Heaven or Hell
Peace or War
Black or White
...but what about gray?



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Romeo City wasn't built in a day, and it sure wasn't gone to take just one day to reach the destination city. The sun's hands were slowly withdrawning from the desert, giving up it's rule to the inky blackness of night. The light seemed to take all sounds with it, for the night was quiet. No, not quiet, silent.


But a split in the silence came, like a knife cutting through glass, sharp and percise, not breaking it, but splitting. T'was the sound of mechanical joints, and the low rumble of boosters. T'was the sound of a Liger.

Like a ghost from beyond, Archer, the Liger Zero, charged towards the dying sun, trying to chase it, trying to perserve it, but to no avail, for the darkness engulf the liger, making it almost invisible with it's basic gray armor. But another sound also drifted into the oncoming darkness..


' But I can't tell you the way I feel
Because the way I feel is oh so! new to me
No I can't sell you the way I feel
Because the way I feel is oh so! new to me

What I heard is not what I hear
I can see the signs but they're not very clear
What I heard is not what I hear
I can see the signs but they're not very clear '

This was the voice of Kelly McElan, singing at the top of her lungs ( rather poorly )inside the Zero, not really paying any attention to anything, dancing away in the confines of the cockpit, really not caring about anything but her music, and getting to Romeo city before the next ice age.

It seemes that Archer too, was enjoying himself, it's stride seemed more relaxed, and that omnipresent sense of rivalry wasn't there. But something wasn't right, for in the back of it's mind, or core, or whatever, contemplation was stirring, an idea, a wicked horrible idea. One that would make the Liger deadly..





-Done-
Please Join ^_^

Wolfe had been wandering around, searching for scrap, or just something interesting. Battling was fun, but there's a lot of down time, and he had to fill it somehow. Having just checked over the remains of a Guysack, he'd managed to retrieve some handy parts for repairing his own Zoids, but he still hadn't found what he was looking for.

Climbing back into the cockpit of Hobbling Bob, the following message awaited him

://OBSERVATION: INCOMING ZOID. HIGH SPEED.
://DEDUCTION: EITHER LIGER ZERO, LIGHTNING SIAX, SHADOW FOX, OR UNKNOWN HIGH-SPEED ZOID.
://RECOMMENDATION: CONTACT, AND DETERMINE COURSE OF ACTION FROM RESPONSE.
"Okey-dokey, Bob."
Flipping on his com link, Wolfe sent out a message on the most used frequencies
"Wolfe to unknown high-speed Zoid. My Zoid's being a chicken and forcing me to check you're not hostile."

://STATEMENT: I AM NOT A CHICKEN.
://HUMOUR: YOU CAN TELL DUE TO THE LACK OF WINGS.

A little red light flashed on and off inside the cockpit. Catching the attention out of the corner of her eyes, Kelly quickly flipped off her music and scrambled to enable the Com-link:


"Wolfe to unknown high-speed Zoid. My Zoid's being a chicken and forcing me to check you're not hostile."

Flipped in a few switches on her consol, Kelly got back to the other pilot


'Ello , Don't worry, I'm not hostile. I'm Kelly McElan of PKO, Archer and I were just heading into the city. Sorry to startle you..

Without her consent, Archer slowed down and faced the area of incoming transmission. Then the Zoid started towards the Command Wolf, Kelly not really paying and attention to what it was doing..

Do you need help with anything? She inquired, seeing that the other Zoid seemed to be near some ruins...

"Do you need help with anything?"

"No, thanks. Just been looking for scrap. I was gonna head deeper into the ru-- And it seems you're headed my way..."
Checking his sensors, he saw that the incoming Zoid would be on top of him in about a minute, and so decided to wait, as travelling with someone else would reduce the chances of a bandit attack, plus she'd probably have news and gossip from areas further afield then he had been in quite a while...

Snapping to the reality of what Archer was doing, Kelly nodded..

It seems so...
' Buddy...what are you doing? '

The suddenly, Archer spoke, for the first time in a while, his 'voice' or mechanical tone sounded in Kelly's head.

There is something over there. Near the Wolf. It's bothering me. Sending thoughts into my core. Presuading..



Dude..sorry to say this, but your one crazy Zoid..

Nevertheless, Kelly remembered what her Zoid said, for it was not always that it 'spoke', actually last it did was when a virus was attacking her old team's Zoids, and that was ages ago.

Wolfe, Sir, my Liger 'informed' me that something was sending out a transmission near your Wolf. Is there anything over there that you know of that could do that?

Seeing that Archer was only about 50 meters or so away from the Wolf and the pilot, Kelly decided to check it out on her own, hopefully not coming across as crass to the other pilot.
Once outside of her Zoid, Kelly made her way over the Wolfe, and extended her hand in greetings. She then looked at his Wolf not to far away and nodded her head in greeting also. She had always had a liking for Command Wolves, even thinking of getting one her own some day..


That's quiet a Zoid you have over there Mr. Wolfe, I like the color scheme. She said, noting the purple/gray/blue colors..
How does it 'handle' in battle?
Walking over to the canine Zoid, looking at it was slight strucken-glare, but at the same time looking around the area for any beacons or such items that could send out a transmission. She had to keep her gaurd up, she had annouced that she was a member of the PKO, and this guy could be a BD memeber, in which it would get very messy...

Taking her hand and shaking it, Wolfe grinned, saying, "Please, just Wolfe, I don't like being called Mistah... Makes me sound old. And Bob... well, he's undefeated so far, although I've not battled with him that much... And a radio signal, you said..."

Turning towards Bob, he yelled, "Yo, Bob! You noticed any sort of transmissions near here?"

Shaking his Head, Bob crouched down, and lowered his head enough for Wolfe to lean in and read the message he had displayed


://OBSERVATION: NO TRANSMISSIONS, BUT A SMALL ENERGY SIGNAL HAS BEEN DETECTED. APPROXIMATELY 6.25M BELOW THE SURFACE.
://SPECULATION: UNDERGROUND AREA LIKELY.
://STATEMENT: AND NO NEED TO SHOUT. MY AUDIO SENSORS ARE FINE.


Turning back to Kelly, Wolfe grinned and said, "Looks like the Liger was right... Bob's detecting something underground. No idea what it is, but it's likely that it's what's sending out that transmission... So... shall we look for a way down?"

"Fifteen times ran the mouse on the wheel..."

Vincent grasped his bottle, taking a swig of the hard liquor as he felt himself getting thoroughly smashed. It had all gone so well earlier. A bit of modification, a lot of hard work and sweat, a few sledgehammers... scraping together some stuff, staying up late at night pondering, then ramming the damn Heldigunner into a twisted pile of scrap over and over. It looked perfect. It worked perfectly. So where the hell did he go wrong?

And that damnable Guysack. He'd spent days on that Guysack, but in retrospect, trying to fit a highly explosive weapon next to a flamethrower wasn't a very good idea. And the weapon was HIGHLY explosive. He'd left the Guysack's wreckage on the ground behind him, figuring if he was going to test out the Heldigunner, nothing would go wrong. He'd just pick up the scrap later and start over again. Right?

Swig.

Wrong. The Heldigunner performed admirably on the first two runs. A third run was, in retrospect, not a very good idea. The Heldigunner had did very well planting the underground mines, and had even managed to burrow a little underground chamber with the special attachment Vincent had invented, but he hadn't counted on running into his own underground mine anyway. Sonar wasn't fixed yet, he didn't have the parts. And it wasn't supposed to have a detonator in it! He must have missed one... that's what he got for being careless.

His zoid's been in a CSF for a few hours now, Vincent didn't know the time anymore. He'd managed to nurse it into the underground chamber, big enough for him to stand up and go to the bathroom, stretch out and such. 30 meters long, 10 meters deep, but no wider then the Heldigunner. Heldigunnre took up most of the room anyway. Fortunately for him, one of the modifications he made on the Heldigunner was an air recycler, on top of an increased amount of air tanks. He could last another two days at most. Without any parts, he couldn't do any more with his Heldigunner... except get drunk.

At least he had the foresight to bring a bottle. Funny how most of his mistakes usually came from the bottle anyway. Funny how he managed to prepare for a worst case scenario but forgot to prepare to STOP a worst case scenario. Hindsight's 20/20 anyway.

Muttering a few more curses, Vincent's drunken mind began to think a bit harder, before sobering up faster than any normal human should. As a matter of fact, it was so fast it was practically unholy.

Maybe he could make some kind of device that would extract any weapons exhaust or use energy from the core to manufacture oxygen... hrm. A kind of converter, possibly. Not unlike a catalytic converter that he'd oftentimes see on other machines, converting dangerous carbon gasses into harmless ones.

Well, if he ever got out of the damn hole.

"Maybe it's about time I gave up drinkin."

Vincent drew back his hand and threw the bottle against a dirt wall, the bottle whacking into the wall and falling with a dissatisfying *thunk*.

Kelly looked over at the Liger behind her, who nodded it's huge feline head.
We shall

Kelly quickly rentered the Liger's cockpit, and looked around for anything that could be used for digging.

Wolfe, how should we go about doing this? She said, her hands flying over various buttons and knobs with grace, trying to figure out how to enable the Liger to 'dig'. Finally, she gave up, all that she could really do at that moment was to try to also locate the source of the transmisson or beacon. Sensors Online.

We shouldn't go straight down, we could harm whatever is down there...and it looks pretty big..

So big in fact, that she made a mental note to keep her gaurd up, keep her shock cannons at the ready. Kelly was a paranoid one.

All of the sudden, Archer took free reign and hobbled a few meters away from the 'thing', as it's claws slowly glew with that oh-so-known light of a Strike Laser Claw. Much slower that one would expect after seeing it done in battle. But nevertheless, Archer tried to start digging in the ground with it's bruning kitty paws, but to no avail. A Liger just wasn't ment to dig. Period.

Do you think that thing down there is alive?
On that same train of thought, Kelly enabled a com, a fairly weak one, since it had to travel through dirt and rocks, and it probably wouldn't even be able to reach it's destination.

Hello...is anyone down there? Cliche? yes, Kelly was such an original gal.

Watching the Liger attempt to SLC the ground into submission, Wolfe entered Bobs cockpit, and sent a quick message to Kelly, "Leave the digging to Bob... Go on Bob! Find the bone! Go on!"
://HUMOUR: OH, BARK, BARK.

Stepping about 25-35 metres back, Bob started digging with his front two paws, throwing sand everywhere. Before long, he had reached the 5 metre mark, upon which, Wolfe stopped him, and carried on with his message to Kelly.

"Right, I'll carry on from here, else Bob might fall through. I've got a couple of spades in the ol' 'Scrap Retrieval Kit', and a fair bit of rope, so if'n I tie it to one of his legs, I can dig the rest of the way without being to worried about falling through. You can take the spare spade if you want to help dig, or you can wait in your Liger-- Does he have a name, by the way? --and keep an eye out for trouble. Either's good."

Whilst waiting for her reply, he started rummaging about, trying to untangle the required items from other ropes and cables and such, whilst simulteaneously trying to avoid hitting any of Bobs control panels.
Not an easy feat, judging by the tapdance that Bob puts on after a few seconds of rummaging...

As if answering Wolfe's question, Kelly lowered Archer's head and jumped out of the cockpit. Twisting and turning in the air, similar to that of a cat, Kelly landed on the ground with unusual grace. ( That being granted by beng a pilot ). But be as it may, it was still a pretty far fall, and she landed pretty hard on the ground below, pain shooting up from her hands and feet. She shook off the twinge of pain, and eyed the piles of digging equiptment with interest.
Why does he have all of that stuff? The thought flashed through her mind, but it didn't linger, she had seen werider things kept in Zoid. Much werider.

Laughing to herself about her previous findings in Zoids, Kelly walked over to Wolfe, hobbling slightly due to the ghost rements of her hard landing from the Liger, and took up a spade. Kelly was never the one to just sit back and watch. No matter what the feat.

Hearing Wolfe's new question, Kelly flashed her grey/green eyes over to Archer who was watching behind her..
Oh, that's Archer there..I got him a while ago after I moved out of the city..or in reality, I found him..
With a nod to Archer, Kelly tied herself up to the Liger's leg and repelled down into the Wolf's hole. Trying to hold onto the spade, and the rope at the same time. Not as easy as it sounds. It took Kelly quiet a while to reach the bottom, where Wolfe probably was already. The paraniod side of Kelly resurfaced again as thought flahsed through her mind:
This guy better not be a serial killer or anything, 'cause I'm going to be pretty much trapped down there.. Deciding that prospect was absurb, Kelly rolled her eyes and placed her feet on the soft ground.


She rolled up her sleeves in a workish type of way and looked at her spade..
Time to get to work..

Dig in..



(( I'm going to be gone till Sept 1st, but I will try to get on when I can ))

Nick had been taking Aeth (with Shadow fused) on a little stroll outside of Romeo City for about the past hour or so, when he noticed a Command Wolf about one hundred or so meters away. Near the Wolf was a Liger Zero. He decided to check out what the hell was going on, since one usually doesn't see two Zoids just sitting there. He veered the Liger towards their direction so that he could get a closer look. After he got about twenty to thirty meters closer, he saw two people digging in a rather large hole.

Nick thought to himself, "What the hell are they digging for down there?" as the Liger lowered its head and the cockpit opened. Nick climbed out and had Shadow defuse from the Liger, just incase these people were up to no good. He walked rather quickly to the hole and asked the two:

What are you two digging for down there?

Nick waited for a response with Shadow standing right beside him, giving sort of a glare at the strangers.

Meanwhile, down in the hole...

Vincent had finally hit upon another idea. Working feverishly, he had just managed to hotwire the beam cannon on his Heldigunner, repairing a few circuits here and there, and just generally working to achieve one goal- being able to fire the gun independantly of the zoid.

Vincent succeeded.

The sounds of digging were pretty muffled, and Vincent didn't notice them as of yet; but he did feel a bit of air flowing, and judging that one spot was the right spot, he triggered the cannon.

A blazing beam of light shoots out of the pit, coming VERY close to incinerating both of Vincent's erstwhile benefactors, melting a hole straight through the ground and pretty much reducing the soil to glass around it.

Unfortunately, that one blast was enough to basically ruin Vincent's delicate setup. The gun fizzled and went dead, and grumbling, Vincent set back to work.

Leaping back and falling over as the beam of light flew up past him, he quickly regained his wits, beating out a couple of small flames from the bits of clothing that had gotten a bit too clost to the blast.
"Looks like there is something down there... And I liked my eyebrows, too...", he muttered, half to himself, before leaning down near the hole.
"Hello, Mr. Person-with-a-gun who-nearly-shot-us, I'm with the PKO, are you friend or foe, and are you in need of assistance?", he shouted down, before retreating from the hole, and motioning for Kelly to do the same, in case the reply was less then friendly.

(( Sorry about the delay ...Onward! ))


Bzzam!
The blasts shot up, throwing Kelly back against the wall of the hole. She closed her eyes, but she could still see the intense light, her eyes started to sting from it.
She could feel the hair on her arm dissapear from the heat...or whatever that thing was.

Archer too, was surprised, rearing up on it's haunched like that of a frightened stallion. It's mind, or core, or whatever you call it, automatically switched over to that of a pretator nearby, and switched to it's primal instincts.

Nick, who was standing pretty much standing on the edge of the hole, fell in from Shadow unintentionally pushing him in. The poor organoid had been roused up by the blast, and mistakingly knocked Nick into the hole. Nick ended up landing on his rear end, which still hurt, but was better than falling on his head and breaking a bone, or even becoming paralyzed. He pulled himself together and asked the two strangers:

Are you two okay?

By now he really wanted to find out what the hell was down there and what it was that had made that blast.

Kelly, recovering from the shock, took several deep breaths, each with a heavy chest. Some dirt settled in her lunges, causing her to have a coughing fit.

Her eyes teared up as her lunges spasmed, trying to dislodge the dirt. But nevertheless, her 'spell' passed, and she slowly crept foward near Wolfe, looking following his gaze. Her head was buzzing around, partically because of the coughing, and partically because of all the commotion.

With no sound escaping her lips, Kelly followed Wolfe, down into the deep.

Damn I'm stupid..

Splat!

Again, something caught Kelly's attention, another person, one that just fell from the ground above. It was a man. He had fallen on his backside, but seemed ok.


Are you two okay?

Yea...but the question is, are you? She said, continuing her climb down the into the depths.

--------

Archer too, was recovering from the blast, looking around, eyes ablaze, for the source of the "attack". A low, hardly audible growl came from the mechanical feline.

Not really rational, Archer swung it's head over to the Command Wolf.

Attacker? No..

But then it saw it.
No IT
Yea, IT, the attacker


Another Zero.

Aeth

Attacker

Archer bellowed out a low roar, challenging the motionless Zero.

SHIT. The PKO...

Did they know of Vincent's involvement with the NBD? Probably not. Vincent kept a low profile and only helped occasionally; besides, he was really more of a neutral, he just wanted more chaos seeded around so that he could get more business.

He nearly hit them too. Still, it's a way out, and it's better than having the roof collapse over him.

"HEY, BOYO, NAME'S CLAYBOURNE! GOT ME ZOID STUCK DOWN HERE BY ACCIDENT, YOU GOT ANY ROPE?"

Vincent didn't like shouting, and liked people less- strangers even more so- but right now, beggars can't be choosers.

Still, pretty soon... a girl and a guy fell down, nearly whacking into Vincent and essentially landing on the hard metal of the Heldigunner.

"Great. Now we're all stuck down here." Vincent mutters.

Great..Life was sure treating Kelly well..


Kelly got herself up from the smooth surface of the Hedigunner and crawled so that her back was against the wall. She tried to stand up, but slipped, and fell face down on the cold, wet, earth.

Joy

Again, she got up, brushing the dirt from her eyes and such, eyeing the new guy.


Yea...I guess we are.. She said with a freshness in her voice. I mean, who WOULDN'T be pissed if you just fell down at rather deep hole with two strangers.

Anyway, she introduced herself to 'Claybourne' to get all those pesky formalities over with. She watched Nick gets up as she talked to Mr. Claybourne

Man, what where you doing down there..well, I mean here?

She paused, figuring he wouldn't want to really answer her..

Yea, I'm PKO too, so, answering the questions truthfully is a good idea.. Yup, she was in a pissy mood..

'Yea...but the question is, are you?'

Nick didn't bother to answer. He just wanted to find out what made that blast and if it was to harm someone, or unintentional. He followed the two people down into the hole-in-the-hole thing. As the three got into the hole, Nick noticed a man and a zoid that kind of looked like a Heldigunner, but he wasn't positive.

Nick introduced himself to the other stranger (Claybourne) and asked, Yeah, what are you doing way down here?

'Wait', Nick thought. 'This girl is part of the PKO? Well, if she asks me what my affiliation is, I'll just say I'm neutral. I don't want to get into any trouble, especially in a hole in the middle of the desert.'

------------------------------------

Nick wasn't too worried about Shadow, knowing that the good ol' organoid can take care of itself.

After all the introductions had been made, Wolfe indicated his tether, in response to Claybournes question.
"I'm guessing that your Heldigunner hit something whilst roaming around down here... Your're pretty lucky you managed to get to this cave...", He paused, and pondered for a bit, "We may need to leave the 'Gunner, and come back later when we have the right equipment to haul it back up... Or we could try and repair it now, if it's not too bad. I've got a basic repair kit up top in my Zoid."

"No shit I hit something, buddy, and I made the cave. I was testing out my new 'Gunner design and I'm leaving it at that, girl; I don't answer to anyone but me, especially not that PKO shit people are all talking about nowadays."

Vincent takes a look around the place, thinking for a moment, before shouting back up to Nick. "Pull us up, I can probably salvage some material from my wrecked Guysack up there and scrounge enough parts to fix the Heldigunner."

((OOC: Uh, people seem to be getting confused here. Nick and Kelly fell into the hole with Vincent, so that leaves Wolfe up above since he never stated he went down. Try to pay attention to your previous posts, please.))

(( Yea, That's what I understand is going on ))