It hadn't taken long for Ambient to locate the third Geno Saurer. Their scent was already a familiar one, and the reminder made them easy to track down. Teleporting around was much faster - if not far more strenuous - than more traditional tracking.
Realistically, with enough planning Ambient could've taken care of the Fuma Team by itself.
But that would've been far less entertaining, would've taken a lot of effort, and besides: it wanted to see what Brad was capable of.
Because whether or not Ambient would admit it, the creature sorely missed the streamlined bliss of working with a partner, with a Zoid. Organoids were social animals. They weren't meant to be alone.
Ambient crept after the occupied Zoid, with an increased awareness of the need to mask its presence. Its initial inquiries were gentle: soft whispers, no surprises, so as not to cause alarm, and not cause the Zoid to alert its pilot.
Was the Saurer being treated well? How had it been? What did it think of its pilot?
The Geno Saurer's attention piqued vaguely, like the ear of a dog shifting sidelong to listen.
The voice of an Organoid was generally welcomed by any Zoid that recognized them. And this Organoid? Seemed to be one the Saurer remembered.
The one watching over the seedling tanks, was it not? It could certainly be trusted.
The Geno Saurer replied idly: it couldn't complain. But it had been quite bored. These pilots were acceptable, if not mediocre. Other Zoids were very dull company. The world was a strange place. It was hungry.
Ambient agreed and reflected sympathy, sharing a few of its own idle complaints about the state of things. Then quietly let the Geno Saurer in on a little secret.
A pilot he was with was after the Fuma Team - that was the title ofthese acceptable, yet quite mediocre pilots. Obviously, this pilot would have to take out their Zoids to get to them. Nothing against the Saurers, of course.
The Geno Saurer became immediately cross at the notion of a threat, and turned towards the direction it sensed Ambient.
It chuffed with insult: as if the Zoids were the chaff in this equation?
Negola blinked at the Zoid's unbidden movement and briefly-unresponsive controls. "Uh."
Red blazed. Ambient reformed with a cackle, a complete mess of teeth and talons crammed into the cockpit. The Organoid was there for only a split second, seizing Negola by the meaty juncture of his neck and shoulder - before it jolted away again, leaving the cockpit empty.
The Geno Saurer growled, equally annoyed and impressed.
Freed of direct control, it shook off and stretched, then craned its neck in the direction Ambient had gone.
It was very difficult to act normal, when nothing was normal.
She's watching again.
Jaime stood in the kitchen, chopping fruit. In his periphery, Sara was indeed watching. Staring.
He didn't really like her. He couldn't put his finger on why, and it wasn't so simple as her unclear status as part of Backdraft. Her eyes assessed, her eyes categorized, her eyes judged. Jaime spent most of his time being as much a part of the background as possible. He didn't enjoy the limelight. He didn't want to be noticed. He didn't-
Yes you do. Don't lie.
He stopped chopping, and stood silent for several seconds.
He really wanted Sara to look away.
"Need any help?" She asked, As would any normal person. Normal guest.
"Nope. I've got it." Jaime scraped the fruit into a bowl, then set the bowl on the kitchen bar. He was fetching a spoon for the bowl, when Leon walked in and helped himself, hands clearly dirty from the hangar.
A brow twitched. Jaime strongly considered slapping Leon with the spoon, but thought better of it. The young Toros wasn't paying attention anyways, his eyes on a datapad as he sauntered on by.
"You're quite patient with everyone." Sara said.
"Most everyone." The teen said tersely, expression making clear who was excluded. He finally turned to the woman. "How long are you intending on staying, again?"
Sara shrugged. "We don't really have anywhere else to go."
"Not sure that's our problem."
"Steve has been very accommodating."
Jaime pointedly let his eyes drop from Sara's face to her breasts. He looked back up after a moment. "Can't imagine why."
"Don't be so shallow. You're smarter than that."
The Eagle chuckled, derisively. Jaime rounded it into a cough. He kept a comment about Steve to himself, shaking his head as he opened the nearby freezer. Its contents were sparse.
"I don't suppose you want to pitch in for… you know. Food."
Jaime was the main victim of One's foray into the pantry, having had to sort through and clean up the mess. Leon claimed to have helped, but had mainly stood there scowling, griping, and shoving cookies into his mouth.
Not that he blamed Leon for being angry. As the quiet, smart, and ever-present keeper of the base, Jaime always silently showed up to help people too proud to otherwise ask for it. Jaime never got why Warriors felt the need to be so macho around their own Teammates. But he did understand why Leon was so sullen about his injuries.
The man was healing up nicely now, but those first few days after the Fury's attack on the base had been brutal.
Growing up, Jaime had always viewed Leon as a sort of older brother, both fortress and family that he and Leena could hide behind. He'd never seen the man falter. Never seen any cracks in the walls.
So Jaime's first sign that things were very not normal - besides the swath of base missing - was that he'd walked into the medbay late one night, and found Leon there alone. Quietly sobbing.
And yet you still waited a few days to even ask him if he was okay. Wuss.
Jaime's eyelids fluttered shut. He shut the freezer, at length.
"I'll see what I can do." Sara replied, then arched a brow. "You... have a gift, don't you?"
Jaime's blood iced, and it wasn't because of the leftover air from the freezer.
He glanced. "Pardon?"
"You heard me." Sara picked up a piece of fruit from the bowl, and smiled disarmingly. "It's not a bad thing. You're Oscar Hemeros's son, yes?"
Jaime's throat worked. He wasn't comfortable. This was the opposite of blending in with the background. "Yes."
"He worked with the Backdraft Organization for a little while."
"No he didn't!" Jaime surprised even himself with his indignation. Mentally he recoiled, brain ticking through everything he knew about his father. Enlisting in Backdraft didn't strike him as the kind of thing his father would do, but…
You don't know. You should ask him. Who knows. Backdraft might be fun.
Fuck.
Jaime's eyes darted nervously, and he shook his head, hastening to the other side of the kitchen. He had nothing to do there, but he pulled open a drawer and pretended he did.
Sara watched him, finally eating the piece of fruit. She chuckled.
"Backdraft's not a bogeyman, dear. And the fraction I'm sure you've encountered is, ah… not its best showing."
Jaime kept shaking his head. He didn't respond.
Sara moved closer, and Jaime couldn't help but look at her. Even though she was an older woman, she was quite attractive - and had almost an enforced magnetism about her. Jaime understood it though, as it fell strictly along the same lines that every bad idea of the Wild Eagle's did: extremely appealing. Clearly dangerous.
Jaime turned his head away, but the Eagle watched Sara. She stood about a foot away for a few moments, silent.
The teen said nothing.
At length, Sara spoke. "Everyone's different, you know. But some people… are better."
A blink. Jaime finally both turned to and looked at the woman, brow wrinkling.
Sara grinned.
Brad stood silently, watching Naomi return to her Gun Sniper.
With no warning, Ambient showed up, a red flash that reformed right beside him.
In its jaws the Organoid held a completely-bewildered Negola. It let the hapless pilot dangle for a painful moment, before slamming the man into the ground. Hard.
To his credit, Negola quickly rolled to one side and then to all fours, scrambling to get up - but Ambient planted a hindtalon across the man's back and shoved him flat. The red Organoid's tail twitched with merriment as it looked at Brad.
~Present for ye. All the'h fun. None of the'h trouble.~
Brad, not expecting any of this, just blinked.
Negola tried to get up, gathering himself and hefting against Ambient's weight. Nothing happened. After a few mighty but futile tries, he lifted his head and glanced between Brad and the Organoid.
He'd barely finished registering the two before he noticed the blood on the ground beside him - blood that he'd been tossed into, blood that was still a little warm, and soaking into his sleeve. He followed it with his eyes, and saw Koga's body.
"Hhhhh-?! What the fuck?!"
Negola started to panic and tried to move away, but the crush of Ambient's weight ensured he went nowhere. Reward for his efforts came only in the form of rocky ground gouging his exposed neck and face.
"I don't find this fun." Brad said, finally responding to Ambient. "More… necessary."
~Mm.~ The Organoid raised a brow. ~Fun's necessary.~
At the commotion, Naomi had stopped and turned to stare.
Negola had gone from the comfortable, relatively-warm cockpit of a Zoid to this situation in about thirty seconds. He could hardly catch a breath, and his clearly-dead teammate lay beside him. The man made bewildered eye-contact with Naomi, brimming with an animal panic.
"HELP ME!"
Naomi held the eye-contact for several seconds.
Then she looked away and resumed walking to her Zoid.
Once she'd turned, Brad lifted his revolver and pointed it at the man's head.
"Fuck man!" Negola shouted, still fighting to get up. "Fuck! What the fuck's wrong with you!"
Brad's expression was one of idle disgust. Like he didn't want to bother speaking, but was going to anyways. "Did you know what Backdraft was doing? When you came after me and Naomi?"
"Get this thing off me!"
"Answer the question."
"Fuma only told us we were after the other Blitz guy. You! I didn't -" Negola ran out of breath to speak with, and gaped for air.
Ambient looked idly at Brad for direction. Receiving none, it casually leaned further, and things began to give under the beast's weight.
Negola jerked with pain, back and chest spasming for air. Gloved hands taloned into the ice and dirt, frantically gouging the ground.
Brad recalled his own desperate rage at being ambushed, attacked in what should've been his dark and peaceful forest. Recalled his powerlessness as the Saurers threatened to crush the Gun Sniper's cockpit. Recalled all what came after.
His jaw clenched, his teeth grit. Furious.
Brad glanced up at Ambient and welled with a strange, fierce pride that such a powerful equalizer was on his side, with him , against these thoughtless and callous cockroaches that'd dared make an attempt on Naomi's, on his, on the Fluegel Team's life.
And it was in that moment that Brad truly registered Ambient's potential. Lethal and otherwise.
He studied the Organoid for a few seconds, then put his gun away.
Ambient smirked in-mind, optics fixed on Brad and tail-tip twitching with delight.
The command went unspoken, as the desire was mutual.
Kill him.
~We can still battle.~
'Can' wasn't the question. Or the issue.
Bit sat in the hangar on the Liger Zero's paw, Zero seated sphinxlike alongside. Given proximity and idle time, the white Organoid would invariably start grooming Bit's hair… which it was presently doing.
"Not doubting that, bud. Just. I dunno."
~You find it trivial?~
That wasn't the right word. Bit shook his head.
"No. More… weird. Inappropriate."
~As with any behavior, context and boundary define and describe it. No, fighting for survival is not the same as participating in a game. But neither does the existence of the former invalidate the latter.~ Zero paused to broadly yawn. ~Zoids are territorial. Contests are natural.~
Bit made a noncommittal sound, shifting his regard to Vega across the way. The child and his Organoid were fast asleep in the dark little corner they'd made, a comfortably-sprawled mess of limbs. Vega'd taken to a more nocturnal schedule, but this didn't worry or even register with Bit. He lumped it in alongside the myriad of ways he and Vega seemed to be opposites. Which made sense.
Zero shared the idle regard.
~We are not true opposites so much as… differing opinions.~
Experiencing any of Zero's recollections was quite strange. Its oldest memories, its memories of Zoidian times, were as clear as they were terrifying. Bit knew that the creature'd been born into literal chaos, but having a visceral concept of what that meant …
The blonde's stomach lurched with panic, then plunged with dread.
A stray memory of standing over a cluster of children, wings spread to shield them from falling debris. There was nowhere to go. There was nothing to do. The air was toxic, and Organoids simply needed much less of it. Everywhere he'd gone was like this. Everywhere-
Bit shut his eyes tightly.
Zero unfortunately didn't have many milder memories to temper those with.
Bit wanted to better understand the creature, to know how it'd ended up here of all places. But the closer to the present any musing crept, the more fragmented, incoherent, and outright broken everything became.
The same was true of the Liger Zero, who had many strong memories… with little to no detail.
Something had obviously happened to them, but it was impossible to tell what. Neither Zero nor the Liger seemed terribly bothered by it though. Bit supposed, after everything he knew Zero had been through, it couldn't have been much worse than the rest.
It was quite the no-brainer that the white Organoid just wanted to lay around and sunbathe.
Speaking of naps.
Bit folded his arms behind his head and reclined onto the Liger's leg. Zero idly rolled onto its back, massive body sagging comfortably over the Liger's claws.
The dim dance of firelight illuminated the small camp.
Naomi hadn't eaten much of her food, but she tightly held a cup of coffee.
Her eyes were on the red Organoid across the way from her.
Ambient lay on its side, warming its back with the fire. With its long neck flexed back and head turned her way, Ambient watched Naomi in return.
Despite the cold, Brad dozed nearby, leaning on one of the Shadow Fox's barely-active claws. The faintest amount of power to the laser claw made it not a weapon, but a very warm, welcoming surface in the frigid night. The surrounding snow being melted was an added bonus.
Naomi's throat worked uneasily as she watched Ambient. Everything about the creature exuded threat. It was tolerable, in her apartment.
It was terrifying, here.
Naomi kept glancing at Brad, agitated. How could he just sleep around this damn thing? It obviously didn't bother him, and sure, she'd never seen the Organoid menace him in any way. But… how could she ignore her gut instinct?
She stayed painfully still, painfully alert, genuinely torn between her trust of Brad, and fear of Ambient.
Brad and Naomi's relationship had begun on purely carnal grounds. A hot and confident man, with a literal huge gun and skills to go with it? Naomi wanted, and Naomi got.
Single Zoid Warriors were notoriously promiscuous: Brad and Naomi both were no exception. There weren't many downsides to casual sex; the population of Zi had long escaped the problems with it that'd so blighted their distant terran ancestors.
After several chance encounters that'd stopped seeming like chance, the two recognized they had a definite chemistry. But neither expected any serious or lasting relationship - not just with one another, but in general.
Then Leon had showed up and joined the Fluegel Team.
Naomi wanted, and Naomi got.
Naomi blinked away from her thoughts and focused again on Ambient.
The Organoid rumbled, the sound more felt than heard.
Naomi shook her head. "I have no idea what he hears. But I don't understand you."
A soft chuff.
"You just look way too excited to… to fuck people up. It's fucking scary, understand?"
Ambient considered, and shrugged its shoulders vaguely. Something visible, universal.
"What, you don't think that's a big deal?"
Ambient shook its head.
"And... you understand me just fine."
A nod.
Naomi sighed, and took a few deeply unpleasant gulps of coffee that'd gone cold. She focused an unsettled stare into the dark mug.
When she looked back at Ambient, she startled badly to realize it was no longer laying where it had been.
Before she could gather wit enough to fully look around, the creature flopped to the ground beside her, neck and upper body rolling to pin her legs and long skirt.
Her panic rose exponentially, but she stopped short of any noise. Ambient was extremely warm, and had pressed close but not too close.
Naomi did not like this situation one bit. But she did like how warm this stupid thing was.
Ambient rolled its head and presented the segmented underside of its neck and jaw to her, rumbling again.
She threw another glance at Brad, debating whether or not to scream.
One dim green optic regarded her. The Organoid reached a foreclaw up to its neck and scratched a few times, pointedly staring.
"You... want me to scratch your neck. In exchange for… you being warm."
Ambient's jaws parted in a very poor imitation of a grin.
Against her better judgment, Naomi set the mug down and hesitantly scratched the Organoid's neck plating.
Nothing bad happened. The creature seemed to enjoy it.
She scratched harder, a little intrigued and slightly disturbed that she could feel the contrasting textures of its neck even through her gloves.
After a few minutes she glanced, and noticed Brad watching her.
She stopped and bunched both hands to her chest. But the man was smiling.
"See, he likes you."
Naomi smiled a little back.