was a very long time. He had doubts that an 18 year old man would use that number in any serious reference. "So why have you been having this dream for o so long?"

"Think I know, dreams are supposed to be mysterious. I guess it means something. All I can figure is that I have way to good a memory."

Perrone sighed, "You really never like to divulge much about your past do you."

"No, you're wrong. Well no, actually you're right, but the reason I don't like to divulge my past is because it draws attention."

"Draws? Well now that would indicate you either have bad grammatical skills or that you have already revealed your past. So why not once more to a simple chef?"

Tom looked forwards from a slumped position in his chair. "Honestly I really have considered telling someone, you were on the list. But it's just too crowded here to do much. I swear if I get a chance to tell you in less awkward circumstances I will."

"Really now." Perrone stopped what he was doing. He stopped and waited until tom met his eyes. "Will you stay true?"

"You are quite the insightful man. But I swear I speak the truth. The first chance I get to tell you without anyone significant hearing I will tell you as much I can physically speak."

Perrone evaluated Tom; he was looking at Perrone, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, with his head turned towards Perrone. He had a very good level of personal insight. He knew when a person was lying or telling the truth just from body gestures tone pitch and whatnot. But the only times this ability ever felt conflicted was with people he knew. Like now, Tom's body said he was lying, but perrone's knowledge of the man said the truth was in there. In the end, as it usually did, his gut feelings won out. "All right, before I almost wanted the war to continue so I could keep my good job. Now I want it to end so we can just go somewhere and I can learn just who you are."

Tom laughed a loud laugh with genuine mirth on his face, "You wanted the war to go on so you could keep your job. And you say it's got good pay, you can pilot the Zoids from now on bub, if I get your paycheck I'll be the chef."

The two laughed and began to make job comparisons when a short while later Relena came in. "There you are! Get in the briefing room, now."

"Right mam! Yes mam, whatever you say mam!"

"Say mam again and you get court-martialed."

"Right." Tom said as he ran out and up the stairs to the briefing room.

When he arrived he walked in on maps, statistics discussions and an angry Major shouting at someone about something. It probably would help if she won the argument. Tom debated about intervening, but that may do more harm then good depending on who was on the other end. Tom knew a few guys pretty well. Others hated his guts, and thus knew him better than he knew them. Those were the relations he didn't like.

"Oh tom." John said as he stopped right in front of him. "We were wondering when you would show up." John pulled out a clipboard from under his side. "We got a report of a town occupied by some recently moved in Zenebas. We're just trying to figure out what to do."

Tom flipped through his clipboard. It seemed to be clipboard of ideas. Best he could figure this had occurred three days ago. But there were over 20 pages of various plans, some seemed to be marked in the right way for potential use, others seemed marked for failure, in large Tom could see why for those. Here and there he saw a plan destined for one thing over another that he mentally switched around and made a failure a success or success a failure.

Finally, 30 minutes later tom had skimmed 20 something ideas. Also he had moved halfway down the hallway to a point where the hubbub and noise of the briefing room was at a level where he could ignore it. He then got up and prepared to return, the noise increased and everyone seemed to be shouting. Tom turned around and went to the radar room to get some peace a quiet to think while still having access to maps.

In the radar room he met, the new gunner Chad Michaels, the new repair man, Steve Eule, and the female radar operator, Sam Flower. Chad was a young man, 20. He wore a red vest with brown and green clothing underneath. His hair and eyes were an un-interesting shade of brown. Steve showed up less on anybodies radar. He simple wore the standard uniform, had neat hair brown eyes and nothing more of notice. Sam flowers, unlike Relena, jess to a lesser extent, and especially Jaina, especially, especially her, had no overly beautiful features that the average man would take time out of a schedule to notice. Her name would get people to stop, well her last name would, but there was little more. She had glasses, dirty blonde hair, an average body and green eyes. Only a little more noticeable in a crowd than the other two guys all in all.

Tom greeted the three who all responded kindly to his greetings with some sort of sign of liking on their faces. Then tom began to mount the ladder to the radar tower, which was much longer than the old one, he actually had to do some climbing. A few moments up tom paused, he had not been in the radar tower and he had just met one of the radar people. Tom thought about what had happened last time without hint of emotion on his face. He turned around to ask the three whether or not he should go up into the radar room, but they were all gone. "Damn they're good." Tom said as he continued up the ladder, "Nothing ventured nothing gained." He grumbled more than reasoned, his reason was, in his thoughts, I am sure as hell getting up there whether whoever is in there would want me or not. If they don't want me then too bad I'm a coming you goddamn son-of-a-bitch. Then tom added, and the three new guys never tried to turn me away too. At the last minute as the excuse to use when he knew what was coming came.

Tom opened up the hatch and any doubt, or hope; he felt both at the moment could be used, evaporated when he felt the super hot air. Oh well I'm damned anyway, might as well see if I can fix the thing. He got up into the radar station and stood up. He looked around; from his six feet in height the small hatch to the radar room gave only the tiniest blind spot for tom to miss someone in. He scanned the room like a machine. His eyes came across a sleeping Jaina, with her shirt off, he skipped that with but a moment of pause. Then it came across a map printout quickly looking at it he stared. Gently folding it down he went over to where the air conditioning unit was, right by Jaina's head. After a perplexed moment of how to deal with the situation brute force won. With a not so gentle shove Jaina was halfway across the room, and dead asleep. "Who was the genius who put her on the job?" Tom grumbled to himself, when he realized, "Hey this room isn't super hot!" He stared at Jaina, with a wrench in hand prepared to bash the heck out of the machine just to relieve any stress he had. "Dear god the girl can do stuff!"

Then Jaina stirred. Seeing as she was seated underneath the whole of the radar when she got up she bumped her head on the machine. While stretching to rub her head tom saw that she had gone bare naked from the waist up while repairing the machine. His eyes disappeared, that was it they were gone.

"OH GOD!" She shouted grabbing her clothes. "Didn't anyone tell you that I was up here!!!"

Tom just nodded and walked down the ladder, but not before grabbing the map that had been printing out when he came up. At the base he gave one eyeball-less look up at Jaina who looked down at him shirt still being clung to her body and red in the face with fury, who then slammed the hatch down on him, then tom's eyes returned to normal. He looked at his map, glancing back to the first portion of it he checked as to what it was for. After figuring out what it was for Tom turned around and faced the three people who could hide in any group. "Um hi."

Sam was giggling, Chad Michaels was just holding in his laughter and Steve Eule was rolling on the floor. "God you actually had to deal with Jaina!" Sam finally blurted out as she and Chad began to laugh outright. "God and she was naked too wasn't she! Well sucks to be you!"

Tom stared at them oddly. "Heh?"

"If anyone catches her naked when she doesn't want them to." Sam laughed another outburst. "Oh god, hell will seem like a welcome salvation compared to the war she declares on you."

Tom stared at them for a moment, then he began laughing louder than any one of them, "Oh dear god you are idiots!" He shouted out while laughing up roariously. Sam Chad and Steve stopped laughing and either glared at him or looked at him like he was crazy. "I thought everyone knew that I knocked her out yesterday with my fist. I would assume that that already means that I've declared war on her. Which I have, and this will do naught more." When tom looked up the others were gone, "Gone again." Tom said serious once more, "I have to learn how to do that." Tom then did the exact same. It seemed like he had never been there once he was gone. Honestly the hallway seemed to have been abandoned for years.

Then in the planning room tom came in on a situation only slightly different than that which he had encountered before. It was a little calmer; the murmur of backup had managed to dismiss the radar people back to their normal jobs. That or the murmur that the radar room was cool again, which most certainly couldn't have hurt. Relena had stopped shouting at the phone and was talking calmly with whoever was on the other end. There atmosphere of the room still was hustle and bustle but it wasn't a panicked hustle and bustle, just one that indicated something important was going on.

"Hey someone just sent us area maps, as well as surveillance reports and what they're going to send to us in return." Tom held up the papers. He couldn't decipher what the exact response from each person but I became a hair more relaxed when he said that. Tom but down the massive map print out and let it unroll from being rolled up. Then he took out the intelligence report he had folded up. He just then looked at the actual numbers for the fist time. "Dear god, 58 Zoids, that's a small assault force bent on taking out this entire sector of the front!" Tom shouted. Everyone looked at him oddly. "Sorry, but I just got here."

"But didn't you have to deal with a 600 Zoid assault force while you were away?" Fred smith asked.

"Yeah, and I had almost as much backup. Also there were 13 elites present, myself included." Elite was the term for multiple aces within a time period, someone who had been around for 10 years in a conflict like this could not become an elite if he only became a double ace in his tenth year. Although it had happened depending on how quickly their kills/ko's mounted up for the final period. If they had a sudden streak that indicated rapid improvement in time before becoming a double/triple ace or whatever ace they could be awarded. Other cases, for example Tom's case, was rapid ace. In one single fight after two weeks on the front he had taken out six Zoids. Thus he was awarded the title of elite after that battle.

Elite lacked any official status, it was just a word in the end, but this word carried plenty of weight with the media and the other people in the military. Elites would often get moved to difficult assignments, when they succeeded at those assignments they got more press, when they failed they were mourned greater.

"Perhaps the best one there besides me was the guy who got me there, Lambada stoller." (The guy with the iron Kong, yeah he's an elite too)(And that name was just now made up, I never named him before, and no he's not related to backdraft Stoller)

"Both you and Lambada on the same assignment?" Fred said, "Well I see why that was so easy."

Tom laid the map out on the table. "We have 4 Zoids, but only three pilots. We need to draw those guys into a situation that's to our advantage."

"Well if we wait three days we can get the bad guys either within other outpost territory and get their allies, or at least have two other Zoids to use." Relena said as she observed the map and made some sort of mental distance calculation.

"Who are we getting."

"Two former warriors, one has a shield liger, the other a di-bison. The shield liger won't be useless by any measure, and the di-bison will be very useful for this."

Tom blinked at the topographic map in front of him. He held it up and looked hard for a few moments. "So where exactly do you think they'll be in four days?"

"In range of several bases, our base will be in severe danger of getting attacked, but if we start calling in support now we can make it."

Tom produced a pencil from god knows where, "I have an idea." He said as he began circling things. "Someone should get in on calling support from whoever can offer it; I need to make a battle line at certain spot. Or it's backup, or the one after that."

"Where would they stay?" Fred asked as he began to observe each point on the map.

"Wherever, I don't care at all." Tom and Fred then began a discussion that would end when the battle began.

Three days later the new fellows arrived. Both were joined by a small convoy of assorted land based Zoids; there were already 8 aerial Zoids in the hangar, and Tom's command wolf. When the new people arrived anyone not assigned to the base was moved out into pre-determined locations. The new guys, pilot's John Markia and, Anna Spopovich. John used the shield liger and Anna used the di-bison. When they saw tom the pair immediately jumped back in fear. Tom noticed this and asked the pair, "Do you know me?" They nodded, "Would I know you?"

"Maybe." John got out quickly and quietly.

"Umm…. Maybe, how can I work with maybe?" Tom pondered his hand on his forehead. They're zoid warriors so, umm… OH YEAH! Duh, why didn't I figure it out earlier, plenty of people have done it. "You two are frightened of me because I kicked your asses back in a zoid battle."

They nodded, Anna added, "You almost killed my brother. And left me half dead." (Anna's brother, not mark, Anna's brother is insignificant)

"No what I remember was that some nut from a group calling itself backdraft came down and attacked us with an odd zoid. I evaded all the shots fired and they hit you."

"But after that you shot at us!" Mark shouted.

Tom blinked, put his hand to his chin and thought. "Nope don't remember that, well you guys need to get ready for you're first assignment."

"WHAT!" The two shouted.

"Yeah, don't tell me that you didn't guess something was up when you saw all these people accompany you, we're gonna have a battle near this base."

The pair stared shocked at the man. But Tom was gone in a few moments. Leaving with a message, "Deploy or face my wrath once more." The two decided it was better to be deployed.

A half a day later all the Zoids save for tom's command wolf and the two storm sworders had been deployed. Tom was running last minute prep as he attached weapons and accessories that were the lightest ones he had. As well as the largest most efficient set of boosters he had, he was going to be the swing guy, striking in what would hopefully be a preplanned pattern. But acting as a last minute reinforcement as necessary to make sure the enemy never broke through the line.

Then the message of the first encounter came. As expected it was in the center of the line. By the time tom was properly ready to deploy the battle had extended to cover half the field based on the exact middle of the battle front. Tom quickly set an estimate for where to strike based on his plan and set a course for the exact middle of the enemy assault wave. Which had managed to break off into two almost perfectly straight lines, save with a slight bend on the defenders left flank, the attackers right. As was the plan.

Tom looked at the map, Fred and Jaina had deployed into the air battle, which they had total control of. Although a glance at the radar image showing hostile and friendly aerial Zoids scattered haphazardly over the map. Not the type of battle tom was best at strategizing for, although personally he felt he kicked ass in loosely organized battles. Tom glanced back at John, his gunner. "You ready for this, it's no small battle we're going into."

"Don't dissuade me from it. Cause then I might not be ready and screw up."

"Fair enough." Tom said as he ran the boosters at max towards the battle point on his left flank.

As far as Tom's participation in the first stage of the battle was concerned he did constant rushes into the enemy's left flank and ripped the thing to shreds. But reinforcements kept on pouring on it until it became obvious army intelligence got only 1/3rd of the actual enemy unit amount. A last minute request for any and all support did get a few aerial units and a lightning saix or two headed towards the battle front but what would an increase of 62 land Zoids to 65 do against 130 hostile land based Zoids. And also what would 12 aerial Zoids do against 30? A helluva lot more. In fact the aerial battle was half done by the time the land battle had reached its primary climax of the discovery that the enemy had thrice the units it was assumed there originally were.

However that extreme lack of enemies of note in the sky let Fred smith spend a lot more time engaging enemies on the ground than the air. Over half a dozen kills went to him in the time the enemy was still making their ground front, and while there were more than 20 enemies in the air battle. Jaina was actually doing half decent against the enemies in the air, even if she landed only one in five hits she still could survive the most intense of the g-forces her zoid could exert on her body. If it did stretch her skin, body, and clothing in awkward ways, well then that was just temporary tightness that the boys could look at if they weren't to busy fighting for their lives, which everyone was.

Anna spopovich was on the right flank, which had the most annoying and mentally detrimental fight of all. Tom had selected the ideal positions to force the enemy into, and unfortunately the right flank of the battle was done with both sides under cover. Since Anna had a di-bison rocks were no major issue, but the right flak was also staffed with high firepower Zoids only. So if the enemy got the idea to try and rush them and succeeded, which if done early enough was not impossible, then they would be dead. And if there was no right flank the entire line would be destroyed. So they had to lay down some pretty serious fire power if they wanted to win, and live for that matter. So there was a re-loading post right over a hill which was right behind the right flanks position.

John Markia and his shield liger were on the left flank. John was told to be a mid ranged unit, and to try and keep some allied Zoids from being completely totaled if possible with his shield. So far he had gotten three kills and saved one guy from getting wasted. The only thing was that while the right flank was ordered and separate the left flank was a duel to the death. The left flank had no cover for the enemy, and only somewhat decent cover for the Guardian force. So the enemy had decided on a charge upon leaving the cover and thus the left quarter of the battle line was engrossed in melee combat. It was the most hectic part of the battle. Zoids like blade ligers would randomly skirt through the fighting ripping at groups of enemies who stood still for too long, or seemed slow. Flying Zoids dashed overhead for mere moments and took a few potshots at anyone they thought were foes, but they rarely stayed, the entire battle was ready to explode into the sky at a moments notice. When they did stay they were plain shot down, thus was the fate of 8 flying Zoids thus far. The only advantage was that Tom was in full kick-ass mode. There was little he didn't destroy. With 13 enemies down in a half hour and more coming in for an hour straight there had been times when tom took up a position on a high rock and just sniped out people running into the battle for minutes at a time. Then at some point he jumped into the main battle wherever new enemies had come most recently. The only reason that the left flank held up while the enemy sent in 70 Zoids against there mere 20 some odd was because the enemy was sending in mostly inexperienced soldiers, with no previous combat experience. Then there was the Ghost fox that made a few people run away. And the ghost fox just outright killed a lot of guys.

But as time passed both sides became less ferocious in their assaults. Once the reserves were gone the Zenebas attackers had to try and keep themselves from getting obliterated on either flank and especially the center, where they had the worst cover and the Guardian force had some of the best, as well as even forces, which remained constant and the center for both sides dropped to 8 guys, Zenebas by deaths, GF by spreading out the troops.

The right flank was more hectic shooting, and more time spent dodging. With the occasional large attack maneuver made by one side of the other. The left flank kept one constant man ripping through the enemy, Tom. Even when he had only ten shots left he simply attacked with claws and fangs ripping out a blade ligers blade once, at other time annihilating the weapon systems of any number of Zoids. When the three Zoid aerial backup arrived, the GF flyers spread out a bit to assist the front more. And when the land backup arrived they were sent to the chaotic left flank. While the three new Lightning saix did little to decrease the 2:1 Zenebas to GF troop ratio the fact that they were aggressive and very skilled pilots did. Causing chaos in the enemy lines the three Saix managed to create a total enemy rout. Without the help of tom, who was re-stocking on ammo, and left with only 32 shots loaded to help finish the plan. Ordering the saix to the further left and telling the flank to make a circle to the enemy right flank the battle line became a revolving door and was smashed upon each other. Shortly afterwards however a small bunch broke out from the main line and made a bee line towards 'the inn'. The group of five, a gun sniper, a command wolf, an iron Kong, and two mogulas were met by the bases defenses, three small auto turrets and several hundreds of micro missiles controlled by Devon at a computer panel. And one large manual mega turret controlled by Chad. The large turret fired at the iron Kong. Everything else shot at what was convenient.

Then came the message that drew the two elites from the thick of battle. "Fred, Tom," Major Darlian's voice came across "we are under attack, enemy forces have managed to break the lines and are now at out perimeter, currently they are stuck on a defensive line by the boulders at the edge of the forest but," a large explosion was heard as well as major Darlian's scream. "Oh god, they've circled around back." A pause, "Well blow the shit out of them Devon." Another pause. "What the hell do you think you get paid to do! Blow the shit out of them by any means that's an order."

Tom and Fred were both already on the way to the base before Relena was done talking. Fred went much faster than tom, but tom went faster that his Zoids should have been able to go, John was soaked with sweat and had probably wet himself already in some of the situations where he felt it was unnecessary and more importantly stupid to charge into battle, and tom did. So he was out for the time being, due to total fear that the man piloting this Zoid was truly insane and obsessed with some type of battle madness.

That wasn't an impossible truth.

Either way Fred reached the far side of the base and took out the pair of mogulas with one pass, which flipped the little worms over, however because Fred had been pushing his zoid to the limit in order to help with the main battle, the small 'dink' sound that one small machine gun shell from the auto defense's made was too much for the zoid already at it's limits. In the end the main saving graces for zoid and pilot were that, A) he was going very slow around a turn when his storm sworder lost control, B) he was about 22 feet above the ground, which was a fall a storm sworder could survive going at twice the speed his had been going.

Thus Tom was forced to charge into the fray, and he was more than ready to do so. Shortly after Fred hit the ground and left a trail of debris that could be seen for miles around tom was blasting at the iron Kong in order to avoid going into combat with the thing. The 8 blasts he directed at it did that well enough. At least it was down for the rest of the base defenses to take some potshots. Then came the gun sniper with its lot's of weapons, even if half of them were used up that was like half of a million, and 500,000 is still a lot. Also there was the command wolf, whom lacked the amount of firepower but the pilot had the skill to take tom on, and perhaps occupy him while the gun sniper did stuff. That second one seemed to be the plan. The command wolf met his identical model foe firing off every shot he had and then jumping to meet his foes charge when Tom leapt for a physical strike. His zoid lost one leg entirely as well as the lower half of the back leg on the same side, and his cannons were gone. Then the gun sniper turned on the newly arrived foe. Firing off his whole missile arsenal remaining at the most dangerous threat present tom countered with a strike at the zoid canopy, shattering it, and then throwing a small circular device with a blinking light at the wave of shot and missile. When the two impacted all the missiles exploded and the bullets fired just seemed to go everywhere but where Tom was. Then in the middle of the explosion Tom came soaring at the gun sniper with some odd looking guns in his hands. The guns were designed so that the 'stock' didn't exist. Instead they were two dual wielded guns that had a hand guard that wrapped roughly around tom's hand, with decent room to spare. Also they had odd golden edges; maybe they could be called blades or something, that came down from the end of the muzzle. When tom used them the shots fired made small explosions against the gun sniper. The blades cut off whole sections of the armor or a limb or something. Then tom stood in front of a ruined gun sniper with a look of distaste in his face. He sighed and began, "thank god it only cam-" Then the iron Kong shot him.

"HA, I have killed the great and terrible 'ghost fox'! What would a ghost do, regenerate. Hell he'd just phase through the attack. But no that hit him dead on. Well he can just kiss my ass and stay dead, cause that sonofabitch was a major pain for Zenebas. I mean come on, hell; he just ripped apart a zoid with some little wimpy guns. I am very glad that he's dead."

He was the only happy one present. Relena, John, chef Perrone, Devon, all of them were either in shock or depression.

"No, master!" John shouted as he got up out of the cockpit, still too shocked to really process anything.

"What the!" Perrone said as he stood at a window holding an ammunition box ready to reload some weapons.

"That bastard will die!" Devon shouted as he angrily smashed the control panel.

"No." Relena said as she backed away. "How could he die?" Images of him at his best flashed in her mind. "Why did you kill him! You bastard, you will go to hell if I have to send you with my own two hands!"

Then a small black stream about as wide as a small Gardner snake came out of the smoke. It slowly snaked it's way up to the iron Kong. For a moment the pilot stared at it from the view screen in his cockpit. Then it began to whirl and change. It did this for quite some time. Then the iron Kong moved it's gun to shoot it. Suddenly the flame became much thicker to the thickness of the average humans waist width. And the end of the flame gained a massive dragon head. The iron Kong shot the flame, which was now a black dragon, the dragon didn't notice a bit. It impacted the Kong smashed it through some trees, and boulders, and finally stopped upon impacting a cliff, there weren't even ashes of ashes left of the thing.

Back at the smoke everyone looked towards the crater. The smoke began to clear when tom was revealed alive. Standing stock still calmly breathing. "These fools obviously have no idea I'm immortal." He said to himself, with more than a hint of him actually feeling glad they were affected by his loss.

-End-

Well I made Tom a little too powerful you say, TOO BAD, it's a fanfiction I am allowed to hand out powerups on the level of goku whenever I wish.

Now for my little bonus feature, whose name was that! (I started it in a .hack fanfic, .hack is based on an online game so I make up names out the wazoo and now it seems to have gone over a little here)
So new names this chapter
Anna spopavich - spopavich is Dragonball z villian. He's insignifcant but he has a cool name. Even though no-one remembers who he is Anna, just a name.
Jaina - Jaina proudmoore of the warcraft serious. That is her name inspiration. And if anyone out there hates her and has a desire to burn her she will get physically lit on fire, when this thing all goes on the crazy train to hell.(I'm pulling an evangelion in the plot structure)
Chad michaels - from bades of glory's Chad Michaels Michaels. that's it
Steph flowers - a cousin of my with her last name in the pluarized form.

Also I would like to initiate a little game, to see if anyone ever reads this stuff. I would like for everyone to guess at any one of Tom's actual back stories. They are, well they're where he comes from, and what he does/how does he do this. I doubt you can guess the first one. And the how of the second one should be near impossible. But what doesn't count as that thing where I said he can turn his skin black.

What you get… BONUS POINTS, I don't know what they do but you get them if you guess 1 correct.

If you get two you get to write the story cause you must be a mind reader.

Woo!