Brief physical bliss blunted stress. They could be no closer.
It wasn't until passion cooled that Brad and Naomi independently and silently acknowledged they'd just indulged in a quickie next to a corpse. Neither spoke as they hastily zipped up and pulled their coats back on, the air's chill quick to settle in. Brad continued to seek contact, loath for the approval to stop.
Naomi sighed and looked around, clearing her throat. "Well. Guess we should… get going."
Brad nodded. Unlike Naomi, his idle regard of Fuma's body was unflinching. He'd been party to much worse.
"You go on ahead. See if there's any sign of the other Saurers. I'll catch up."
Naomi made an agreeable sound and started towards her Gun Sniper, though paused and looked back at Brad.
"What are we going to do about…" She motioned with her head.
Brad glanced at Ambient.
Bit silently watched Leon stalk into the hangar and to the Blade Liger.
The Zoid regarded Leon and chuffed a greeting, with an air Bit could only interpret as confused awkwardness. The Blade Liger clearly didn't understand why Leon was upset… just that he was.
Leon touched his Liger's leg fondly, returning the greeting. Then he sank into a seated slouch on the Zoid's wrist armor, and went quiet. He hadn't noticed Bit.
As the silence grew, so did Bit's unease. Zero similarly had its attention on the young Toros, and Bit felt the swell of the Organoid's perception. Though Leon showed no outward sign of it, just behind his eyes raged an incredibly bitter agitation.
The blonde's face wrinkled with discomfort, both out of empathy and out of a sense he had no real right to be perceiving this.
Leon closed his eyes and leaned his forehead onto the Blade Liger's leg.
Silence, for several minutes more.
"Hey." Bit finally said from across the hangar. "You okay, man?"
Purple eyes snapped open, but didn't look up. Leon's pupils pinpointed with displeasure. He didn't say anything.
Zero gathered itself and stood, then approached. Leon watched the white Organoid and inhaled deeply when it stopped near him.
"You talk too, I take it."
~Of course.~
Leon nodded, once. He shifted his eyes to Bit's approach, looked between the two, and spoke to Bit.
"Are these things… okay?"
"Okay?" Bit looked Zero over, then back at Leon. "I mean… yeah? I can't speak for all of them. But Zero's amazing." A slight smile. "And he thinks you're awesome."
Better than Ambient's opinion of him, Leon supposed. And presumably One's. The man warily studied the looming white Organoid, stuck bringing to mind the concerns Naomi had expressed to him about Ambient.
Mind, they'd both been completely stoned while discussing said concerns. But... she'd obviously waited until Brad nodded off to bring them up.
Were these things safe to be around? Were they loyal? Would they hurt anyone? Did they need to be kept secret? Who did they answer to?
~We are not dogs.~ Zero said bluntly, with a mild condescension kept private to Leon. ~Everyone acts of their own accord. No different than you. No different than Bit.~
The scold felt so paternal that Leon resented it on those grounds alone. He didn't say anything, just looked back at Bit.
The blonde smiled in response, an attempt at comfort.
"I shouldn't have come back." Leon concluded after a few moments.
And he didn't mean recently. He meant in general. The man leaned again onto the cold steel edge of his Liger's foreleg, shaking his head.
He missed Naomi, whose pleasant company he'd become accustomed to while on the Fluegel Team. He missed Brad, who had long been a cornerstone of the Blitz Team. Recent events' strain notwithstanding, Leon had been close friends with the mercenary for many years.
The other night, Brad and Naomi had started lazily making out just behind him. Naomi gently, playfully encouraged Leon to join in, something which the man wasn't entirely sure how to parse. He wasn't sure he still belonged in this space in general, nevermind mixed up between the two.
Naomi had taken one of his hands and softly kissed his wrapped knuckles. As if to say: he'd never stopped belonging.
After all, he'd not been asked to leave the Fluegel Team. He'd done it out of a blind sense of obligation to his father, to Leena, to Jaime - the Blitz Team. And in deference to Brad.
Now the man was simply stressed, in pain, and lonely, and didn't want to think about it. It or anything else.
He didn't want to worry about the potentially-dangerous strangers in his home, but didn't want to feel at ease around them either. He didn't want to argue with his father, but also didn't want to be overruled by default, and didn't want to be treated like a child. He didn't want to think about these damn Organoids, didn't want to worry about Naomi, didn't want to doubt that Brad knew what he was doing...
But he didn't have a choice.
"Well. I'm glad you did." Bit said after a span, voice quiet. "I'd probably be dead otherwise."
Leon looked directly at the blonde, whose green eyes had glossed with sincerity - and poorly-masked fear.
Bit's honest and optimistic approaches to things were what had prompted Leon to stop cowering in the base to begin with. Prompted Leon to go out, to do something with himself, his skills, and his life - something instead of sitting and aging at the helm of a mediocre Team.
"I'd probably be dead inside if you'd never shown up to begin with, Bit. I should be thanking you."
Bit smiled and held out a friendly hand, which the Blade Liger pilot gently accepted.
"Let's just say we're even then, eh?" Bit said.
"Works for me."
Naomi had left by this point, and Brad was glad that she had.
Ambient made short work of the body, jaws shearing with methodical ease through flesh and cracking bone. The creature wolfed each chunk down then looked at Brad attentively, licking its chops. Dark-red blood oozed from the corners of its mouth.
Brad just stood there, looking… moderately troubled.
The Organoid rumbled and stooped to the ground, wiping its face back and forth across dirt and snow. ~We can chew up Zoids, lad. Flesh isnae anything.~
It was less a "flesh" issue and more an "entire person had just effectively been erased in about 60 seconds" issue. Systematically, no less.
"You uh… done this before?"
There wasn't much of the day left by the time the Fox caught up with the Gun Sniper. The two Zoids' friendly comm-chatter ensured they could easily find one another, at the slight risk of their pings being intercepted. It wasn't likely though, given that no one knew to look or listen for them in particular.
Regardless, neither Zoid nor human found any sign of another Saurer before dark.
It was decided to stop again for the night. Brad was quick to set up a tiny camp and fix a warm meal, his every action slanted towards improving Naomi's visibly-flagging mood. The two sat and ate silently, afterward drawing close and regarding the small campfire.
"You doing okay?" Brad said quietly.
A delay.
"Not sure." Naomi pressed back into Brad's chest. "You?"
"I… feel like we can get this done."
Naomi's throat worked. But she nodded.
"It is better if they're out of the picture, isn't it. Cockroaches."
Brad simply nodded back.
The night went silent for a while, punctuated only by the fire's crackling and occasional chitter of the forest's wary fauna. Naomi's eyes flicked with unspoken thought, and at length she looked up at Brad again.
"Why did you lie about what happened at Backdraft?"
A frown. "I didn't lie."
"You said more people were killed. You didn't mention that originally."
Oh. Brad exhaled deeply.
He'd no real desire to lie to Naomi. She was one of few people he was able to at all drop his guard around. The lie by omission was more to protect her, than anything - though protect her from what, Brad suddenly wasn't sure. Naomi was clearly able to deal with unpleasant realities.
He fought against a wave of nausea. Brad realized with some dread that he was the one he was shielding from those thoughts. Free of One's influence, he had to own all of it. And none of those people had deserved to die.
Especially not like that.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Naomi's voice hardened. "If we're out here because of it, I think you should."
Brad glanced down at her, and she sternly met his gaze. Neither said anything.
The man finally sighed and looked aside, resigned.
"Fine. But swear to me you'll never repeat any of this."
"Why would I-"
"Swear to me."
She'd never heard that level of straight fear in anyone's voice before, nevermind Brad's. She didn't like it.
The woman showed her palms submissively. "I swear."
Brad fixed a stare on her for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then he closed his eyes.
"Look. I'm sorry, but - I could be put to death for some of this. I killed… at least three ZBGF officers. And some people from the ZBC. And I don't even know who else. I lost count. They just kept throwing them in front of us. Piloting Zoids with disabled weapons."
Brad opened his eyes and made sharp eye contact.
"Let me be absolutely clear. These weren't battles, and they weren't fair. These were executions, on display for some real sick fucks. Most of the pilots surrendered early on. Some even fled their cockpits. But not one of them got out of there alive."
The Shadow Fox turned its head towards the two and emitted a low whine.
"And I've got to live with that. Because I was at the fucking controls." The man's eyes caught the firelight's edges, his face a mix of disgust and anger. "You wanna know what I could've happily gone my whole life without? Feeling people's bones crack through the floorboard."
Naomi just stared, frozen. Horrified.
Brad pointedly looked away and didn't say anything else.
Silence.
Naomi took one of his hands in both of hers, and held it.
The desert sun had barely set, the skies beginning their usual crawl towards darkness.
Cool wind snaked about, tousling Vega's hair as he sat cross-legged in the hangar on his sleeping bag. He was scrolling idly through a datapad.
The feeling hit him hard and fast, a jolt of pain in his sides and under his diaphragm: profound hunger. He briefly gaped at its intensity, taking several breaths. Every night now. One wanted to go back to that base. Wanted to feel that precious few hours of satiation.
And that's all it lasted for. Hours. Barely a day. Vega tried to recall how many Zoids were at Mackaray. A great number of them, yes, abandoned to their fates. But-
One reflected intense excitement, scrambling clear thought. Vega kept trying to breathe evenly, overwhelming hunger pangs dragging him into the beast's mental riptide.
"Every night?" He whispered through his teeth.
~I am so hungry and it is so good. I desire more.~
Vega couldn't help but relish in the eagerly-shared sensation. One being well-fed and content was the single greatest peace Vega had ever experienced. But-
~Come, let us go now. It will be a delight.~
The child patiently set the datapad aside and wiped his forearm across his face. He was drooling uncontrollably, found it harder and harder to think straight, Vega balled his fist and bit it, trying to stay focused.
It didn't work. And another Zoid died that night.