Fan Fiction / Zoids Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction / Outlaw Star Fan Fiction / Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ The Reaper ❯ The Answer ( Chapter 19 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Zoid, Tenchi Muyo, Cowboy Bebop, or Outlaw Star.

I know, a few parts of the last chapter sucked really bad. Like the dialogue; it was three in the morning when I wrote most of it. I wasn't tired, but being up for 36 hours straight does affect you at some level. I hope you did like the last chapter. Sorry, again, that it was so long, but I just felt like writing. This chapter will be shorter, not much will happen. For those of you who don't quite understand why Isalina was dressed the way she was, she had just come in from working out. Sorry that I forgot to mention it. Like I said at the end of the last chapter, someone is going to die. No one really important, just someone who adds nothing to the story. This death is set up as a test for Tyran to see if the change had really taken over. Nate is changed back after a relatively short amount of time; it works out in the end.

" " speech

` ' thought

( ) author's notes

***** scene change

The Reaper

Chapter 19: The Answer

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Everyone watched the Raptor Zero, waiting to see what it would do. There was an open com-link so anything said was heard by everyone else. Sigren wasn't speaking, and as long as he didn't, they were sure that Nate wouldn't do anything. Mayuka decided to see if any part of Nate was still there, though he looked so different.

"Nate?" she asked the empty eyes on her screen. No reply came, only a blank stare.

The Liger Zero began to walk forward, getting in front of the others.

"Dad, hello?" Isalina said, moving ever closer. "Come on Dad, say something."

"Be quiet you stupid girl," Kelsey said also moving her Zoid forward, flexing its wings. "It's obvious to any idiot that he doesn't know who you are."

The Raptor suddenly snarled and turned towards the Storm Tiger. The pods on its back opened and the large wings unfurled.

"Tyran," Sigren said, "I have a little job for you."

"What is it?" Tyran asked in a slightly less-cold voice.

"Kill one of them," his father said simply. "Which one is up to you."

He started forward across the clearing. The head moved from side to side, as if sizing up each opponent. His gaze finally fell upon the Storm Tiger. This was obviously the weakest Zoid present here, and the others could wait. He wanted to save the strongest for last.

"The Storm Tiger looks tasty," he said licking his lips.

In a flash the Raptor was right up in front of the Storm Tiger. It had reared back, practically resting on its tail. Then it came down and ripped off the railguns on the Zoid's back. In doing this a piece of the back armor was torn off with the weapons; the inner components were vulnerable. Kelsey pulled the controls back, and the Storm Tiger began to move backward. Tyran had anticipated this; that's why he reared back, to have a longer striking distance. He whipped out again, this time crushing the Tiger's head in its massive jaws; the forehead spike on the Storm Tiger did no damage to the inside of the Raptor's mouth. Kelsey was killed instantly.

"Now get the Zoid core," Sigren commanded. He knew the others wouldn't attack, for fear of having to battle either himself, or their own friend.

Tyran advanced on the fallen Zoid, tearing the side open easily with the claws on its feet. He deftly reached in with the arms and, being careful not to damage it, removed the Zoid core. Then carefully placed it in its mouth and turned away. Once he reached a spot next to the Iron Saurer, a fog bank from Mount Isalina came down and enveloped them. When it passed, the two Zoids were gone.

*****

Over the next few days there was no sign of Tyran, Sigren, or any of the Zenebas. Mayuka and Isalina were thinking of anything useful that Nate had told them about the incantation. But they were both drawing up a blank. He never said anything about it since he told them what it was. They tried the library, but the section on Ancient Zoidians was limited, especially the language. What they did find out was that the Zenebas people used to rule over Zi one thousand years ago, until most of the population was destroyed by the Deathsaurer. The ruins were scattered all over Zi, some areas were more congested than others.

"Mom, what do you think will happen if we can't find a cure for Dad?" Isalina asked, putting a rather large book on top of a pile next to her.

"I really don't know," Mayuka said, her voice sounded empty.

She flipped a page in her book and her eyes moved back and forth over the pages. So far she had found several other incantations, but none of them were relative. This really had nothing to do with magic, this was genetically programmed into him.

"I've found it," she said reading the sentence aloud. "Most of these incantations were found in the ruins near Romeo City. Also was found a way to reverse these incantations if they are ever used. The reversal is actually quite simple. Say the incantation in reverse and it should alleviate any symptoms."

"How do we know that it will work?" Isalina asked looking over the page for herself.

"We don't, but it's the only lead we have."

*****

At the same time, in a different location was Tyran. He stood below his Zoid, checking for anything. There was a knawing feeling in the back of his head to scan it. But this facility didn't have the equipment he needed to do so. He whipped around and took the caster from its holster at his hip and aimed it. There was a technician moving towards the Raptor's leg.

"Don't touch my Zoid," he said loading a number 6 shell.

"Of course, sir," the tech said as he bowed and left.

"You know Tyran, they only want to help," Sigren said as he walked in.

"And you know how much I hate it when people tell me how to fix my Zoid," Tyran retorted. "I know what's best for Ronak because he talks to me and not to them."

"To be honest," Sigren said placing a hand on Tyran's shoulder, "you're much more skilled than any of the techs and pilots here."

"`Course I am," Tyran said with a vicious grin. "I have seen more combat in the past year, than they have seen their entire lives."

"Come, I want to show you something," Sigren said turning to leave. Shrugging his shoulders Tyran followed.

Sigren led him through the halls of the Zenebas' base. As they walked they passed through one corridor that all glass, allowing a look at the outside. Outside was water, since the base was under the sea. Small groups of fish swam by the windows, along with the occasional War Shark or Hammerhead. These were part of the Zenebas' forces, since wild Zoids are very hard to come by nowadays.

They entered an extremely large room, made of stone. Pictures of great leaders adorned the walls. In front of them were terraced stairs, leading up to a large throne. Above the throne was the crest of the Zenebas Empire. The walls also held an array of weapons: swords, lance-axes, spears, battle-axes, shurikens, and a few knives.

"What did you want to show me?" Tyran asked looking around at all the ancient weaponry.

"Wait here," Sigren said and left the room.

He returned a few minutes later with a girl next to him. She was fairly slight of frame, barely topping 4'8". Though she was small she was still quite attractive. What she wore was the usual military uniform; which was at least one size to small. Her hair was raven black and so were her eyes.

"This is Kana," he said removing his hand from her shoulder.

"So?" Tyran asked staring at the girl in an uninterested way.

"I want you to train her," Sigren said looking his son straight in the eye.

*****

Tyran discovered that Kana had a natural piloting skill. He was still unsure as to why his father would want him to train her. Their fourth day of training and she was almost as good as him, it wouldn't be long till he would have be serious. It was strange that the Iron Saurer was supposedly a rare Zoid. What he found out was that the Zenebas had five of these Zoid. Training today was taking place towards the top of Mount Isalina, in the snowfields.

"You're slowing down," he said as he whipped around and smashed the Iron Saurer across the face. "Don't tell me you're cold."

"But I am," Kana said pulling the controls back to dodge.

"Deal with it," Tyran retorted as the Raptor's tail curled over its back like a scorpion and slashed at the Iron Saurer.

He whipped out the flexor horns and caught her off guard. One of the arms was sliced off, and fell to the ground. With the two Zoids moving around, making noise, sending vibrations through the snow, I think it was this that pushed it over the edge. The snow bank above them began to crack and slide. Of course you should all know what this means; that's right, an avalanche.

"Tyran," Kana said when she looked up at the wall of snow, "should we get out of here?"

"No need," he said and spread the wings.

When he did this, the wings didn't stop at their normal size; they kept getting larger. They kept growing till he figured they were large enough. He then folded them so that both the Raptor and the Iron Saurer were encased a dome. They knew when the avalanche had hit because the dome had started to slide very slightly to one side. When the shaking stopped he opened the wings to their full extent and shook the snow off them.

"Time's up for today," he said, "I hope you actually read the information this time."

"Tyran, there is a green Whale King approaching your position. Shut off all com-links not on Zenebas frequencies," Sigren said from the Dragoonest at the base of the mountain.

"Why?"

"Just a precaution," he responded.

From the Whale King dropped the Blue Fury, the Liger Zero, the Liger Zero X, and the Berserk Fury. All of them landed in the forest, and were making their way through to the mountain.

"Prepare to launch the Gilvaders," Sigren signaled to his crew.

"No," Tyran said, "leave them to us."

Against his father's command, Tyran did not close the com-link. This was what Mayuka was hoping for, she knew he had just enough pride to not listen to his elders.

"The blue one is mine," he said advancing down the mountain. "Kana, you can take the others."

"Nate, I have to tell you something," Mayuka said. "But if you don't want to hear it, that's your loss."

"Tyran, don't listen to her," Kana said almost pleading.

The Raptor stopped moving and stood to its full height. He looked down at the Blue Fury, as if trying to remember. It cocked its head slightly while looking at the Berserk Fury. The four Zoids were like missing pieces in a puzzle, a puzzle with an infinite number of pieces.

"Say what you have to say," he said.

"Eanotab raf met kab," Mayuka said.

The changes were immediate. His pupils returned to his eyes, his hair fell free of its shape, and his mind shifted back to the way it was before. The Raptor also changed, the red eyes changed back to green, and the gold, middle claw changed to silver.

The first thing he did was shut off all com-links; enemy and ally alike. When he swung around to face the enemy, they were both gone. Both the Dragoonest, and the Iron Saurer had disappeared. He knew the Iron Saurer had flight capability, but he couldn't see it in the sky. The Dragoonest was easy to find, it had gone underground. Finally sure that they were gone he restarted the com system.

"Nate?" Mayuka asked sounding worried. "Is it you?"

"Yeah, I'm back," he said walking the Raptor down the mountain.

Once he reached them the Raptor Zero stepped up to the Blue Fury and lightly nudged it with its snout; the Fury nudged back.

*****

On the Dragoonest Sigren was not happy with the way things just went. After so long he had finally had the perfect weapon, now it was gone, and he had himself to blame. But something good had come of this, he had combat data straight from the Raptor. That's something you can't get from just watching it, and doing scans.

"Sire, I am sorry," Kana said kneeling in front of Sigren.

"That's alright, we didn't know they would figure it out," he said placing a hand on her head. "We still have the data."

*****

Life continued as normal over the next couple of days. Without information on the Zenebas base, the ZBC could not launch a counterattack. Life was not normal for Nate though. First there was the lawsuit for killing Kelsey Champ. He won because he was not of rational thought at the moment. Then there were the extensive psychological interrogations by the ZBC.

Nate had decided to occupy his time by designing a new armor for the Raptor, specifically for aquatic combat. A battle challenge came in from the Shark team, made up of four War Sharks and a Hammerhead. The battle was taking place at coordinates 50ËšN, 20ËšW; in the ocean. This was one of the reasons he was building this armor. It was simple really, all he had to do was modify the aquatic armor for the Death Raptor. A few of the adjustments were making it larger, and adding additional weaponry.

"They won't know what hit them," he said as the grappler arms removed the dark blue armor and replaced it with the basic armor.

Most of you are probably wondering if he's going to build an armor for the Blue Fury. Admit it, you were wondering about that. Well the answer is he doesn't have to, he built it when he built the Fury. The Zoid itself doesn't look much different, it's just black.

The Raptor looked down at him and growled.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling me something?"

He looked back up and away from him.

"You retained the memories?" he looked down with his hand on his chin. `Yeah, it makes sense, his memory core couldn't have been tampered with unless there was a direct link.'

"Nate, is the armor ready?" Mayuka asked.

"Yeah, and just in time too."

"Did you get any of your memories back?"

"I didn't, but Ronak told me that he hasn't lost any of his."

TBC

There, it's done. I told you it would be short. Also I just wanted to finish it. I read that review about evolving the Liger Zero with the Panzer. It's a great idea, now all I have to do is think about what to make it look like. I figured that the Liger Zero X should be evolved from the Schneider, since it has blades. How about this, whoever submits the best description of what Isalina's Liger Zero X looks like, will become a part of the story. Instead of sending it in as a review, e-mail me at berserk_fury001@yahoo.com. for your character I'll need information such as: name, age,eye color, hair color, weight, height, body type, and Zoid. That's about it. If nobody sends me anything within one week, then you'll have to wait a while for the next chapter. If I haven't said it yet, I `m sorry if some parts of this chapter suck.