Chapter 1: Who are you?
"Lineback! Get that one on the right!" Shouted Kirkland, leader of the Zaber team, as his yellow Sabre Fang rushed forward, its four claws smashing against the ground, pushing himself across the huge desert terrain they fought on, tailing a gray command wolf sporting the typical AZ-50mm Dual Barrel Rifle on its back.
Just then a second command wolf had veered off to the right, the second of three, but the third was already trashed.
"Right!" Confirmed Lineback, who picked up his speed and chased after the Command Wolf. Both Lineback and Omari's sabre fangs were damaged, but not enough to put them out of commission. However, Omari's buster cannon was malfunctioning, so that put his main gun offline for now. He could still ram his opponents and perhaps use his claws too.
"You aren't getting away!" Shouted Lineback as he scoped in on the hurrying Command Wolf. His targeting system gave a beep and his screen went red with a "Lock-on!" message onscreen. Lineback's lips curled into a smirk, "Gotcha!"
His shock cannon recoiled as he fired a burst off. The shot careened through the air and struck the Command Wolf right in the right hind leg's stabilizer and sent it smashing into the ground. Lineback altered his course and went to link up with Kirkland again, "Too easy! Let's get that last one!" Proclaimed Lineback as he ran a hand through his short dark brown, almost black hair.
"Watch it, Lineback! He's turned around!" Kirkland shouted, interrupting his team mate. "W-What?!" Lineback tried to veer off to the right, as the gray command wolf's dual barrel rifle took aim, fired and hit his zoid right in the chest. The sabre fang screeched aloud and fell to the ground with a thud, all his screens began to freeze up and a message popped up on his main viewer saying, "Command System Freeze!"
Lineback slammed his fist on the control panel beside him, "Ah, come on! Not now!" He shouted angrily. He pressed the comm. link in front of him and called up another on their team, "Hey! Rookie! Get your tail in gear! Kirkland needs your help!" He shouted over the link.
"Roger" Replied a much calmer and obviously younger voice, probably in his teenage years.
Meanwhile, Kirkland rushed as fast as he could, with Omari at his right, with the one gray command wolf at his tail. The one piloting it was a member of the Gray Wolves team, a B rank team, along with the Zaber Fang team. His Dual Barrel Rifle homed in on Omari's sabre fang, both teams stampeding across the desert, dodging and jumping rocks and pits. He carefully took aim, compensating for the constant movement and the possibility of a sudden change in course; he locked onto Omari and fired off two rounds.
"Omari, watch out!" Kirkland called over the comm. unit as he swerved to the right.
"It's no good!" Cried Omari as he tried to swerve to the left, but to no avail. The first round smashed into the ground and the second smashed right into the main body, blowing off his shock cannon and severing several command connections. In the end, his sabre fang crashed and burned into the ground, and like Lineback, his screen lit up with a command system freeze message. Omari was knocked unconscious in the crash, but otherwise he was fine.
"Arrgh...Hey! What's takin' you so long, rookie?!" Shouted Kirkland over the communications unit.
"Sorry, Kirkland." Was the simple reply.
Moments later the gray command wolf's left shoulder lit up with an explosion, it jumped back and staggered slightly. The pilot threw his sight around until he spotted another zoid. It was only a Rev Raptor, but instead of the typical set of blasters and blades, it also had a light missile launcher on its back, capable of firing ten missiles per round, with a pack to hold the ammo. It reduced the Rev Raptor's speed a little bit, but not by much.
"Sorry pal, but this fight's over." Stated the same young man over his speaker to the command wolf. His zoid roared aloud and fired another round from its blasters and hit the command wolf straight on, sending it sparking to the ground. With that, its command system froze up and the judge capsule blared a horn over the battle ground and comm. links.
"The battle is over! The battle is over!" He announced in his male robotic voice as he waved his arms around slightly, "The winner is...the Zaber Team!" He proclaimed in his typical fashion and raised one arm up. With that, the capsule closed and took off back into the air to link up with the Judge Satellite in orbit over the planet.
Kirkland's sabre fang came to a halt by Omari's wrecked zoid and he quickly jumped down to see to his team mate. At the same time, the young man piloting the rev raptor went to check on Lineback and see how he was doing. The sabre fang's cockpit popped open and Lineback climbed out, glaring at the supposed 'rookie'. "You idiot!" He barked, jabbing a finger towards the five feet nine inch tall teenager that approached him, "If you hadn't been so slow, me and Omari wouldn't have been taken out!"
"Hey, I told you I'm still getting the hang of all these zoid battles." Stated the young man as he reached up and removed his helmet, revealing a green eyed young man of about seventeen. "And I warned you long beforehand that I was still getting my bearings." He set the helmet under his arm and sighed, running a gloved hand through his short black hair, which was pushed down from having the helmet on for a long time.
Lineback scoffed and folded his arms over his chest, "Feh, excuses..." he mumbled and gave a sideways glare to him. "By the way, what did you say your name was again?"
The black haired youth sighed and scratched the back of his head, "Come on, I've said it five times already..." He mumbled under his breath, "My name's Krater." He said flatly and glanced towards the wreck that was Omari's sabre fang. Just then, Kirkland had pulled Omari out of the cockpit and shouted, "Omari's alright, but he's out cold! We need to get him to our whale king and lay him down somewhere!"
Kirkland nodded and turned back to Krater, "You help him get Omari in the whale king, me and Lineback will get our zoids into the hanger and then I want you to look at the damage." He said with a grim frown. Apparently, the fact that they had to rely on a newbie so much was embarrassing, but Krater was a good technician, they'd found that out already after their last battle. It was thanks to him they had been able to even fight in this battle.
"After that we'll give you what we promised to pay you, but I think we'll need you to stick around for a while longer." He added as Krater nodded and went to assist Lineback.
Before long, Omari was lying in his quarters and his and Lineback's zoids were in the maintenance deck on their yellow whale king. Kirkland went to handle the battle forms, Lineback went to get something to eat and Krater got to work looking at the sabre fangs. The damage wasn't too bad, mostly surface damage, but what little internal damage was done needed to be fixed right away.
So, the rookie went to work for at least an hour repairing the damage that was done to the two zoids, from the inside out. By the time the members of the Zaber Team came to see his progress, he'd already repaired the command connections on Omari's sabre fang and the circuitry damage to Lineback's. All that was left was the armor and he'd be done.
"Sheesh, look at him. Not often a rookie shows up with those kinds of tech skills." Mumbled Lineback with a sigh.
"Yeah no kidding. He's slow in the battles, but we need him to help fix our zoids." Remarked Kirkland with a frown and Lineback looked at him with a glance.
"How much are we paying him anyway? Given our budget I'm surprised we could even hire him." He inquired curiously.
Kirkland shook his head, "As far as mercenaries go, not much. He didn't demand much either, which is surprising. Even if he can't do so hot in the battles, he's amazing with mechanical work."
Lineback scratched the back of his head with a confused look, "Must not be confident in himself then. Ah well, I'm going to go see if Omari's awake yet." He sighed disinterestedly and walked off out of the hangar.
Kirkland remained there for a little while longer, but soon wandered off to do something or other and left Krater alone as he finished up the repairs.
When he was done, the young man wiped his brow with a sigh and sat down. "Well, all done. These two should be rearin' to go for the next battle." He smiled as he looked up at Omari's sabre fang.
Later on, Krater walked out of the shower with a fresh change of clothes on, which was nothing more then a fairly simple maroon jacket with blue pants and black sneakers and went to the briefing room to find Omari and Lineback sitting across from each other talking. Both stopped and turned to him as he walked in and gave him a nod before resuming their conversation. Krater didn't listen for long; they were just talking about how they might handle their next battle. It had taken a lot of losses before it finally got through their thick skulls that their past tactics just didn't work in the higher ups.
"Hey guys" Kirkland called as he walked in, the three turning to him and he sat down, "Got a message from the Zoid Battle Commission. They've already got us another battle. It's this Friday, we're up against the 'Shield Guard,' a team of three shield ligers and a godulas. Battle mode 0982." He told them as he gazed at each one.
Omari and Lineback nodded with big grins of excitement. Krater stared off into space, his eyes on a panel across the room as he considered the match up. Three shield ligers and a godulas? The sabre fangs won't be able to get past the shield ligers' energy shields with their current weapons and that godulas has got some tough armor plating. Even if these guys by some miracle pulled off a precision formation their current weapons would be useless.
"Hey, Krater!" Kirkland shouted. The young man jumped and realized the zoid pilot was in his face. "I asked you if you had any suggestions, so do you or don't you?" He asked, miffed at being ignored.
Krater stared blankly for a second before he snapped from his dazed reverie and said, "Well we might want to equip the sabre fangs with different weapons. Your current guns won't be able to take down a shield liger, at least not individually and I doubt they'd just let you guys gang up on one of them." He stood up and stretched. "It might be good to have one of you equip a heavy missile launcher too, we'll need it to do any damage to that godulas they've got. Raider's light missile launcher might be able to work against the shield ligers, but I don't see it doing any damage to the godulas." When he was done, Omari waved a hand in the air for attention.
"Raider...?" He said with a quirked eyebrow.
Krater sighed and shook his head as he folded his arms over his chest, "The name of my rev raptor, remember? I know I've told you this at least twice." He replied irately.
Omari blinked and said, "Oh... right." And went silent. The other two members of the Zaber Team nodded and they all went to prepare their zoids for the battle. Over the course of the next two days they refitted Lineback's sabre fang with a powerful buster cannon and equipped Kirkland's with a heavy missile pod. For Omari they added light missile launchers like on Krater's zoid Raider.
Krater also took the blades from his rev raptor and had new ones (the money for said blades taken from his paycheck) put on that were made of metal much like the kind used to make the blades on a Blade Liger and would be much more efficient in slicing up enemy zoids.
When Friday, the day of their match finally came, they were at the Whale King's helm on their way to the battle zone they would be fighting in. The terrain was straight wasteland so it wouldn't be difficult to maneuver. Omari looked to Kirkland as he piloted the whale king and asked, "So, explain our plan to me again..."
Kirkland didn't say anything, instead Krater flipped on a viewing screen off to the side, which was nothing more then a tactical reading of the battlefield. On it were three large circles to denote the Zaber Team's sabre fangs and one square for Raider. The other team's three shield ligers were marked by small triangles and their godulas was presented as a diamond.
"The Shield Guard's favorite strategy is to have the godulas shell their opponent with heavy rounds while the shield ligers keep the enemy from hitting him. It's a strategy that's worked quite well for them in the long run, but it relies on their opponents being slow and sloppy with formations, not to mention just the simple fact that normal arsenals can't beat them, but we've already taken care of that. " He explained as the three triangles that denoted the shield ligers moved into an arrow formation with the godulas in the middle and the four began moving towards their own units.
"However, the godulas is so slow it can't keep up with the shield ligers on its own so they have to keep moving apace with it. This gives teams with real speed an advantage over them, so they usually switch tactics to compensate. However, given the Zaber Team's reputation, they'll probably go with their favorite formation." He continued as their zoids got into formation. "So, we're going to catch them off guard. We'll pretend to charge as always, but once we get close enough Omari and me will veer off and get behind them so we can surround them. Once we have them trapped it should be pretty simple defeating them. This way, we're spread out so damage from their godulas' shots is minimal and their shield ligers won't be able to stop us from firing at the godulas."
Omari and Lineback both nodded with excited smirks and the rounder of the two slammed his fist into the palm of his hand, "Alright! We'll win this easy then!" He exclaimed as Kirkland brought the whale king down to land.
By the time they had all their zoids on the battleground the judge flew down from the sky and crashed into the ground off to the side and rose up out of the earth as always. The front of the capsule folded open and rose up to reveal the robotic judge as he began to announce, "The area within a 200 kilometer radius is now a designated zoid battle zone. Danger! All others must leave the area immediately." As he said that, Krater could see their opponents moving into sight.
The three shield ligers were all the same white color, but each had small marks of some sort in different colors. Among them was a single godulas of the typical light gray and dark browns and blacks with a double barrel shock cannon on its back. Their team lumbered along at a pretty slow pace. They had to or the godulas would fall behind.
"The Zaber Team vs. the Shield Guards. Battle mode: 0982. Ready..."
"Alright team, remember our plan." Kirkland warned over the comm. link.
"FIGHT!"
"Go!" Kirkland roared as their team took off towards the enemy. Omari and Krater's Raider led the attack with Kirkland and Lineback moving right behind them. Their different weapons made them a little slower, but they were still able to keep up. The two teams exchanged fire as the godulas' back-mounted cannon fired off the first round and the Zaber Team's leading men fired in return as the ground exploded around them.
They got within a hundred yards, the explosive rounds from the godulas' double-barreled buster cannon tearing up the ground along their path but never landing a direct hit. Omari and Krater gave the signal over their communicators and veered away from the opposing team. The shield ligers deployed their shields and backed in a little closer to the godulas as the two went around them. The godulas paused in its attack, uncertain of who to take aim at as Kirkland and Lineback got into position in front of them.
The Zaber Team had successfully surrounded them and just as they expected, the three shield ligers couldn't block all four of them. Kirkland smirked and shouted, "Alright! Let's take 'em down boys!" over his comm. link and locked onto the godulas. His screen went red and the words 'Locked on!' popped up. His lips curled into smirk and he fired off his missiles.
The pods slid open and twelve heavy missiles flew into the air. At the same time, Lineback used his buster cannon to lay suppressing fire on the shield ligers. Omari opened up on the one shield liger trying to block both him and Krater, locked on and fired off a round of light missiles. Krater had Raider fire a steady stream of suppressing fire at the shield liger to keep him from retaliating.
The missiles from Kirkland and Omari flew into the enemy's formation and the explosion kicked up a mushroom cloud of smoke and dirt before it began to clear away. Krater and Lineback never stopped firing though, they kept shooting away at their unseen targets. After a few seconds the dust began to clear and the two ceased firing.
When they could see, it was clear things had gone well. One of the shield ligers was completely down. The other two had sustained heavy damage and the godulas lost a barrel on its buster cannon. Kirkland smirked and Lineback's laughter sounded over their comm. channel. "Alright! Okay guys, let's finish this! We got one already, the others are just sitting ducks!" Declared Lineback with a great big grin.
"Right!" The Zaber Team declared together and the three sabre fangs opened up on the shield ligers and godulas. However, as soon as they did, one of the shield ligers moved as fast as his zoid would allow towards Raider, the ground exploding with dust and rock behind him. The other shield liger and the godulas were down before the dust cleared.
As the remaining shield liger got closer to Raider, Krater took aim and locked on, his screen beeping and turning red in confirmation and fired off several rounds from his blasters. The shells exploded into the liger's head and chest and the zoid hit the ground running with a roar.
The judge's horns blared over the battle zone and its male voice announced, "The battle is over! The battle is over! The winner is... the Zaber Team!".
Lineback and Omari roared with cheers over the comm. units and Kirkland laughed. Krater sighed and smiled. He was kind of disappointed though, he expected the battle to have been a lot harder. But they had caught them off guard and they had been able to pull off their formation with perfection, so he was glad for that.
A couple hours later, the Zaber team's zoids were in their hanger on the whale king and they were on their way back to their base, all a-cheer over their easy win and their wonderful chunk of prize money they got for it. Omari, Lineback and Kirkland were celebrating in the briefing room, drinks in hand and smiles on their faces, laughing and joking around as they talked excitedly. Meanwhile, Krater was in the hanger, standing in front of his rev raptor Raider looking up with a smile. "Well Raider we did a good job today. We managed to help them win the battle. Kirkland wants us to hang around for a while longer, probably until they get some more wins in their pockets. What do you think?" He asked as he gazed up at his zoid.
The mechanical raptor's red eyes lit up for a brief second and a faint rumble echoed from its large mouth, soliciting a laugh from its pilot. "I know, they're a bunch of morons. Omari can't even get your name right! Lineback can't even remember my name!" He chuckled to himself as he sighed and closed his eyes. "We'll help with two more battles, and then we'll leave and find another team that might need some help. People will be talking about today's battle, especially since we won so easily, so I'm sure it shouldn't too hard finding a team that wants to hire us." He fell silent for a moment and looked back up at his zoid and asked, "How's that sound?"
The rev raptor gave a short grunt and nodded its head slightly. Krater smiled, turned and started on his way out of the hanger as he added over his shoulder, "Who knows, if things keep going our way we might get to form our own team. That would be a blast, wouldn't it?"
Once he was out of the hanger, he went to the kitchen and grabbed himself some dinner before heading off to bed. They'd be late getting back to the Zaber Team's base anyway, so he decided he'd just sleep on the Whale King for the night.