((OOC: Posted here because I thought the Central Continent looked so lonely... no recent topics and all. Mods, please move if it actually takes place somewhere else))

"Team Dawnstar?"

Liam nodded. "Yup. In some ways, it couldn't be much worse. In other ways, it couldn't be much better."

He was speaking through the comm to Tamar's Redler, which was playing around in the sky above the Reaper's Bounty Gustav. Jan was in the pilot's seat while Liam paged through the data he'd managed to collect on Dawnstar.

"How do you figure that?" Tamar asked.

"Team Dawnstar has a top-notch reputation," Liam began. "They've got some really hot pilots, including a former Royal Cup winner and the son of a pilot who was on the same winning team. Great hardware -- a couple of nasty Ligers, a modded Gordos and some other stuff. I'm not sure what we'll be seeing, but they'll have machines to match us, at least. They're also highly experienced in working as a unit."

Tamar laughed. "Where's the part where it couldn't be much better? From what I'm hearing, we could be looking at the next Royal Cup winners."

Liam replied with a tight smile. "Two things. First, fighting such a high-profile team will give us some good PR. Remember, we're here to fly the ACI banner as well as to win. And second... I don't think anyone's expecting us to win this one. If we do, or make a good account of ourselves, we'll attract a lot of notice."

"'Ere we are," Jan interrupted, pulling up the Gustav. "I'd better go back and get suited up -- they'll be here before long."

"Targets?" Tamar asked.

Liam shook his head. "No idea. I'm not even sure whether we'll be fielding all three Zoids. Stay flexible until we see exactly what they bring to the fight."

---

A few minutes later, all three Reaper's Bounty Zoids were out of the transport in a line facing the area where Dawnstar would be deploying.

"If there are only two, I'll hang back and direct using the Gun Sniper's scope to keep track of the action," Liam transmitted. "Tamar, your priority is anything that flies, but use your discretion if you see a good shot on a tank. Jan, I'll trust your judgement on priority targets."

"Roger that," Jan replied.

"Got it," Tamar chimed in a moment later.

Liam sat back in the Gun Sniper's cramped forward cockpit and settled in to wait.

When Stillwell left, Kyne sat alone in his kitchen. He sat very still, the only motion an occasional blink and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. The power-saver, detecting no motion in the room, dimmed the lights after several minutes.
Kyne didn’t notice. He was lost in thought, staring off into space. His thoughts rested on Jon Stryker.
Stryker was not dead. Kyne was certain of that. Stryker had attacked the people around Kyne, and would do so again. His maddened sense of justice would let him do nothing else. Stryker hated Kyne because Kyne had kicked the madman off of Dawnstar, taking away everything Stryker had worked for. The ZBC revoked his license shortly afterwards, something Stryker blamed Kyne for.
Kyne would have been proud to do it, but was innocent of that ‘crime.’ Stryker saw that nobody was punishing Kyne for stealing Stryker’s position, both as leader of Dawnstar and in Rick’s apparent graces. Thus, Stryker took it upon himself to punish Kyne.
Kyne snorted at the man’s megalomania. The sheer audacity to assume that he was so superior he had an innate right to get revenge for Kyne’s supposed transgressions. Stryker had struck, attacking most of Kyne’s circle of friends.
The hairs on the backs of Kyne’s arms rose as he thought of what he had to do next. Draw Stryker out and finish the job. Kyne had to excise potential victims out, cut himself away from the rest of the world. He would stand alone, and alone he would defeat Jonathan Stryker.
Kyne’s laptop beeped, letting him know he had an e-mail. It snapped Kyne back to the world of the living. He slowly rose to his feet, letting the lights pick up his motion before striding across the newly-relit room to open up the laptop. A moment later, he scanned the mail.
The ZBC was reinstating the MMUs. His opponent was that corporate publicity stunt, Reaper’s Bounty.
A thin smile pulled at Kyne’s lips. The mood he was in now . . . those poor, poor fools. They’d know all too well what hit them.

The next morning, Kyne picked Hank up at the hospital. The big lunatic stood outside the entrance, smoking a cigar. It was quite clear he was smoking to piss his doctors off. Hank waited until Dawnstar’s Gustav pulled to a halt in front of the building before tamping out the cinder at the end of it. He hadn’t inhaled.
Kyne popped the canopy. “Get in.”
Hank studied Kyne’s face for a moment and nodded. “Sure thing.” He didn’t remark upon the changed character of Kyne’s face. Both men knew what it meant.
Neither spoke until they were out of the parking lot. Kyne finally broke the silence, speaking in a hard, emotionless voice. “We have a Mandatory Match-Up against Reaper’s Bounty. Corporately-sponsored team.”
“Aye?”
“The match is today,” Kyne continued. “I have been unable to contact one of the mercenaries, but Larry Witosc will be waiting at the field for us.”
Hank paused for a moment. “I can ‘andle ‘em. Whadda they got?”
“One DiBison, piloted by Second Lieutenant Jan Yaylor, retired. One Redler, piloted by a stunt pilot named Tamar Alexander. Her husband is the captain, manager, and pilots a Gunsniper. His name is Liam Alexander.”
Hank now recognized Witosc’s name. “An’ it’s you, me, an’ a mechanic against ‘em?”
Kyne nodded curtly. “Yes. Witosc will be piloting a Pteras and working as cover fire for us.”
Hank paused a moment. He could see how this could be good. He grinned toothily.
Kyne caught the grin out the corner of his eye. “Good to see you realized the plan. That makes only one person who needs to be filled in.”

That person sat inside the cockpit of his own rental Gustav. The single trailer behind it was different from the norm, allowing for the Pteras to rocket straight up into the air. He ignored the icon indicating the Bounty Gustav about half a kilometer away, but paid attention when Dawnstar’s Gustav showed up.
“Yo, Kyne.” Larry thumbed the communications switch. “You get the big lug?”
The feed was audio-only. Kyne must’ve been speaking through his headset. “Roger that, Witosc. I trust you are in position, yes?”
“Kinda.”
“Get into your zoid. Get into the air. We’ll brief you over a tight-beam transmission.” Kyne was oldschool, of the old-fashioned gallant camaraderie between pilots, but some of these kids these days had a bad habit of listening in on conversations when they were broadcast openly. While he did enjoy allowing the enemy to know what was going to happen, and then make it happen anyways, his team was not the cohesive whole he needed.

A few minutes later, Dawnstar’s zoids were deployed out on the field. Kyne’s Leomaster paced back and forth besides Craters’ Gordos as Kyne hammered out the orders. Witosc’s Pteras was hovering just within range of the tight-beam transmission, roughly three hundred meters up. He was just at the edge of the flight deck of an aerial battle, the altitude aerial pilots are taught to stay at.
The Judge Capsule rocketed down, landing almost dead-center of the field.
“All contestants will enter their data as per standard procedure.”
Kyne stopped relaying the plan to Larry. “Gordos, Leomaster, Pteras. Ontos and Network, nada, and Bomber Unit. Correct?”
“You betcha.”
“Sure thing, boss-man.”
Kyne nodded, his Leomaster pausing mid-stride as he relayed the data to the Capsule.
Kyne Xaratan, Class D, Dawnstar, Leomaster.
Hank “Craters” Fisk, Class D, Dawnstar, Gordos with the Ontos and Matrix Shield Network modifications.
Larry Witosc, Class D, Dawnstar, Pteras with the Bomber Unit.

Liam nodded as he saw the opposing Zoids lining up. He switched over to the encrypted team channel -- if Dawnstar had enough spare time to break the encryption, more power to them. "All right, folks, this is it. I had really hoped their Gordos would be out of action, but since it's not... Jan, your first priority is that behemoth. Second is deterring the Leomaster. Tamar, take down that Pteras and then help Jan out with the Gordos -- watch out for the tail and you should be fine. I'll hit targets of opportunity."

Once again, both of the other pilots confirmed. Sand blasted out from around the bottom of the Redler as Tamar took off, climbing to the lower edge of the flight deck and circling lazily, timing it so that she'd be pointed in the approximate direction of the other team when the order to fight came. Liam and Jan were spaced with about fifty meters between their Zoids.

Dutifully, Liam relayed the relevant information...

--Liam Alexander, Class D, Reaper's Bounty, piloting Gun Sniper
--Tamar Alexander, Class D, Reaper's Bounty, piloting Redler with HT-01 Plasma Lance Emitter
--Jan Yaylor, Class D, Reaper's Bounty, piloting DiBison

...and something caught his eye on the opposing team's transmission. Matrix Shield Network?

What in Cloud's name was that?

Somehow, Liam knew that they were not going to like the answer.

He immediately began scanning for positions out of the Gordos' LoS, praying for sufficient cover...

((If you get to it before I do, post your action. I'm just posting the Judgeman's action and the order to go -- mine'll be along as quick as I get it written. And after I research the necessary Star Wars quotes.))

The Judgeman received the data, processing and recording it for a moment before continuing. "This is the Mandatory Match-Up between Teams Dawnstar and Reaper's Bounty." Dawnstar's rising sun emblem appeared in a small screen on the side of the raised green panel, Bounty's logo on the side of the red panel. The Judgeman continued its recitation. "The Battlemode is 0980. The terrain is a featureless open plain. The area within thirty kilometers of this point has been designated off-limits to all save the competitors and staff. If you can't figure out why I'm warning you this, please try and get in the line of fire. Darwin commands it.
"Begin!" The Judgeman's arms dropped, signalling the start of the battle.

The call to begin. Each man on Dawnstar had a different reaction to this, the time when they would be pushed further and harder than any other mortal being. Hank felt that familiar shiver, the cool rush as he sent and received data to and from his allies, slipping back into the familiar coordinator’s role. Larry felt a bit of panic, daunted at the prospect of going into battle with only a bit of training in his Pteras and fighting alongside complete strangers.
Kyne felt his blood singing a hymn of power. He drew a bead on the DiBison’s central mortar array. That was its single strongest weapon, its best offense.
Funny how it was Kyne’s, too.
The beam cannons let off a pair of shots down the DiBison’s barrels and in the blink of an eye the Leomaster was gone, running off to get distance from Hank. His beam cannons dropped down to the flanks, the jets igniting to give the Leomaster a quick boost of speed. He brought his targeting reticule onto the Gunsniper, firing his beam cannons as the missiles gained a lock.
“Jus’ remember what ya gotta do,” Hank said to Larry. “Jus’ do that, everything comes easy.”
Larry nodded as he finished toggling a lock on the Redler, letting off his missiles in quick succession. The beam rifles joined in, his Pteras bobbing up and down and weaving from side to side as he manipulated the magnessers. He knew that the plasma lances needed some time to melt the part before they really did damage. At least, that was what he hoped. He was constantly toggling locks and firing missiles at the Redler, firing from one rack first, then the other as the first reloaded, then went back to the first rack as the second reloaded.
Hank smiled thinly as he watched Kyne dash off. By the time Larry started shooting, his railguns had already discharged into the Gunsniper’s leg and torso, one right after the other, and he was bringing the Ontos to bear on the DiBison. He hesitated for the barest moment, considering firing on a different target, but stuck with the original course. He squeezed the triggers, the recoilless armor-piercing rifles blasting out at the big buffalo. His repeaters streamed fire, along with the smaller beam and laser cannons mounted on either side of the plates.

For a moment after the judge called the start of the battle, Liam thought he might freeze. This wasn’t training anymore, done for fun with Tamar – this was real battle with live rounds that could splatter him all over the inside of the Gun Sniper. However, instinct took over where thought failed and Liam slapped at switches almost out of reflex, rotating the Gun Sniper’s tail towards the enemy Zoids and bringing the Zoid into longshot mode as quickly as he could. As soon as the transition was complete, he lined up on the approaching Leomaster.

From mental math, Liam knew that he’d have three or four shots at best before the Liger was all over either him or Jan – so he focused on making them count. He looked for the times when in the Leomaster’s dodging and jumping antics, its relative positon to him wasn’t changing – say, at the apex of a jump or zigzag – to assist him in his aiming targets. His first shot was at the forward right “hip” joint where the leg met the body, following up with another shell put through the same location in an attempt to render the leg useless. As time allowed, he made snap-shots generally targeting the handiest unarmored portion of the Liger’s other front leg.

---

Jan blinked away memories of fights long gone and braced his DiBison against impact – for he knew it was coming. There was no way the Gordos on the other side of the field would let him operate unopposed… and “opposition” would likely take the form of lots of large guns. So… Jan naturally counter with his own large guns. Oh, what fun.

The DiBison elevated its mortar barrels and began a four-mortar-per-second chain-linked barrage on the Gordos’ position. He knew that each individual mortar shell would HURT… and that each one also had a 20-meter blast radius to ensure that hurt was delivered even if the aim was slightly off. He compensated as necessary for any movement to ensure that the entire 17-mortar barrage landed in as close a pattern on the Gordos as he could make it, hopefully knocking around its aim as well as blowing off unneeded armor and structure and weapons.

Meanwhile, the targeting computer assisting in the control of the auto-targeted 35mm anti-air cannons on the DiBison ensured that their combined total of sixteen rounds per second was going squarely towards the Pteras in an attempt to knock it from the sky – unspecifically targeted, as the computer’s just not that precise. The barrage only stopped to avoid illegal targets and to avoid hitting Tamar.

Once all seventeen tubes had been expended, Jan eased the DiBison into a trot aimed in the direction of the Leomaster, opening up with its shock cannons once a clear shot presented itself and the range was right.

---

Tamar showed no hesitation whatsoever. With a whoop, she burned towards the Pteras, juking in all four directions to slow a missile lock and firing the Plasma Lance Emitter to burn through wing structure and cripple any wing-mounted weapons. As soon as she’d passed the Pteras she cut thrust and stood the Redler on its port wing, coming around in as tight a turn as she could manage without blacking out or overstessing anything, airbraking as necessary to avoid overshooting the magnasser-winged annoyance. As she made the turn, Tamar flipped the switch to charge up the Redler’s tail blade.

Using the Redler’s superior response and turning circle, she adhered to the Pteras’ tail, now having a much better shot at burning clean through the wing elements with the Lances. She was, of course, careful not to overheat them. She almost wanted for the Pteras to try to make her overshoot – as she did, she’d use the charged tail blade to finish the wing-mangling that her Plasma Lances had started. Of course, hanging on its tail the old-fashioned way would work fine too.

The battlefield was silent a moment as the two Teams paused.
Then all Hell broke loose.
The DiBison started hammering out rounds of fire, shelling Hank's Gordos in a barrage many zoids would weep to be on the receiving end of. Even the mighty Gordos, one of the stablest platforms out there, felt the impact shock from those few mortars.
Only a few, because the Leomaster quickly silenced them. The beams from its almost ridiculously overpowered guns ripped through the DiBison's barrels, streaking down into the zoid's ammunition stockpiles. The mortars there exploded, setting off a chain reaction that set off the grenades and side-mounted mortars in one devastating blast that ripped through the DiBison, contained by its own armor. Plates of armor blasted off while gouts of fire erupted from within the machine, the zoid weaving drunkenly as concussive forces greater than those it sought to unleash tore it apart from within. The pilot was still operational, thanks to his miltiary training, and set his zoid into a gallop towards the Gordos. The DiBison was barely moving, but it still had the shock cannon.
As Kyne loped along, the Gunsniper swung around to go down into longshot mode. He brought his targeting reticule to bear on the Liger, hammering out a pair of shots on the Leomaster's shoulder.
The first shot set the Liger staggering, the second bringing it to a halt. Kyne resisted the urge to raise his shield. It would do him no good.
Hank to the rescue; a pair of railcannon shots tore through the Gunsniper's armor and structure as though they were paper, almost ripping the right leg off and carving a cavernous wound in the raptor's flank.
Kyne picked his Leomaster up, bringing his reticules to bear on the enemy. While Hank turned to deal the deathblow to the DiBison in a six-gun salute, Kyne turned to face the maimed Gunsniper.
Maimed, but not out.

Meanwhile, as the zoids slugged it out on the ground, the interceptor came to bear on the bomber. Where Dawnstar's more veteran regulars were doing surprisingly well, Larry was not.
Larry was very not.
Only his zoid's armor saved him as the plasma lances traced across the Pteras's wings. If they had shot at anything explosive, it may well have been worse. The Redler's juking and the Pteras's bobbing and weaving worked to prevent either from having a clear shot, but Larry was a mechanic by trade. Keeping steady hands a sniper would envy, he toggled a lock on the Redler and let off a pair of missiles.
And then it was on him. Zipping over the Pteras, Tamar banked around in a rather wide arc. Larry rotated, facing down the enemy zoid. To his credit, he let off another pair of missiles before she struck.
The laser blade cleaved through the Pteras's port wing, sending the bomber spinning downward, though not at the rate an ordinary falling object would. Larry clearly at least had some control over his vehicle.

Rank Adjustment:
Hank "Craters" Fisk -- +1 Win
Jan Yaylor -- +1 Loss

"...fuck."

Liam had said very few words of which the FCC would disapprove in his lifetime, but this was one of those special occassions. He'd really been counting on the DiBison, and now that stupid lucky shot...

The hits from the railcannons had disengaged him from his sniping position, so now it was time to make a last-ditch effort. Maybe if he could hit the Leomaster a little more, Tamar could finish it off. He bounded towards the Leomaster, jumping around as much as possible without breaking the leg, to make hitting him with the impact cannons or the beam cannons a nightmarishly difficult task. However, his bounding had another purpose -- once he was in range, he made one great leap so that the Gun Sniper left the ground, its damaged leg leaving slightly behind the other so that the Zoid turned a hundred and eighty degrees, or near enough, in midair. The aim? To slam down on the Leomaster's back, between where the beam cannons would normally mount, where it couldn't biteclawmaim him to death. He made his best effort to come down on the undamaged leg so as to leave the damaged one intact, then dug into the Leomaster's back and fired everything. EVERYTHING. Minus the snipe cannon, of course. The 80-mm cannon as fast as it would discharge, the wrist cannons, the missiles, dumbfired hopefully far enough away not to kill the Gun Sniper in the blast... yeah.

If it at least halfway worked, it would look awesome on replay.

---


Tamar wasn't paying attention, because she was having FUN, dangit. More fun than she'd had in a long time.

She jetted past the falling Pteras below her, pulled up on the Redler's stick to gain some altitude, then did a nose-over reverse so that she was pointing directly at it. The Plasma Lances fired a full four-second scorching at the main body as time over target allowed. As it loomed larger she pulled up and finished it off with the charged tail blade. Not only did the aerial antics look really cool, they hopefully shielded her from any flak coming in her direction. After reaming out the Pteras she kicked in the thrusters, coming in a wide sweep in the direction of the back of Kyne's Leomaster.

Larry cussed violently as he fought the controls. His Pteras bucked like a mustang as it plummeted, and he was never one for the rodeo. He hated steer. “A li’l help here?”
At the deep-throated roar Kyne’s Leomaster turned away from finishing off its wounded prey. It turned its head and picked up the forepaw of the damaged leg, almost like a hunting animal. As it did so one of the beam cannons rose back to the top, the two training on the Redler. “Of course.” He tracked his target for a bare half of a second before unleashing both beam cannons into the Redler’s body.
Hank prepped the shield generators, setting them onto the Barricade mode. He toggled the Redler on the radar, letting the predictors pick up its movement, and then he placed both barricades between it and the Pteras. His heart was racing – he’d forgotten what it was like to be this close to the fight – and he felt a pain in his chest. The bullet wound.

At Larry's yell for help, Kyne turned his back on the closing Gunsniper and turned towards the Redler. Looking oddly like both a lion and a fencer using two blades, the zoid drew a bead on the Redler just as it was almost standing on its tail in midair, torching Larry's falling Pteras.
He waited, holding the target for a hair over a couple of seconds, then he slowly squeezed the triggers. The lances blazed out, clipping the Redler's hips. Kyne swore -- he'd missed his mark -- and the Redler swept up, its tail blade ripping through Larry's Pteras. Hank's barricade came off its mark, a few meters to the north. The Redler pulled a lazy arc, heading towards the Leomaster as Hank's anti-air fire shot at it.
Liam saw his shot and took it. He came in running at the Leomaster, guns blazing. He pounced just after the two beam cannons shot, spinning about and planting his feet just at the base of the beam cannon. It knocked the Leomaster off its feet.
The two zoids rolled on the ground, Kyne catching his bearing while the Gunsniper danced about, peppering him with fire and guns. One of his beam cannons blew off, the other mangled as the zoid rolled. He grinned widely as the Leomaster's paw came crashing down on the Gunsniper, swatting the smaller zoid with the Liger's famed and feared strength.
As the Leomaster slowly regained its feet, Kyne spotted the incoming Redler. He had nothing he could fight it with. Time seemed to slow to a stop as the dragon came down, barrel-rolling to bring the laser blade down to bear on the Leomaster. He felt the impact rend his zoid, carving a gash from shoulder to tail. The Liger shuddered and fell, locking up as the Command System froze.
And suddenly, the Redler all but blew apart. Hank's ugly mug came on the communicatiosn panel, grinning like an idiot. "Always there fer ya, boss-man."
"Try to be there sooner." Kyne's sardonic voice matched his studiously blank expression.
The Judgeman sent out a signal, disabling the zoids' combat systems as it flipped down the . "Victory to Team Dawnstar!"
It beamed the rank adjustments to the pilots' and ZBC's computers.
Total
Hank "Craters" Fisk -- +1 Win
Jan Yaylor -- +1 Loss
Larry Witosc -- +1 Loss
Liam Alexander -- +1 Loss
Tamar Alexander -- +2 Wins, +1 Loss
Kyne Xaratan -- +1 Win, +1 Loss
Later, the mechanics would find the following damages:

• Leomaster -- Heavy
• Gordos -- None
• DiBison -- Overhaul
• Redler -- Heavy
• Pteras -- Heavy
• Gunsniper -- Heavy

To offset those damages, each pilot received 3,333 credits for this excellent battle. Fans will be watching it again and again in the next week.

((Reaper's Bounty Promotion Codes:

00454378
00343235

E-mail me the codes, and you'll get a free Reaper's Bounty plushie plus an entry into the grand prize drawing! No joke, people!))