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Murdering Friendship	By : Iridanum Category: +S to Z > Zoids Views: 2058 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Zoids, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Murdering Friendship
- 1
"So
you want to see a monster?" In the silence a deranged young man smiled.
"That's fine, I'll be more than happy to oblige you. In fact," the
zoid began to move, the steady rhythm of the steps lulling, sliding through the
shadows along the canyon walls, "It would be a pleasure."

With that
last hissed word the demonic feline burst out of concealment ripping into the
smaller cat with a vicious, wanton, savagery. How it had crept so close was a
mystery. The thin veil of shadow shouldn't have, couldn't have, hidden
something like what he faced. Its sheer size made it an impossibility. While
the stunned pilot's mind tried to grasp what was happening, trying to keep up,
trying to assimilate it all, his instincts had kicked in, the primal part of
the human being that makes life or death decisions, the genetic hero or coward
in all men. His hands pulled back and down on the controls and the smaller
Liger leapt backwards, it's once pristine white armor now torn and shredded in
some places, scorched from the blazing energy of the other's teeth and claws.
Fingers depressed triggers and twin barrels on the chest spat high density
slugs only to have them shatter uselessly on the heavy, armored mane around the
head of the other beast as it lunged a hellish bright horn forward.

Leaping
to the side, a gouge was ripped from shoulder to hip of the smaller Ligers; one
stabilizer ripped entirely off and sent spiraling to the ground. The smaller
white liger was met in the midst of its leap by a wing-blade. One moment of
panicked realization flashed across the blonde's mind as his hands frantically
pulled at the controls pulled the Liger in the opposite direction. The
wing-blade hit, the uncharged edge ripping into the armor and structure
beneath, the shoulder crumpling from the massive blow, a demon's wail of noise
audible even in the cockpit as the Liger was thrown violently backward, aided
by its own momentum to land in a heap on its side, stunned though the pilot
suffered in no similar bliss.

He
immediately rolled the stunned feline upright, crouching down low and sending a
barrage of impact cannon rounds flying out into the air where they sailed for a
bare handful of seconds but the enemy was gone. A demented cackle came over the
comm line. "Looking for me by any chance?"

The
blonde was thrown violently in the cockpit as a pair of energy blasts slammed
into the side of the Liger's head, teeth in the jaw cracking and armor melting
away. A gasp of pain came from the pilot as he was slammed up against the side
of the seat, he felt something give in his side and a stab of searing pain
flashed behind his eyes as his head hit the canopy a second later. Groggy he
looked up, eyes unfocused and head pounding, throbbing with his racing heart,
ribs pulsing with pain to the same mortal beat. Unclear though it was he could
make out the blurred outline of the other Liger stalking closer, claws and horn
ablaze with Power. Deliberate in its advance it began to circle as the shadows
slid off again.

"Come
on Liger, we need to" gasp, "get up. Get up, Liger. Come on."
Coaxing it the teen managed to get the Liger to its feet, the icy slash of
realization, of fear, that he'd been allowed up. He could have been dead
already but the dark-edged Liger had held back. Why?

"Wondering
yet? Why am I alive you ask?" The voice was silky smooth. Calm. Almost
lulling. And that made it all the more chilling. "I'm not going to end
this quickly you know. I'm enjoying this far too much for that to happen."

The
smaller white Liger lunged forward, aiming for the throat, aiming for the
bundle of conduits running there, hoping for a quick kill. It brushed past the
horn, it's radiantly charged length passing over one shoulder, it avoided the
teeth the snapped shut and ripped backwards, taking a mouthful of already
half-melted armor from the cheek, it was almost there...

...It was
batted away like a cub being swatted by an adult. Tumbling over and over,
coming to rest on its back, the blonde came to after a moment of blacking out,
blood dripping down into his eyes. The Liger wrestled itself upright again,
growling, angry now at the demon-zoid that had so far man-handled them
contemptuously and with impunity. And there it was, waiting, eyes a-glow now, a
virulent, viral, green. The color of sickness. The shade of balefire.

"Come
on you bastard!" The smaller zoid lunged forward again, its chest mounted
impact cannon thundering like the ire of a god. He didn't even notice the
slug�s impotency against the armor of the other zoid as the smaller Liger
headed in a straight line charge at the other zoid who stood there, waiting.
The head butt the followed was reminiscent of the Berserk Fury, as the white
Liger ducked its head down, under the other zoid, and brought it up into the
chin of the other Liger in what can only be described as an attack brought on
by suicidal desperation.

In the
white Liger shattering glass held court as slivers and shards cracked off and
propelled inward, faster than anything the blonde had though possible as they
riddled his body, shredding his clothes, piercing his legs, arms, chest, and
stomach, blood flowing out until it slicked him from head to toe in a moment.
Lances of agony speared inwards to his brain and for a the span of a heartbeat
his only sensation was pain, as glass that pierced his body shattered on his
bones, fragments lacerating him internally until his nerves, so overloaded, simply
shut down.

There was
a curious sensation of numbness, he could tell that he was hurt; he knew it was
bad, but nothing made of his pain could be felt. There was no feeling. The cat
above him, knocked back by the headbutt, made a sound for the first time in the
battle as it growled, and minced forward, clearly malicious, clearly intent on
toying with the other zoid, on savoring the demise. It struck viper quick,
uncharged fangs sinking deeper into the back of the white Liger's neck and in a
display of strength that would do the DeathSaurer proud, bodily picked up and
threw the Liger by its neck.

The
sharp-edged liger came away with a mouthful of metal and internal systems as
the smaller liger sailed up and over its shoulder, the abused pilot flung out
to land with a heavy impact on the floor of the dry riverbed. The Liger itself
landed with a shriek of abused metal as shards of the armor were cracked and
spun off, deadly shrapnel that filled the air. Its legs flopped uselessly as
signals could no longer reach them to force movement. In essence the Liger's
back was broken but despite this it continued to live, stubbornly defiant. With
the devil's intent the larger zoid moved forward to it, head bending down to
dig teeth into the unarmored belly of the downed zoid, tearing out mouthfuls,
rooting through delicate internal systems, eviscerating the Liger with a
deliberate malice.

The
blonde pilot had felt him self in the air, it was a curious sense of detachment
though. He knew he was above ground and in the air, but couldn't feel himself
falling. It's almost as though he could fool himself....until he landed with a
heavy impact, muscles tearing and bones shattering from the impact, pain
tearing through the shroud of shock he was in like a juggernaut. He couldn't
even move his legs any more and only one arm still twitched feebly. Looking
down he experienced the worst sight of his life, the sight of his own viscera,
his entrails shiny with blood in the afternoon light Through the tatters of his
shirt he thought he could see the shredded remains of a lung and the blood in
his mouth certainly made him believe it as did his shortness of breath.

"Ah,
how the high are laid low." The blonde turned to see a man of
indeterminate age, he could be anywhere from 25-55 and no one would know the
difference. Battered features, and greying hair, but an odd bounce to his step,
one normally seen in the young. "Watch dear boy, I went through great
pains to put on this show."

Involuntarily the pilot's eyes slid over to the indicated spot, vision blurry
through blood and hurt, but he could still make out what was happening. The
Liger, on its side and rent asunder, moaned weakly as the other feline had
moved onto its limbs, dismembering it one joint at a time, one tearing mouthful
at a time. The ground was littered with the metallic blood and core fluids of
the liger though it still lived, a brutal testament to the toughness of the
Ultimate X. The white liger mewed piteously at the torment, its darker
counterpart taking obvious delight in the weak struggling of the victim.

"Your
friend, Bit Cloud. The Liger Zero dead but not before it serves a greater,
horrible purpose. You see Bit Cloud I don't want to just kill you. That's too
easy." To Bit's eyes there was a blur of movement and a knife slashed open
one cheek, laying bare his jaw and teeth inside. His tongue could be glimpsed
through the shattered enamel. "All too easy. No Bit Cloud, first I mean to
see you beg mindlessly at my feet, praying uselessly for something you know
nothing of. I mean to see you broken and pleading for whatever it is I choose
to do with you."

His
tormentor reached inside a pocket and pulled out a small envelope. "While you were away Bit Cloud, seeing
the world, taking a break, on vacation, I was working." The envelope
opened and a picture floated down to land before him. Full color, it depicted
the Doc, bullet holes in his head, grouped so close that Bit could see the wall
behind Doc and what was splattered across it.

"None
of you team escaped." A picture of Brad, chained, hanging from his arms in
the Blitz Team's Hanger, impaled in multiple places with what looked like
pipes.

"None
of your friends lasted." Jaime's face stared at him from the glossy 4x6,
the skin of his chest peeled back exposing the intact rib cage and the hole
where his heart was meant to be.

"Everyone
fell to me." Leon; hacked apart with some large blade, pieces of organ and
bone splayed about the walls in the picture.

"Some
even begged." A picture of Leena, tied to a bed, blood soaking the sheets,
nude.

"Some
died with more dignity." Naomi, a headless corpse, missing most of her
chest from....something, probably explosive. "That, of course, didn't stop
me from....enjoying them."

"All
of them are dead Bit Cloud." A picture of the Elephander, the cockpit a
smoking hole it the pachyderm's head.

"You're
the last." Pierce, the Backdraft Zabat pilot, bound and mutilated, her
unclothed body covered in slash marks and other wounds.

"Dead
because of you Bit Cloud." Harry's face, the goof that he was, locked in a
rictus of pain, hands bleeding, ragged stumps, the man talking now standing
over him, smiling widely in mockery of the photo, a shotgun leveled at one of
Harry's legs.

"Dead,
because you were gone Bit Cloud." Jack Sisco, crippled from the look of
his legs, staring at the shredded remains of his Lightning Saix as two green
eyes glowed far above the ground, in the dark background of the picture.

"If
only you had stayed, they could have lived." Both Tasker Sisters,
unclothed, and dead, their bodies violated. Had Bit the capacity to retch he'd
be violently ill at this point.

"But
you weren't here were you?" A picture of Oscar, Jaime's dad, his face
missing, the skull peeled bare; by the look in his eyes he was still alive.

A sudden
howl of pain came from the Ligers and Bit turned to look and wept, unknowingly,
at the sight of the Liger. It was mutilated horribly though still alive. Its
limbs were gone, reduced to unrecognizable chunks of ripped metal, even the
magnite bones cracked apart as though for marrow. The other man only smiled
thinly. "Good, very good. Find it."

Bit tried
to turn away as the darker Liger bent its head, nosing among the viscera of the
Liger Zero, but a sharp word bound his gaze to the carnage. A twist of the
snout and a rip and Bit saw the Liger's core held in between the jaws of the
devil in a Liger's guise. For a moment it held firm before shattering in a
spray of shards and silver blood and the snout flipped something once into the
air and with cat-like agility batted it towards the two men with a paw. It was
small skull, wrapped around what appeared to be a zoid core in miniature. The
other man smiled and bent down next to Bit. "Do you know what this is? The
'Black Box' of an Ultimate X. The organoid system."

He reached out and stroked a hand across the slick surface. "Filthy
creatures really but if you're willing to take the necessary steps, if you
can," here he smiled in private jest, "stomach certain things,
they can bring great power, even dead ones like this."

Bit
stared in horror between the heart of the Liger Zero and it's rapidly stoning
body. There was a sensation of weight; the other man paternally rested a hand
on his blood-stiffened blonde hair. There was something oddly soothing in the
action as Bit's mind, warped already by what he'd seen, stressed to near the
breaking point by what he knew, retreated, leaving on the feeling of security,
the feeling that someone else was taking care of him, responses from his
childhood when his father did the same thing.

A searing
impact of a boot smashing into his already broken ribs caused that illusion to
shatter like glass, Bit writhing in agony. The man standing above the maimed
Champion just stared at the panting blonde, licked his lips. Bit, on the ground,
lay panting, his insides on fire. A grind of metal on metal, a click, the
sounds of a gun being armed. Bit's arm was yanked up and the grip of a matte
black .45 roughly slapped into his fingers which reflexively curled around it.
His finger seemed to naturally seek the trigger, his abused mind seeking a
crutch. Violence was the easiest choice, the obvious choice, the simple choice.

"Come
Bit Cloud and end this. One shot is what you have. One for you? One for me? One
for...the Liger? Yes, the Liger." The silky smooth voice came again; it
washed through Bit's fragile mind like slow honey, smothering reason. He just
wanted something, anything to blame for what this man did. "You know don't
you Bit Cloud? It's all the Liger's fault. Yes, yes it is! I can see you agree
with me. If it t'weren't for the Liger, the Liger Zero and its 'Black Box' then
none of this would have happened. Your friends would be alive, wouldn't they? I
would never have come for you and found them instead.

"No
Bit Cloud I did not wish what I did upon them," here the man look truly
remorseful, "but I did only what I was forced to do. Blame me if you wish,
but in your heart you know what's really at fault."

That he was referring to the Liger, to the organoid system, didn't need saying.
Bit understood. The gun raised, the hammer drew back, his hand steady despite
the horrific injuries he'd taken, the torn muscles and shattered bones. The
sights aligned perfectly and Bit's fading sight focused, for a moment clear as
a god's, on his tormentor, through the gun sights. With a feral, cracked grin
that would do a demon proud and make Raven blush for never trying, Bit's finger
jerked backwards on the trigger...

...the
gun bucked in his hand...

...the
other man smiling insanely, with a venom that could better be ascribed to
Hiltz...

...the
shriek of the sound barrier being broken drowned out by the dark liger's
roar...

...and
the Black Box shattered under the hammer of the heavy round. Bit, arms
beginning to weaken again, shifted aim to the other man who was laughing,
cackling with a baneful glee at the remains of the organoid on the ground, the
quicksilver blood flowing through the dirt, pooling in depression unseen by the
eye, glinting in the bright afternoon light. Bit, chest heaving with the effort,
the raw ends of splintered bone rubbing against each other, his hands clasped
tight around the butt of the gun, so tightly the tendons in his hands creaked
with effort, the knuckles white with the strain, as he brought the gun to bear
on the other man's head. He grinned, shook his head.

"Naughty
boy, trying to shoot me. You made your choice, that's why there was only one
shot, one bullet." He guffawed again, the look on the Champion's face
priceless and becoming a treasured memory. "You made the choice," he
repeated, "that the Liger Zero, your friend Bit Cloud, your partner; you
decided it was more to blame for what happened than I was."

He turned
his back on the shattered body of the Royal Cup champion, still speaking.
"You'll have to live with that Bit Cloud. For the rest of your days."
He tossed a look over his shoulder, grinned quickly, "However many that
may be. And I know you won't end your own life Bit Cloud. I've defeated you,
I've destroyed everything that's every mattered to you and I did it with
aplomb. You won't let me get away with that. You, Bit Cloud, are a hero, and
thus oh so predictable. I can already see it in your face, you want to kill me.
You need to kill me. How else will you lay to rest the demons I've begotten in
your soul? How else will the wondering of why you chose the Liger Zero over me
be answered?"

He began to walk away, the black, sharp-edged liger following, stepping
delicately over the blonde, when the man stopped and turned around again, a
strange look on his face, walking past the feline zoid and stopping at Bit.
"Despite what I've done Bit Cloud, and hate as you will, I'll not abide
any man suffering alone as you surely are."

Pulling a
string of strangely shaped white beads from his pocket he held it in one hand, his
fingers moving the beds one at a time around the string. A cross hung down from
it and with a slow comprehension Bit realized it was a rosary. The other man,
kneeling, eyes closed, held it up in both folded hands and began to speak in a
low, sincere voice.

"For
those who suffer,

and
those who cry this night,

give
them repose, Lord;

a
pause in their burdens."

...there
was something about those rosary beads...

"Let
there be minutes

where
they experience peace,

not of
man

but of
angels."

...Bit knew
they were familiar somehow...

"Love
them, Lord,

when
others cannot.

Hold
them, Lord,

when
we fail with human arms."

...they
were bones. The beads, the cross, all of them were made of bone...

"Hear
their prayers

and
give them the ability to hear You back

in
whatever language they best understand."

He stood
once again and laid a hand on the blonde's head again, fingers smoothing the
blood stiffened hair, and this time there was no malice in him, Bit knew it.
Nothing overt, nothing subtle, nothing but the sincere wishes of the man before
him. The words of the soul as it were.

"May
God be with you Champion. Because no one else ever will be again."
- 1
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Murdering Friendship