-Rebirth of the Guardians – the long awaited sequel to chapter – 10

Chapter 11 – the scroll and the Zoidians

Oh yes and Kokuhso's back so as a reminder, Bold Kokuhso's mental talks

-Begin-

When Tom returned to the town, two days later than he had planned, he was surprised to still see it standing. "Wow, Zenebas didn't flatten this place when they saw a bunch of Zoids run into the town." Tom said aloud as he entered the mechanic shop base of operations.

"Well I've got a funny story about that." Reddy said.

"So how was it?" Relena asked hopping down from the top of a repainted command wolf. Her civilian clothes of choice, a tank top with a deep cut neckline, and a miniskirt revealed more in that situation than Tom had assumed Relena would ever reveal of her body.

Tom's moment of mixed glee, surprise, and general awkwardness, was interrupted when the question that Relena had asked. Lying he said, "They were all gone."

"You mean they died!?!" Relena said with a frantic sounding shout.

"No I mean they physically had been removed, as living persons or otherwise." Lie he would, but get her hopes up that much he would not. There were only two of the base members whom Tom had not seen in his short two minute tour of the actual base halls, and five minutes in the basement. And one of them was actually a chronic asthmatic. So he doubted he could have run and lived. The other was her boyfriend. Somehow he doubted that John and Anna had survived. "But anyways my guess it that the front has gone miles deeper into our territory so we can't escape with them. Hell they're probably long gone and fighting back at mount isolena or somewhere."

"So you mean we're stuck here all alone." Relena said with a tint of regret not at all hidden in her voice. Tom chuckled. "Normally I'd get pissed at that laugh, but that's only the military me." Tom raised an inquisitive and somewhat dis-believing eyebrow. He really had honestly never expected this.

"Really, I thought you were a bitch at home, and at the neighbors house, and at the boyfriends, in-laws, and boss's house."

Relena was the one to laugh. "I was but that was usually because I was drunk or high or something."

"You a druggie?" Tom said looking at Relena very odd. "I think hell just froze over." Tom looked out the door, "Is that snow?" He said genuinely surprised beyond a level that should be expected. Especially because of his long time alive and the fact that he had managed to take in things that would make most heads threaten to explode.

"Well I wasn't a druggie per-say. Just sometimes marijuana and other such things would enter my system from my friends." Tom kept on staring at her oddly, she ignored him with a practiced ease. "I was a constant drunk by my own means. I vaguely remember being attacked and left for dead a long time ago and I think the guys who attacked me killed my family. Let's just say I was an alcoholic to drown out the sorrow."

Tom waited to make sure her ever brief story was really done, then he asked reddy, "Is this true, her a druggie and alcoholic?"

"Hey I didn't believe it when she said it the first time but Perrone said that they lived in the same town for a time and she frequented a bar he worked at during that time. Every day, when she wasn't working perhaps for eight hours, she may puke and get piss drunk every day she wasn't working but Perrone said she never once passed out in the bar. Something no other customer during his time there could claim." Reddy said with an awkward laugh.

"Ok so should she be proud sad or half dead from all the alcohol."

Relena laughed, she stumbled slightly, "Bit tipsy there." She mumbled. "I'm rather proud big boy."

Tom was REALLY perplexed. "Is she taking shots from a hip flask when you're talking or when she breathes? And if it is the latter does she do it so fast we can't perceive her doing it?"

"I'd say hip flask or acting." Reddy grinned a big grin.

Tom glared at reddy for an instant then glared at Relena and kept it. "I'm tempted to hit reddy but more so you." He said before he walked away preventing that temptation from being exercised.

Ignoring that very, very odd situation Tom walked to around to see that everyone was prepared for the trip. Everyone all was. The group excuse for them not to get blow to little itty bitty pieces of nothing was that reddy had found them after his last battle in the town. Now he was taking them out of harms way and would return to the front ASAP. Of course ASAP would be some time from now and he probably would never actually return. Honestly the odds were in favor of him fighting Zenebas over him supporting them, and him fighting Zenebas was unlikely once they got to GF territory. Him fighting in the war period was unlikely once they got out of the battlefront.

But what was most important for Tom was him getting the special seal release thing so he could hopefully not have to deal with an angry planet bent on mauling him. So far there were no signs, but things seemed odd. Odd in a way that really couldn't be described. Perhaps Tom was just paranoid, he had been alive for many a millennia, had a voice in his head and had killed thousands if not millions of people, perhaps insanity and paranoia were the norms for people in his circumstances. Or perhaps he needed a way to explain why he, the best fighter of the group capable of doing things that could rip apart dozens of Zoids without unleashing the wrath of hellfire and only using one of his hundreds of gadgets in his infinite space belt, was leaving a group of people in a way that would not make it seem like he was getting ready to make himself weak enough to be killed and thus cause a massive loss for the guardian force intentionally. After thinking about it seriously he decided it was paranoia, with the leaving the group defenseless against as much as much as perhaps an Ultrasaurus. Yeah he really was just about a nervous wreck. Oh if only he had one of the machines on the discovery, but he was still trying to find someone who would make his fleet, he had the money to make one ship from Zoid battles but he still needed a manufacturer. "Damn it sucks knowing how to make technology eons ahead of the manufacturing technology. I need a mad scientist." Tom sighed, that was exactly what he needed.

The next morning the group left. Somehow Relena had been able to get into the command wolf, most likely drunk, and get on Tom's lap. It had been certain that something like that would happen with someone but since Relena had managed to fight Tom into submitting and with John's testament to how extremely flirtatious she was with him there was plenty of potential romance, or prostitution, that could happen.

Finally after an hour of walking along they came upon the mile wide advancing column. Then everyone silenced themselves, it was time for reddy's influence to shine through. If they needed to that was. They all began the crossing at a moderate pace, save for Fred who was long past the valley. As they went along and the number of Zenebas Zoids seemed to increase they sped up. Finally after another hour they made it across. Breathing a sigh of relief they prepared to move on when some moderately highly ranked Zenebas soldier appeared on Tom's pilot screen and asked. "Hey what are you doing?"

Tom was caught off guard by this but was able to act his way out. Putting on the face of a somewhat nervous person and adding a hint of fear to his voice he spoke, "Well we were in our town not believing that this mass of Zoids Zenebas was talking about could exist. Damn were we ever wrong. Well we hid in the one building big enough to hold us all until this nice you Zenebas soldier, he said his name is reddy, came along and offered to help us out. So we got ready and now he's taking us to a place he said we'll be safe in."

The soldier pondered the story, rightly so since every bit of it was false, and just as he seemed to accept the story a realization hit his face. "Hey you look familiar!" He shouted as he trained his gun on the command wolf Tom was in.

SHIT! Tom thought, If one guy shoots us more are bound to follow. Strong I may be but, that strong I am not.

"Well now." Relena said sounding completely smashed. "I see you've met my boyfriend before."

Reddy quickly took over before the commander asked anyone else about their story. "You see sir they were in the town where I ended up after the ghost fox attacked I was originally stationed in. I saw that they were terrified and had a black reddler, a bonus. So I offered to take them to at least temporary safety so they won't get caught up in the chaos of war and killed."

The soldier looked at reddy closely for all of a second and then decided he was the real thing. "So you're reddy eh? You're younger than I thought."

"Yea I get that a lot." Reddy said with total honesty, he really did get that a lot.

"So where you taking them?"

"The city of sentarius ruins."

"There?"

"Yeah, with the Zenebas policy of avoiding zoidian ruins I thought it would be the best place to stick them for a while, since I really can't go north or to a safe town."

"Ok, when you're done you better try and return to the front."

"I'll try my best." Reddy said, his best being not doing anything, his worst would be him ending up fighting Zenebas. With a nod and half salute the soldier cut off his comm. Link with reddy, and with a nod a faint growl at Relena, who played the part of flattered, he cut of that comm. Link.

Tom simply resorted to brute force in a barely violent manner as to keep her from making any more insane potential advances. He took Relena and physically tossed her over the seat into johns lap. "HEY!" She shouted at Tom. Tom's palm met her face and she crushed john. After two repeat attempts she gave up and looked at john. "Hey big boy." She said.

"Relena shut the hell up." Tom said his face and voice like stone. Things like this run too big a risk for me to get attached more than I am now. I can't risk getting distracted in any of my two main missions. Kill Lisa and getting that scroll.

After some more time of traveling across the land to the site and no more awkward attempts at romance the gang arrived. The city was no big thing above ground, at least not anymore. Archaeologists said that there must have been a decent sized city by modern and zoidian standards above ground. Below ground was truly a massive labyrinth only matched by eveopolis. Above the ground were eight massive rings. Some had full buildings, if albeit ones that were rather ratty but still whole. Other had simple ruins, and one in the center was blank. However between the rings and a ways beyond there was a massive underground city that stretched for what seemed to be forever.

It was there that the small gang took refuge. And it was there, somewhere, where the scroll that would return the power to the planet itself was hidden, somewhere.

"Somewhere!" Tom shouted externally as well as internally. "Anywhere is somewhere!"

So sue me, my memory of the place is far from perfect.

"Look you at least could direct me to the right 'ring' and I could search from there."

Look I hid it in an ancient zoidian temple in the only ring that existed at the time. Seven more have appeared since I was here last and the temple appears to be gone. What the hell am I supposed to do when no-one has a map of this place and my two key physical landmarks are rendered useless?

Tom sighed, here he was a living being with technology perhaps ten times superior to anything on the planet and a powerful magical spirit and they couldn't find a damn scroll. Well Tom was not an archaeologist but he had the discerning eye to figure out where a grand temple may have been. Also he was certain he had some way to get from sphere to sphere. Taking a moment to use his special belt and produce a device for flight (read lack of description as author being lazy) Tom ran towards the nearest open area he could think of.

Meanwhile in another underground area the small gang were in hiding from a massive army that had several ultrasauruses and perhaps a million soldiers that were looking for the heads of guardian force members. Eight on anything greater than 10 would mean more than ten would come in time. And now with their best chance for survival gone everyone had to have a weapon with them at all time.

"Damn why did Tom have to leave." Relena muttered as she looked at the fire. "I mean sure he said he had something important he needed to find here. But I think he was just leaving us to die."

"Is that what you think?" John asked Relena. "Well I think that if he left us alone for good it would be to save us."

"Why's that?" Relena said with a sneer.

"Because he will draw plenty of attention. He's assumed multiple names over the years and you only need his original name to draw ten thousand people to his very beck and call. Or use his most recent name to call down half a million Zenebas soldiers on his name. And of course you could use both and do some crazy shit I can't even try to make up." John leaned back from poking the fire with a stick. "Yeah. Only problem is he isn't the type to leave us alone. He won't leave his comrades alone for long unless something truly important pulls him away. You know that as well as I do now."

Relena looked into the fire then at the zoid cockpit. Several hours with the very real prospect that the man piloting the zoid they had been in wouldn't say a word had seemed beyond boring, it seemed potentially deadly with the boredom it would bring. So they had asked Tom about his earth past. God there was a lot for him to tell. First off his age was misleading; he really had been alive for close to 40 years where he had aged. It was just earth technology had become so advanced aging happened much slower there than here. At least that was eons ago. Then came the discussion of him as a soldier, he had been a very loyal commander, capable and dedicated. He never had left his soldiers behind for long if the situation was truly bleak. And if he had to go into a building by himself to do it then he would, and he always succeeded. His strategy may not have been the best in the world, but really strategy had not been his forte, rather it was his ability that made him shine. He mentioned the ship he had come to this portion of the Milky Way on, the discovery, and how on board it was military technology unlike Zi had ever seen. He also mentioned that he was working on a way to retrieve it from the moon, of course first he had to get to the moon but in his eyes that was a minor detail. Tom said himself all he needed was 'a scientist mad enough to make a space battleship'. He then mentioned all the technology existed on this planet now, and his winnings would provide the funds for at least one ship, maybe even two. Also he had patent funds, earnings from technologies on loan to the whole planet practically and god knows where other forms of income for him came from. He said he might be able to create a whole fleet given time. That was what he was like, he seemed to be trying to distance himself from everyone but the way he had begun to talk about how he could help people with what he knew, stop all the 'evil villains' of the world. Having his own space fleet, all those things began to make him sound like a little kid, and he genuinely smiled for a while. He was trying to become hard and callous but he was failing miserably.

"You're right John." Relena said with a faint smile, "He's always been too nice, he would only abandon us after they kill his spirits, spirits, spirit." Yet to herself she thought He always will be this nice he always has, I know him too well to see him any other way.

Meanwhile Tom had finally found the site where the temple was most likely to have been located. "Ok so now what, we've found the place where the temple is, after searching every other damn sphere, so what do we do?"

Well see the big building ruin in the rough center of the sphere?

"Yes."

That was the temple long, long ago. I hid the scroll in the actual temple building and since it's still standing I would assume it's still in there.

"But you also assumed that the temple was in the seven other craters that exist."

That was different, those weren't there then, this was. I can assure you that if this is the right building, which was already done by process of elimination, that I can get us to the scroll with ease.

Tom looked at the building; it certainly fit the whole, 'see our god has moved us to build this great structure honoring it. Worship it too because our building is better than yours' bill. Really based on what Tom did know of zoidian architecture it seemed to be a likely enough locale for a temple to the great zoid mother, so why not check. "Tell me which way to go and I will go there." Tom said.

Good. Kokuhso levelly responded.

Meanwhile, due to the sound of patrolling Zoids and everyone's radar picking up potential hostiles the entire group had gone deeper into the underground city. "I had no idea zoidian culture was so advanced." John muttered to himself and Relena since they did not dare to communicate by radio. "I mean there was the deathsaurer combined with the meteor rain when Tom's ships impacted the moon some short time later. And yet they leave at least two massive cities nearly intact for us to see four thousand years later. And the fact that while impossibly rare today there still are zoidian capsules found some with people still alive, in fact almost half found have living occupants."

"Yes but with Tom's opinion on the globally 3 how amazing do you think the first earth technology was?" Relena asked from the back seat. "He said that odds are violence was involved with their early years on the planet. So do you think the Zoidians were at an advantage, or a disadvantage? Records show that technology, while at a moderate state, it was minimal until the humans arrived. And besides the deathsaurer was largely a human contrived design, with a zoidian blessing for the basic body and creation. If that doesn't give some hint to the nature of the first humans on Zi I don't know what will."

"You've got me there. But we do know about the better technology that Tom has or knows of at least. Hell this command wolf has stuff that I doubt any of Zi besides him and the other girls from his ship know about." John had been looking through the various things on the command wolf's command screen. "While the major parts are all standard smaller things that no-one would pick up on with a standard test seem to be far more advanced than any zoid in the world."

"The who what?"

"Basically Tom made parts that wouldn't be checked out in special detail, unless something was wrong, super advanced. I guess he left a little more than half at average technology levels so he could avoid unwanted attention as a genius or something of the sort."

"So he has the potential to super power this zoid but he hasn't to keep a relatively low profile."

"Yeah a relatively low one, with over some thousands of wins in the battle arena and hundreds of kills on the battle field. He's really doing a good job of keeping himself hidden in plain sight." John kept on looking at various files Tom had on his computer. "I guess we should leave another sign eh?"

"I suppose." The canopy opened, Relena produced a knife and started scratching an arrow on the wall. After a few minutes she pulled out her weapon, an assault rifle, and blasted out a larger arrow. "Done now we can hope he finds us before someone who wants us dead does."

On the unfortunate cue, with the cockpit still open, a shot rang out. Relena fell down as the command wolf made a minute twitch to dodge the attack, when she hit the ground blood was coming out of the place where her chest had been connected to her arm. And where her left arm once met her shoulder.

"RELENA!" John shouted as he turned to fire shots down the hall that made an impact that went boom. "Are you ok!?!"

"What do you think you retard?" Relena said without moving. "I don't have a left arm anymore. Give me my gun." She said without moving.

John hopped out of the cockpit as the rest of the gang blasted away at the foes that were far away. He gave her the gun. "Now give me as many explosives that you can and give me a detonator." After taking 12 minutes to do that Relena had one more request. "Turn me so I can make an arrow that way." She pointed towards where the enemy was. When john was done, and had supported her up with explosives Relena said, "Now go far that way, I'll keep them busy here." John paused for a moment nodded and got into his command wolf.

"Guys we're out of here!" John shouted as he let off two more quick shots into the enemy ranks.

"But what about Relena?" Reddy asked, "We all saw her get shot."

"Well I don't want to kill your emotions but it was an anti zoid gun sniper round. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination."

"Oh." Reddy murmured. "You heard the man let's go!" After firing off one last machine gun burst reddy took off with everyone else quickly following.

Relena waited until a minute after they were all gone. "That was a painful act to put up. But this should be fairly easy." She threw her gun aside and stood up detonator in hand. The arrow was very well marked in the wall.

Tom had just gotten his hand on the scroll when he heard a large explosion. "The hell was that." Tom said taking out the scroll and running out of the room. Producing a silver looking hand held weapon Tom asked kokuhso out loud, "Care if a little zoidian ruin is made more ruinous."

Hell no, they did kill plenty of the Kami before I signed the treaty remember?

"Good point." With a point Tom pointed at a point about eight feet ahead of his current position fired the gun. A small silvery white orb shot out and impacted with a fair sized explosion against the ceiling.

Damn, you had that all along?

"Yes, and now you'll see much more of my arsenal since all you can do is heal."

You've piqued my interest; I can guarantee you I will be 100 focused on healing just to see 20 of the crap in that belt.

"I doubt I'll let you down." Tom said as he jumped off the walls to the top of the building. "I am known for my fighting ability not my tactical genius." Tom now had two of his silver pistols in each hand. He ran four feet jumped and wings came out of his back. They were red glider wings, and an odd square pack on his back let out rocket blasts. "And here's where I get to show off."

Diving down some several hundred feet in order to make it to the cave opening Tom darted right to where he knew the Zoids were at a speed virtually unmatched by any machine not ten times the size of the one he had on his back. Darting through complicated pathways that were sometimes too narrow to fit his wings the long way Tom didn't slow down a hair for anything. If a building came in his way it was blasted several times no matter how much was in his way, be it two millimeters thick or ten feet thick. Tom came up on a large hole. "What is it?" Tom asked kokuhso as he stopped above it.

The path to the underground should be faster to get to your friends, just don't expect an exit hole where they may be.

"Anything down there that still may be moving?"

Not as far as I can figure.

Tom didn't reply he simply dove and used his forward boosters to go faster still, leveling out he made a slight turn into the vast cavernous area underneath the entire city. "Damn this is perfect!" He muttered as he dashed off to right where he was being told to go by his gut, his tracking device, and his inner sense of direction.

After another ten minutes of gliding around Tom came to the spot where he could hear explosions overhead. Common sense still present Tom pushed a button on his belt, a glow that vaguely held the coloring of a bubble surrounded him in a bubble shape. What's this?

"A common product. It's called 'my personal bubble'. It should be able to deflect, oh…" Tom then pointed both of his guns up and pulled their triggers as fast as he could. After three minutes of blasting, and about a full minute of shooting with nothing above him until you reached the ground some eighty feet up, Tom continued his sentence, "About that much rubble."

Ah. Kokuhso said somewhat sarcastically. Tom didn't care in the least.

Floating up Tom turned one way and blasted everything in that direction. It was a mass of Zenebas Zoids that had pulled back from the orbs of light. They couldn't pull back from this barrage. After a full five minutes of firing without really trying the guns stopped shooting of energy when Tom pulled the trigger. "Shit out of energy." Tom mumbled. He spun the guns around his fingers and did a traditional Wild West holstering of them. With a flash they disappeared at either side of his waist. With another flash Tom had a large gatling gun in his hands; Tom let himself settle on the ground some distance from the very big hole he had made. "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTE FRIEND!!!" Tom shouted ignoring the oxymoron. After another five minutes the gun disappeared in a flash. It still could fire but Tom hadn't let any smoke clear since he had started shooting and besides those Zoids were gone one way or another. Tom looked at the wall. He had seen the arrow and the arm some time ago. When one shot with reckless abandon for almost six minutes without a care of aiming as long as their shots were in one direction they tended to notice things. Tom sighed he knew who's arm it was. True no technology or magical reading was telling him that but Tom knew. "Relena, why did you die?" He said as he collapsed to his knees crying for someone who he had really cared about. He smacked the ground producing only a slight effect, but more than he could do normally. Tom noted this only slightly and thought, Thanks.

It may be all the power I can produce for the entire stay here but I felt this situation deserved it. Kokuhso said to Tom. He had used as much power as he could summon which was almost none, and had done his best to help Tom as he could.

Tom looked to the smoke; it was clearing to reveal either Tom needed to aim more if he was going to go into a barrage of fire like that ever again. Or it showed that someone had a bigger interest in this place than Tom had planned on. Tom stood up. He began shaking, almost falling over, with a flash the small glider like wings were replaced with large pure energy wings of white. In Tom's right hand a sword appeared. With a silent leap Tom began slicing off limbs of both Zoids and humans.

Hell had been unleashed on earth if but for a moment.

-End-

Well now we get to see more senseless violence, as well as the last of the main good guys dieing for this particular fic. Also we get more into the kokuhso/Tom relation. And the Tom/everyone relation. And the everyone/everyone relation. All in all I like this chapter.