Post by Orange on Mar 7, 2006 4:26:49 GMT -5
Chapter 26: Fiver hates Glow Foxes
And said I that my limbs were old,
And said I that my blood was cold,
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor wither'd heart was dead.
-
The stock of damage was taken of Riko Town, and the outlook was mostly good. Only one defender pilot had been killed, and five defender zoids disabled. Most of the Guysaks ran away, as did Orurson. The Styluarmor's head has been completely crushed in, but unlike the Geno Breaker Jet, the cockpit of a Styluarmor was not in the head, but on the back. The Glow Fox could be repaired, and Tornado was only a bit beat up. The real question was Fiver.
It took Sef a good half hour to drag Timbre out of the weird wolf. When he saw the cockpit open, Timbre just stared at it for a minute, as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Then, he quietly climbed in and locked the hatch. Timbre had just completely broken down. For nearly half an hour, he just sat inside if Fiver's cockpit, staring straight ahead. It was almost like he decided to leave the world for a little bit. But once he had gotten over the shock, he calmed down enough to try and explain what the heck was going on.
Or, at least, able to explain what little he did know. Which was not much, seeing as Fiver was not talking. All Timbre knew was that this was Fiver. There was absolutely no question in his mind that somehow, Fiver had survived the Ragnarok Fang, spontaneously evolved into a mutant Whitz Wolf, ran to Riko Town, and saved the day. Sef was a bit skeptical. Who wouldn't be?
Either way, the zoid was weird, and it was exhausted. Beyond some stripped and crashed gears, and some damage from the battle, little else was wrong with him, besides his absolute unwillingness to move. He had somehow over-run it's energy reserves, and had been cannibalizing system resources in order to keep running. It had all finally caught up with the Wolf, leaving him half-dead, his core pulling less power then a vacuum cleaner. Everyone was puzzled.
Everyone, save for the local zoid customizer.
Jack Weatherman was a descendant of the late, great Jack Weatherman Senior. The same one that had created Tornado, Stormfront, and Fog. And since the beginning of the fair, Jack and Sef had been hanging out, and quickly became buddies. Jack was a customizer, but just not on the same level as his grandfather. Jack Junior knew that what his grandfather had created was art. He told everyone that the stuff he did was just pale mockery. Which was hardly true, Jack did some fine customs of his own. But not many of them held the same power as the original Weathered. This is why Jack did not call his own customs Weathered. Instead, he simply called them 'Weatherman Customs'.
And Jack knew precisely what was up with Fiver.
"Yoz, dudes. You got yourself a Waize Wolf."
"What?" Chorused Timbre, Sef, and Moro. They were all gathered on the floor of Jack's shop, who had offered to take care of the repairs and re-arming of the zoids, and for cheap. Mostly because along with the wrecked Styluarmor and Fiver, the inactive carcass of Stormfront was also on the shop floor. And currently belonged to Jack Weatherman, who intended to 'fix the old due up'.
"Waize Wolf. It's actually the original form of the Whitz Wolf, before they were used to form the cores of the Whitz Tiger. See, the core was so volatile, they needed to split it between two zoids. So, they halved it into the new Whitz Wolf, and the Savinga. That's why Whitz Tigers can never stay in full fusion mode for more then a few hours. It pretty much burns out the cores. Yennyhoo..." Jack strolled over to Fiver's head, giving it an affectionate pat, "If what yer telling me is truth, I think we got a special case on our hands here."
"Well, I think that was obvious from the whole 'surviving a Ragnarok Fang' thing." Sef quipped.
Jack glared at Sef. "Did I say I was done talkin? Shush. Kay, so, the original Waize Wolf, like every other good wolf ever, came from the same wild core source as the Command Wolf. What I think happened here, is that Fiver is a particularly old zoid. Probably pre-dust. And before the Dust, pure manufactured cores were a lot less common. Fiver's core must have been dropped by a wild wolf, then split and tamed into a buncha regular C-Wolf cores. Now, since wild cores are a lot more prone to mutation... I think you can see where I'm goin' with this."
Timbre, who had been sitting on top of one of Fiver's paws, spoke up. "So, Fiver evolved into a Waize Wolf?"
"Correct! Now, A Ragnarok Fang is a very powerful attack, because it basically detonates the core of the Command Wolf. Ultimate suicide attack. But sometimes, a heavily damaged core can still draw power, even when it's in pieces. One of the core shards must have been powerful enough to keep drawing enough power, and if a core draws enough power, it can regenerate. Since it was in such close proximity to the Red Horn and Guysak cores, it probably absorbed those, and used the extra power to speed up it's complete regeneration."
"But why did he evolve into a Waize Wolf, instead of back into a Command Wolf?"
Jack shrugged. "Zoids are still a mystery. A wonderful, amazing mystery. Hell, it's a mystery how he managed to find you. I'd be happy with knowing how he managed to get his armor the same color green as he used to be. That's a great feat right there. This aint paint, y'know." Jack said, thumbing over at Fiver's armor.
Fiver quietly rumbled, sounding a bit like a chuckle.
Timbre managed a smile, giving Fiver an affectionate pound on the paw. "Brat." He then looked back over at Jack. "So, why is he pulling so little power?"
"Probably an adverse reaction to the original speed of his regeneration. He's just plain pooped, really. I think if we plug him in, and give him a nice slow recharge over a few days, he should be fine. Don't wanna shock his system with a boost, but just a good gentle trickle of regeru to get him back on his feet. Beyond that and a good bath and shine, I think the old boy can take care of himself. Hell, I wish the Styluarmor was so easy to fix. I'm gonna have to mill a new damn head, you just cant get those anywhere, you know. It'll take weeks, maybe. Ugh."
Moro shrugged. "It's okay. I was planning on taking a bit of a vacation after this mission anyway. Maybe i'll just settle down in a mud bath for a few days."
"Yeah, it might suck some of the looser out of you." Sef smirked.
Moro didn't bother to respond, instead, continuing his conversation with Jack. "In fact, I have a few ideas in mind for simplifying Stylu's head, it would probably make the whole process a lot faster. I'm thinking a solid-plate kind of design, a bit like a Mad Thunder."
"Huh, with the housing under a solid construct armor plate? That would be easier to mill. The segmented plated are a *Watch your language!* to mill and assemble... You thinkin' like a short-muzzle design, make it look more like a Rhimos?"
"Yeah, but with more of an angle to the horn, give it a bit more hook."
"You, my friend, are a forward-thinkin' man." Jack gestured Moro over. "Let's step into my office and talk this sucker over."
Sef chuffed. "Huh. Moro's making sense. Never thought I'd see the day."
-
Four days passed, and Fiver was once again back on his feet. A nice slow recharge was just what the doctor ordered, and had Fiver bright and chipper within a day. It took the other three days to slowly top Fiver off, with the charge slowly throttled back as it got higher, to avoid over-loading the battery. Over that time, Sef, Timbre, and Moro spent a lot of time hanging out at Jack's shop, all of them giving a hand where they could. Sef was unusually bad at making zoid repairs of any kind, but Timbre's basic knowledge, and Moro's innovative thinking when it came to design features were quite helpful in the re-building of the Styluarmor (now renamed 'Bohack', as Jack refused to work on anything without a proper name), and in the beginning repairs to Stormfront.
They were able to power up Stormfront again, and to their surprise, Stormfront was quite mellow, and almost apoligetic about the whole thing. Jack looked back into his grandfather's files on Stormfront, and found that originally, the poor guy had a lot fewer blades on him. The ankle hayate blades and swords on the X-Breakers were later additions by another owner. Also, the original tail 'blades' had been simpler spikes. Finally, his name was really 'Coldfront'. Coldfront used to be an experimental Geno Breaker Jet system, that had been scrapped for 'inefficient organoid system/core interaction'. What this really meant was that Coldfront was a very, very mellow and level headed zoid, not prone to the explosive outbursts that usually made the Geno Breaker Jet such a powerful zoid. Well, usually. It seemed he had not taken a liking to his new owner when he was purchased by Kalis, and started acting up. Kalis placed an artificial personality limiter on Coldfront, wiped his battle data, re-named him Stormfront, and stapled a lot more blades on him.
When Coldfront snapped, it was a forced release of 'psycosis power', as Jack called it. The jarid stabbing through his face somehow disabled the personality limiter, and effectively killing the only thing that had any kind of chance of controlling him. Without a pilot, Coldfront went nuts, and who could blame him?
Coldfront's battle data and personality matrix were subjected to a thorough scrub and de-fragging, and while this went on, his new stall-mates, Tornado and Fiver, seemed to be gabbing with him. Every so often, the three would break into low simultaneous grumbling, as if 'speaking' to one another. Which was both odd and completely unnecessary, seeing as all zoids could naturally 'talk' to each other with short-range wireless interfaces. But as with all zoids of any interesting personality, they seemed to have picked up on the habits of their human companions.
Moro and Timbre helped with basic repairs, but Timbre found himself mostly attending to Fiver's cleanup with Sef. And boy, was Fiver a mess. They tried to hose it off, but the mud was some sort of uber-cakey mud that laughed in the face of washing. It took two days and a power washer to get the majority of it off, and at that point, Sef, Timbre, and Fiver pretty much gave up. Zoids were not known for their overall sparkling cleanliness. As they cleaned, Timbre and Sef spoke with Fiver, mostly telling him about what Timbre had been up to over the past few months. Fiver growled a bit every time the Glow Fox was mentioned, and seemed to chuckle when they spoke about how bad a shot Timbre was. Not for the first time in his life, Timbre wished the Wolf could really talk back.
When they finally got Fiver mostly clean, they were all impressed. Fiver's armor was a pure and clear matte light forest green, and a little translucent. It gave him an impressive effect, and looked a lot different from the usual shiny finish clean zoids usually had. What was more interesting, was that the large 'five' marks on his front shoulders were part of the color, and extended though the armor shell to the back. Jack was impressed, and took a small scraping sample of the armor (with Fiver's permission), and sent it off to some friends of his with more interesting equipment then himself.
Fiver's original colors remained true, with a dark charcoal gray undercarriage, green armor, and a blue cockpit canopy. The only real repairs he needed was to have the cockpit upholstered and re-wired. Timbre had the Command Wolf style controls installed, instead of the usual Whitz Wolf 'equestrian style' sloped controls that were becoming more and more popular. Timbre felt far more comfortable sitting back in his seat, rather then having to lean over and hug the console in order to drive. The interior was upholstered in comfortable tan and green tones, and looked quite nice. The only major change from the Command Wolf interior style was the replacement of the harness straps with a more modern and comfortable 'horse collar' seat-restraint, which had far more padding, and allowed for a bit more range of body movement.
Once Fiver was back and fighting fit, he was released from Jack's care, and sent home along with Tornado with a clean bill of health. Coldfront seemed sad to see his new friends leave, but it was all for the best. Fiver had developed a bad case of 'cabin-fever' during his rest, and when Timbre finally hopped in the cockpit to go... Well, it certainly was an experience.
Timbre had never piloted Fiver when he had been a Command Wolf. He had, however, piloted someone else's Wolf, when he took a spin in Freddy, a Command Wolf AC belonging to a part timer at the Union. He was used to the fiddly controls of the Glow Fox, and found them to be a lot more touchy then Freddy's heavy, solid controls. He had expected Fiver's Waize Wolf controls to be similar. Solid, dependable, reliable.
What he found was far different. From the moment Fiver took his first steps, Timbre felt the controls ride light as helium, almost bouncy. The start was actually a bit rocky, with Fiver even snarling once as Timbre over-steered into a slow corner. Timbre was quickly checked, and the controls were wrenched from his hands for a moment as Fiver took control into the corner, chastising his new pilot.
Timbre sighed, leaning back in his seat. "Good eve, Fiver, you are a brat."
Fiver responded with a low chuff, allowing Timbre to take the controls again as they rode out of the town proper.
"How's he riding?" Sef asked over the comm. Tornado was riding in front, as if clearing the way. This seemed to irk Fiver, for reasons Timbre could not understand. Time and time again, he had to throttle back Fiver's step to keep him from overtaking the Zeekdober.
"Twitchy. He's fighting the controls a lot. Aggh, Fiver, stop that!" He said, flicking the pace switch down as Fiver tried to speed up again.
Tornado seemed to snicker at this, with a short high pitched whine. Sef laughed as well. "Heh, the drawbacks of a zoid with too much personality. Let me guess, he wants to be in front?"
"I guess so. Why is he being so difficult?"
"He's getting to know you. And me. And Tornado. Trying to figure out his place in the pack, so to say. From what you told me, it sounds like he and Babe shared a pretty even place when it came to who was in charge. That's a pretty hard thing to manage, you know. Instead of being able to directly control the zoid, Babe was probably working with Fiver's personality to get him to do what he wanted. Now Fiver's got a new guy in his head... I just think he's trying to tell you that you're not the boss."
"I am the boss..." Timbre grumbled quietly.
Fiver's ears pricked at that. The Waize Wolf stopped in his tracks, and gave his head a hard shake, tossing Timbre in his harness. What did this Timbre think he was, the damn Glow Fox?
Sef laughed again, pulling Tornado up, and turning him to look. "Heh! I think Fiver disagrees."
Timbre grit his teeth. "How do I get him to listen to me? I cant pilot him if he keeps fighting me like this."
"Dont ask me. I never had that problem with Tornado. Did I, fluffus lumpus?"
Tornado panted and whined happily.
This seemed to snap something in Fiver. Something deep and primal welled in him, and he grabbed the controls once again, this time jumping into a full sprint, rocketing past the standing Tornado, and into the wasteland beyond. He liked Tornado well enough, but the way he just rolled over to be adored pissed him off to no end. What if Timbre thought he was going to be like that? Absolutely nauseating.
Ignoring Timbre's frantic commands to stop, Fiver showed just how much control he was in. In a full sprint, he swept across the ruined land of the interior, tossing up a full trail of dust in his wake. Even without the rocket boosters engaged, his flat-out speed was impressive, pushing Timbre back into his seat with the near-instant acceleration he was capable of jumping to. He clicked his own pace in, and took a sharp diving turn, crashing his gears as he threw himself into a quick loop, throwing Timbre about in the cockpit.
There was a quick change of direction, gears crashing again, and Fiver rocketed around again, then slamming on the breaks, digging into the hard dirt of the Interior as he slid to a grinding halt. He seemed to be saying, Don't you tell me who's boss.
Timbre actually felt slightly ill at that moment, but not from the sudden turns and speed. He felt every gear crash and grind, every mis-step of Fiver's massive paws as they slammed into the ground, only an instant off pace. It was like nails grinding against a chalk board, like chewing on gravel and tin-foil. It was almost agonizing to the man that prided himself on absolute fine control from his piloting. He grit his teeth again, gripping the controls hard, praying that Fiver wouldn't do that again.
An idea flashed across his mind, opening new eyes to the situation. Babe had to fight Fiver at the beginning too. How would Babe have gotten control ? What would Babe do?
With an evil grin creeping across his face, Timbre's thoughts came together. "Bet'cha I can do it better." He said, looking down at Fiver's console.
Fiver chuffed at this, almost laughing. No way. Fiver knew this kid, and he was good. But not better then him. In Fiver's mind, he was top. He was king. Nothing in the world could beat him in top form.
Timbre was obliged to disagree. He jerked down the controls, throwing Fiver into the same instant sprint he had begun with.
Clicking quickly on the pace wheel, Timbre eased Fiver's pace transition, matching each foot-fall with the minor corrections required for smooth gear action. Fiver snorted, incredulous. But he didn't fight the controls. This inspired Timbre to flick the switch guards on the two control sticks, depressing his thumbs on the twin booster controls.
Fiver's speed increased dramatically, easily surpassing 300 km/h. The quick change in speed was met with easily timed pace adjustments, fractional control changes that allowed gears to mesh cleanly, shifting Fiver's pace easily into near-top speed. Timbre leaned off of the booster controls, allowing Fiver's speed to coast down a bit, before angling Fiver into a sharp turn.
Weights were adjusted, and Timbre shifted along, leaning Fiver into the turn. A slight gear grind jostled Timbre's mind, and a fast correction was made, then allowing the gear teeth to mesh correctly again. Timbre coasted Fiver into the loops, shifting down as his pace slowed to a more comfortable canter. He then leaned out of the turn, jogging Fiver into a new ground-eating bounce pace, quickly picking up speed again.
Timbre eased Fiver into a slow loop, then quickly switching up his pace, jumping him into a sideways slide, allowing him to grind along for a moment, before jumping away into a gentle canter. Timbre allowed the canter to cycle several times, before stopping the pace mid-run, slamming down on one paw, allowing the center of gravity to shift, and Fiver's hind-quarters to rise. For a full three seconds, Fiver balanced rock-steady on one paw, before being allowed into a controlled fall back to all fours.
Fiver panted for a moment, trying to process everything that had just happened. Good eve, not even Babe had that kind of control of a Zoid. Something was different about this kid, for certain. He tossed his head again, but gently, as if assuring himself that he still actually had the kid in his head.
Timbre was still there, and smacked Fiver's console appreciatively. "Ha." He said simply, gloating a bit over his little performance. "Told you so."
Fiver rumbled softly.
"Now that was some mad freestyling there, Tam." Said Sef. He trotted Tornado up, stopping a short distance away. "Hell, if only you could fight as well as you made that thing move.. Geeze, even I'd be afraid of ya."
Fiver turned his head to look at Sef and Tornado, rumbling again. He then turned to fully face the Zeekdober, bending in his front legs a bit, lowering his neck and leveling out his head. He yapped, then panted a bit, jerking his head to one side.
Timbre got the hint. "Heh. Alright, Five." He flipped the comm on. "Hey, Sef. Let's dance."
"Ohh, someone's feelin all high and mighty now, huh? One clean run doth not a master pilot make." Sef replied. But Tornado seemed to have a different idea, answering Fiver's play bow with his own yap. "No, Tornado." Sef corrected, pulling Tornado up out of the bow.
"Wimp." Timbre challenged. Fiver followed this up with a bark, and a false start, pounding his paws in the dust.
Tornado whined, and Sef sighed. Who was he to deny his prettiest puppy a bit of play? He'd send Timbre for a quick roll, then they would more on back to the Union. He leveled out his lance, but had the jarid pull it's head in, storing it back in the shaft of the weapon. "Dont do anything dumb, Adie will kill me if I hurt ya."
Fiver followed this up with a fast bum-rush, different from his bounding sprint. This was a quick scramble, one that had no 'tell' of it's action, that startled Sef into action. He swung his lance down, using it to jump Tornado back and to the side. He swung it back up to turn, not wanting to catch it in the dirt. He then skirted left, only to find Fiver had already vectored in on his approach. Fiver leapt to make his strike, making Sef wrench Tornado out of the turn, forcing a draw.
How the hell did Timbre do that? Sef quickly corrected himself, remembering that he had given fairly obvious warning that he would be turning. He always stored his lance up when he would make a quick turn, preferring to give away his move then wreck his lance. He had even told Timbre of that move, hoping to pound some recognition of 'tells' into his pretty head. Still, why did the kid pick now of all times to start figuring it out?
Sef grumbled, and throttled up Tornado's speed, trying to get a bit of maneuvering distance between himself and Fiver. He swept the lance back further to reduce drag. The Zeekdober was naturally fast, and even with Tornado's increased armament, he could still easily pull 320 km/h. That gave him plenty of wiggle room from what he assumed Fiver could pull. Whitz Wolves could only max out at 305 with their boosters, and Sef was sure that even a Waize Wolf could do little better.
This idea was quickly squelched as Fiver came rocketing up from behind.
"What the hell?" Sef cursed as he looked back at Fiver's approach. He then cursed himself. He forgot about the extra maneuvering boosters mounted on Fiver's legs. Still, that should only just edge out Tornado's own speed.
Jeeze, he was approaching pretty dang fast...
Timbre grinned as Fiver's speed blitzed past 300, with the back-mounted boosters and leg maneuvering boosters swept back for maximum output. He would probably just match Tornado's own speed, and that would keep Sef from opening up too much room to turn the bulky Zeekdober. Then he'd be forced to scratch, or call off the game, which Timbre could then ridicule him about for hours.
That was his plan, at least, until his HUD flashed a small warning. Timbre, being a naturally slow reader, took a moment to pick out the words. "Tertiary Booster minimum engagement speed reached? Huh?"
Fiver answered this with a howl. Then, a small explsion. Timbre was thrown back in his seat with a new burst of speed and noise, the blood in his head being pushed down into what may have been his feet. It was all he could do to keep his head out of the clouds, forcing himself to keep pace. Catching a bad gear at that speed would probably wreck Fiver, and that was something Timbre dreaded. In the corner of his eye, he saw the speedometer jump to 400.
The noise cut out, leaving only the standard booster noise as the speed slowly coasted down from 400. Timbre just caught Tornado whizzing behind as he scrambled to shut down the boosters. First he cut out the back-mounted booster, letting the leg-boosters to remain on to make sure Fiver's pace would still keep up with his momentum. Once his speed coasted down to 300, Timbre shut down the leg boosters, letting Fiver jog the speed down.
"What the heeeeeeeeeeeellllll was that?" Sef shouted as Tornado sprinted to catch up.
"I have no clue." Timbre breathed, clicking Fiver down to a walk. Fiver yapped excitedly as Tornado approached, doing a short hop-skip, as if to say, see what I did there? I'm awesome.
Tornado rumbled in response, almost glaring a bit. His look seemed to say, you cheated.
And said I that my limbs were old,
And said I that my blood was cold,
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor wither'd heart was dead.
-
The stock of damage was taken of Riko Town, and the outlook was mostly good. Only one defender pilot had been killed, and five defender zoids disabled. Most of the Guysaks ran away, as did Orurson. The Styluarmor's head has been completely crushed in, but unlike the Geno Breaker Jet, the cockpit of a Styluarmor was not in the head, but on the back. The Glow Fox could be repaired, and Tornado was only a bit beat up. The real question was Fiver.
It took Sef a good half hour to drag Timbre out of the weird wolf. When he saw the cockpit open, Timbre just stared at it for a minute, as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Then, he quietly climbed in and locked the hatch. Timbre had just completely broken down. For nearly half an hour, he just sat inside if Fiver's cockpit, staring straight ahead. It was almost like he decided to leave the world for a little bit. But once he had gotten over the shock, he calmed down enough to try and explain what the heck was going on.
Or, at least, able to explain what little he did know. Which was not much, seeing as Fiver was not talking. All Timbre knew was that this was Fiver. There was absolutely no question in his mind that somehow, Fiver had survived the Ragnarok Fang, spontaneously evolved into a mutant Whitz Wolf, ran to Riko Town, and saved the day. Sef was a bit skeptical. Who wouldn't be?
Either way, the zoid was weird, and it was exhausted. Beyond some stripped and crashed gears, and some damage from the battle, little else was wrong with him, besides his absolute unwillingness to move. He had somehow over-run it's energy reserves, and had been cannibalizing system resources in order to keep running. It had all finally caught up with the Wolf, leaving him half-dead, his core pulling less power then a vacuum cleaner. Everyone was puzzled.
Everyone, save for the local zoid customizer.
Jack Weatherman was a descendant of the late, great Jack Weatherman Senior. The same one that had created Tornado, Stormfront, and Fog. And since the beginning of the fair, Jack and Sef had been hanging out, and quickly became buddies. Jack was a customizer, but just not on the same level as his grandfather. Jack Junior knew that what his grandfather had created was art. He told everyone that the stuff he did was just pale mockery. Which was hardly true, Jack did some fine customs of his own. But not many of them held the same power as the original Weathered. This is why Jack did not call his own customs Weathered. Instead, he simply called them 'Weatherman Customs'.
And Jack knew precisely what was up with Fiver.
"Yoz, dudes. You got yourself a Waize Wolf."
"What?" Chorused Timbre, Sef, and Moro. They were all gathered on the floor of Jack's shop, who had offered to take care of the repairs and re-arming of the zoids, and for cheap. Mostly because along with the wrecked Styluarmor and Fiver, the inactive carcass of Stormfront was also on the shop floor. And currently belonged to Jack Weatherman, who intended to 'fix the old due up'.
"Waize Wolf. It's actually the original form of the Whitz Wolf, before they were used to form the cores of the Whitz Tiger. See, the core was so volatile, they needed to split it between two zoids. So, they halved it into the new Whitz Wolf, and the Savinga. That's why Whitz Tigers can never stay in full fusion mode for more then a few hours. It pretty much burns out the cores. Yennyhoo..." Jack strolled over to Fiver's head, giving it an affectionate pat, "If what yer telling me is truth, I think we got a special case on our hands here."
"Well, I think that was obvious from the whole 'surviving a Ragnarok Fang' thing." Sef quipped.
Jack glared at Sef. "Did I say I was done talkin? Shush. Kay, so, the original Waize Wolf, like every other good wolf ever, came from the same wild core source as the Command Wolf. What I think happened here, is that Fiver is a particularly old zoid. Probably pre-dust. And before the Dust, pure manufactured cores were a lot less common. Fiver's core must have been dropped by a wild wolf, then split and tamed into a buncha regular C-Wolf cores. Now, since wild cores are a lot more prone to mutation... I think you can see where I'm goin' with this."
Timbre, who had been sitting on top of one of Fiver's paws, spoke up. "So, Fiver evolved into a Waize Wolf?"
"Correct! Now, A Ragnarok Fang is a very powerful attack, because it basically detonates the core of the Command Wolf. Ultimate suicide attack. But sometimes, a heavily damaged core can still draw power, even when it's in pieces. One of the core shards must have been powerful enough to keep drawing enough power, and if a core draws enough power, it can regenerate. Since it was in such close proximity to the Red Horn and Guysak cores, it probably absorbed those, and used the extra power to speed up it's complete regeneration."
"But why did he evolve into a Waize Wolf, instead of back into a Command Wolf?"
Jack shrugged. "Zoids are still a mystery. A wonderful, amazing mystery. Hell, it's a mystery how he managed to find you. I'd be happy with knowing how he managed to get his armor the same color green as he used to be. That's a great feat right there. This aint paint, y'know." Jack said, thumbing over at Fiver's armor.
Fiver quietly rumbled, sounding a bit like a chuckle.
Timbre managed a smile, giving Fiver an affectionate pound on the paw. "Brat." He then looked back over at Jack. "So, why is he pulling so little power?"
"Probably an adverse reaction to the original speed of his regeneration. He's just plain pooped, really. I think if we plug him in, and give him a nice slow recharge over a few days, he should be fine. Don't wanna shock his system with a boost, but just a good gentle trickle of regeru to get him back on his feet. Beyond that and a good bath and shine, I think the old boy can take care of himself. Hell, I wish the Styluarmor was so easy to fix. I'm gonna have to mill a new damn head, you just cant get those anywhere, you know. It'll take weeks, maybe. Ugh."
Moro shrugged. "It's okay. I was planning on taking a bit of a vacation after this mission anyway. Maybe i'll just settle down in a mud bath for a few days."
"Yeah, it might suck some of the looser out of you." Sef smirked.
Moro didn't bother to respond, instead, continuing his conversation with Jack. "In fact, I have a few ideas in mind for simplifying Stylu's head, it would probably make the whole process a lot faster. I'm thinking a solid-plate kind of design, a bit like a Mad Thunder."
"Huh, with the housing under a solid construct armor plate? That would be easier to mill. The segmented plated are a *Watch your language!* to mill and assemble... You thinkin' like a short-muzzle design, make it look more like a Rhimos?"
"Yeah, but with more of an angle to the horn, give it a bit more hook."
"You, my friend, are a forward-thinkin' man." Jack gestured Moro over. "Let's step into my office and talk this sucker over."
Sef chuffed. "Huh. Moro's making sense. Never thought I'd see the day."
-
Four days passed, and Fiver was once again back on his feet. A nice slow recharge was just what the doctor ordered, and had Fiver bright and chipper within a day. It took the other three days to slowly top Fiver off, with the charge slowly throttled back as it got higher, to avoid over-loading the battery. Over that time, Sef, Timbre, and Moro spent a lot of time hanging out at Jack's shop, all of them giving a hand where they could. Sef was unusually bad at making zoid repairs of any kind, but Timbre's basic knowledge, and Moro's innovative thinking when it came to design features were quite helpful in the re-building of the Styluarmor (now renamed 'Bohack', as Jack refused to work on anything without a proper name), and in the beginning repairs to Stormfront.
They were able to power up Stormfront again, and to their surprise, Stormfront was quite mellow, and almost apoligetic about the whole thing. Jack looked back into his grandfather's files on Stormfront, and found that originally, the poor guy had a lot fewer blades on him. The ankle hayate blades and swords on the X-Breakers were later additions by another owner. Also, the original tail 'blades' had been simpler spikes. Finally, his name was really 'Coldfront'. Coldfront used to be an experimental Geno Breaker Jet system, that had been scrapped for 'inefficient organoid system/core interaction'. What this really meant was that Coldfront was a very, very mellow and level headed zoid, not prone to the explosive outbursts that usually made the Geno Breaker Jet such a powerful zoid. Well, usually. It seemed he had not taken a liking to his new owner when he was purchased by Kalis, and started acting up. Kalis placed an artificial personality limiter on Coldfront, wiped his battle data, re-named him Stormfront, and stapled a lot more blades on him.
When Coldfront snapped, it was a forced release of 'psycosis power', as Jack called it. The jarid stabbing through his face somehow disabled the personality limiter, and effectively killing the only thing that had any kind of chance of controlling him. Without a pilot, Coldfront went nuts, and who could blame him?
Coldfront's battle data and personality matrix were subjected to a thorough scrub and de-fragging, and while this went on, his new stall-mates, Tornado and Fiver, seemed to be gabbing with him. Every so often, the three would break into low simultaneous grumbling, as if 'speaking' to one another. Which was both odd and completely unnecessary, seeing as all zoids could naturally 'talk' to each other with short-range wireless interfaces. But as with all zoids of any interesting personality, they seemed to have picked up on the habits of their human companions.
Moro and Timbre helped with basic repairs, but Timbre found himself mostly attending to Fiver's cleanup with Sef. And boy, was Fiver a mess. They tried to hose it off, but the mud was some sort of uber-cakey mud that laughed in the face of washing. It took two days and a power washer to get the majority of it off, and at that point, Sef, Timbre, and Fiver pretty much gave up. Zoids were not known for their overall sparkling cleanliness. As they cleaned, Timbre and Sef spoke with Fiver, mostly telling him about what Timbre had been up to over the past few months. Fiver growled a bit every time the Glow Fox was mentioned, and seemed to chuckle when they spoke about how bad a shot Timbre was. Not for the first time in his life, Timbre wished the Wolf could really talk back.
When they finally got Fiver mostly clean, they were all impressed. Fiver's armor was a pure and clear matte light forest green, and a little translucent. It gave him an impressive effect, and looked a lot different from the usual shiny finish clean zoids usually had. What was more interesting, was that the large 'five' marks on his front shoulders were part of the color, and extended though the armor shell to the back. Jack was impressed, and took a small scraping sample of the armor (with Fiver's permission), and sent it off to some friends of his with more interesting equipment then himself.
Fiver's original colors remained true, with a dark charcoal gray undercarriage, green armor, and a blue cockpit canopy. The only real repairs he needed was to have the cockpit upholstered and re-wired. Timbre had the Command Wolf style controls installed, instead of the usual Whitz Wolf 'equestrian style' sloped controls that were becoming more and more popular. Timbre felt far more comfortable sitting back in his seat, rather then having to lean over and hug the console in order to drive. The interior was upholstered in comfortable tan and green tones, and looked quite nice. The only major change from the Command Wolf interior style was the replacement of the harness straps with a more modern and comfortable 'horse collar' seat-restraint, which had far more padding, and allowed for a bit more range of body movement.
Once Fiver was back and fighting fit, he was released from Jack's care, and sent home along with Tornado with a clean bill of health. Coldfront seemed sad to see his new friends leave, but it was all for the best. Fiver had developed a bad case of 'cabin-fever' during his rest, and when Timbre finally hopped in the cockpit to go... Well, it certainly was an experience.
Timbre had never piloted Fiver when he had been a Command Wolf. He had, however, piloted someone else's Wolf, when he took a spin in Freddy, a Command Wolf AC belonging to a part timer at the Union. He was used to the fiddly controls of the Glow Fox, and found them to be a lot more touchy then Freddy's heavy, solid controls. He had expected Fiver's Waize Wolf controls to be similar. Solid, dependable, reliable.
What he found was far different. From the moment Fiver took his first steps, Timbre felt the controls ride light as helium, almost bouncy. The start was actually a bit rocky, with Fiver even snarling once as Timbre over-steered into a slow corner. Timbre was quickly checked, and the controls were wrenched from his hands for a moment as Fiver took control into the corner, chastising his new pilot.
Timbre sighed, leaning back in his seat. "Good eve, Fiver, you are a brat."
Fiver responded with a low chuff, allowing Timbre to take the controls again as they rode out of the town proper.
"How's he riding?" Sef asked over the comm. Tornado was riding in front, as if clearing the way. This seemed to irk Fiver, for reasons Timbre could not understand. Time and time again, he had to throttle back Fiver's step to keep him from overtaking the Zeekdober.
"Twitchy. He's fighting the controls a lot. Aggh, Fiver, stop that!" He said, flicking the pace switch down as Fiver tried to speed up again.
Tornado seemed to snicker at this, with a short high pitched whine. Sef laughed as well. "Heh, the drawbacks of a zoid with too much personality. Let me guess, he wants to be in front?"
"I guess so. Why is he being so difficult?"
"He's getting to know you. And me. And Tornado. Trying to figure out his place in the pack, so to say. From what you told me, it sounds like he and Babe shared a pretty even place when it came to who was in charge. That's a pretty hard thing to manage, you know. Instead of being able to directly control the zoid, Babe was probably working with Fiver's personality to get him to do what he wanted. Now Fiver's got a new guy in his head... I just think he's trying to tell you that you're not the boss."
"I am the boss..." Timbre grumbled quietly.
Fiver's ears pricked at that. The Waize Wolf stopped in his tracks, and gave his head a hard shake, tossing Timbre in his harness. What did this Timbre think he was, the damn Glow Fox?
Sef laughed again, pulling Tornado up, and turning him to look. "Heh! I think Fiver disagrees."
Timbre grit his teeth. "How do I get him to listen to me? I cant pilot him if he keeps fighting me like this."
"Dont ask me. I never had that problem with Tornado. Did I, fluffus lumpus?"
Tornado panted and whined happily.
This seemed to snap something in Fiver. Something deep and primal welled in him, and he grabbed the controls once again, this time jumping into a full sprint, rocketing past the standing Tornado, and into the wasteland beyond. He liked Tornado well enough, but the way he just rolled over to be adored pissed him off to no end. What if Timbre thought he was going to be like that? Absolutely nauseating.
Ignoring Timbre's frantic commands to stop, Fiver showed just how much control he was in. In a full sprint, he swept across the ruined land of the interior, tossing up a full trail of dust in his wake. Even without the rocket boosters engaged, his flat-out speed was impressive, pushing Timbre back into his seat with the near-instant acceleration he was capable of jumping to. He clicked his own pace in, and took a sharp diving turn, crashing his gears as he threw himself into a quick loop, throwing Timbre about in the cockpit.
There was a quick change of direction, gears crashing again, and Fiver rocketed around again, then slamming on the breaks, digging into the hard dirt of the Interior as he slid to a grinding halt. He seemed to be saying, Don't you tell me who's boss.
Timbre actually felt slightly ill at that moment, but not from the sudden turns and speed. He felt every gear crash and grind, every mis-step of Fiver's massive paws as they slammed into the ground, only an instant off pace. It was like nails grinding against a chalk board, like chewing on gravel and tin-foil. It was almost agonizing to the man that prided himself on absolute fine control from his piloting. He grit his teeth again, gripping the controls hard, praying that Fiver wouldn't do that again.
An idea flashed across his mind, opening new eyes to the situation. Babe had to fight Fiver at the beginning too. How would Babe have gotten control ? What would Babe do?
With an evil grin creeping across his face, Timbre's thoughts came together. "Bet'cha I can do it better." He said, looking down at Fiver's console.
Fiver chuffed at this, almost laughing. No way. Fiver knew this kid, and he was good. But not better then him. In Fiver's mind, he was top. He was king. Nothing in the world could beat him in top form.
Timbre was obliged to disagree. He jerked down the controls, throwing Fiver into the same instant sprint he had begun with.
Clicking quickly on the pace wheel, Timbre eased Fiver's pace transition, matching each foot-fall with the minor corrections required for smooth gear action. Fiver snorted, incredulous. But he didn't fight the controls. This inspired Timbre to flick the switch guards on the two control sticks, depressing his thumbs on the twin booster controls.
Fiver's speed increased dramatically, easily surpassing 300 km/h. The quick change in speed was met with easily timed pace adjustments, fractional control changes that allowed gears to mesh cleanly, shifting Fiver's pace easily into near-top speed. Timbre leaned off of the booster controls, allowing Fiver's speed to coast down a bit, before angling Fiver into a sharp turn.
Weights were adjusted, and Timbre shifted along, leaning Fiver into the turn. A slight gear grind jostled Timbre's mind, and a fast correction was made, then allowing the gear teeth to mesh correctly again. Timbre coasted Fiver into the loops, shifting down as his pace slowed to a more comfortable canter. He then leaned out of the turn, jogging Fiver into a new ground-eating bounce pace, quickly picking up speed again.
Timbre eased Fiver into a slow loop, then quickly switching up his pace, jumping him into a sideways slide, allowing him to grind along for a moment, before jumping away into a gentle canter. Timbre allowed the canter to cycle several times, before stopping the pace mid-run, slamming down on one paw, allowing the center of gravity to shift, and Fiver's hind-quarters to rise. For a full three seconds, Fiver balanced rock-steady on one paw, before being allowed into a controlled fall back to all fours.
Fiver panted for a moment, trying to process everything that had just happened. Good eve, not even Babe had that kind of control of a Zoid. Something was different about this kid, for certain. He tossed his head again, but gently, as if assuring himself that he still actually had the kid in his head.
Timbre was still there, and smacked Fiver's console appreciatively. "Ha." He said simply, gloating a bit over his little performance. "Told you so."
Fiver rumbled softly.
"Now that was some mad freestyling there, Tam." Said Sef. He trotted Tornado up, stopping a short distance away. "Hell, if only you could fight as well as you made that thing move.. Geeze, even I'd be afraid of ya."
Fiver turned his head to look at Sef and Tornado, rumbling again. He then turned to fully face the Zeekdober, bending in his front legs a bit, lowering his neck and leveling out his head. He yapped, then panted a bit, jerking his head to one side.
Timbre got the hint. "Heh. Alright, Five." He flipped the comm on. "Hey, Sef. Let's dance."
"Ohh, someone's feelin all high and mighty now, huh? One clean run doth not a master pilot make." Sef replied. But Tornado seemed to have a different idea, answering Fiver's play bow with his own yap. "No, Tornado." Sef corrected, pulling Tornado up out of the bow.
"Wimp." Timbre challenged. Fiver followed this up with a bark, and a false start, pounding his paws in the dust.
Tornado whined, and Sef sighed. Who was he to deny his prettiest puppy a bit of play? He'd send Timbre for a quick roll, then they would more on back to the Union. He leveled out his lance, but had the jarid pull it's head in, storing it back in the shaft of the weapon. "Dont do anything dumb, Adie will kill me if I hurt ya."
Fiver followed this up with a fast bum-rush, different from his bounding sprint. This was a quick scramble, one that had no 'tell' of it's action, that startled Sef into action. He swung his lance down, using it to jump Tornado back and to the side. He swung it back up to turn, not wanting to catch it in the dirt. He then skirted left, only to find Fiver had already vectored in on his approach. Fiver leapt to make his strike, making Sef wrench Tornado out of the turn, forcing a draw.
How the hell did Timbre do that? Sef quickly corrected himself, remembering that he had given fairly obvious warning that he would be turning. He always stored his lance up when he would make a quick turn, preferring to give away his move then wreck his lance. He had even told Timbre of that move, hoping to pound some recognition of 'tells' into his pretty head. Still, why did the kid pick now of all times to start figuring it out?
Sef grumbled, and throttled up Tornado's speed, trying to get a bit of maneuvering distance between himself and Fiver. He swept the lance back further to reduce drag. The Zeekdober was naturally fast, and even with Tornado's increased armament, he could still easily pull 320 km/h. That gave him plenty of wiggle room from what he assumed Fiver could pull. Whitz Wolves could only max out at 305 with their boosters, and Sef was sure that even a Waize Wolf could do little better.
This idea was quickly squelched as Fiver came rocketing up from behind.
"What the hell?" Sef cursed as he looked back at Fiver's approach. He then cursed himself. He forgot about the extra maneuvering boosters mounted on Fiver's legs. Still, that should only just edge out Tornado's own speed.
Jeeze, he was approaching pretty dang fast...
Timbre grinned as Fiver's speed blitzed past 300, with the back-mounted boosters and leg maneuvering boosters swept back for maximum output. He would probably just match Tornado's own speed, and that would keep Sef from opening up too much room to turn the bulky Zeekdober. Then he'd be forced to scratch, or call off the game, which Timbre could then ridicule him about for hours.
That was his plan, at least, until his HUD flashed a small warning. Timbre, being a naturally slow reader, took a moment to pick out the words. "Tertiary Booster minimum engagement speed reached? Huh?"
Fiver answered this with a howl. Then, a small explsion. Timbre was thrown back in his seat with a new burst of speed and noise, the blood in his head being pushed down into what may have been his feet. It was all he could do to keep his head out of the clouds, forcing himself to keep pace. Catching a bad gear at that speed would probably wreck Fiver, and that was something Timbre dreaded. In the corner of his eye, he saw the speedometer jump to 400.
The noise cut out, leaving only the standard booster noise as the speed slowly coasted down from 400. Timbre just caught Tornado whizzing behind as he scrambled to shut down the boosters. First he cut out the back-mounted booster, letting the leg-boosters to remain on to make sure Fiver's pace would still keep up with his momentum. Once his speed coasted down to 300, Timbre shut down the leg boosters, letting Fiver jog the speed down.
"What the heeeeeeeeeeeellllll was that?" Sef shouted as Tornado sprinted to catch up.
"I have no clue." Timbre breathed, clicking Fiver down to a walk. Fiver yapped excitedly as Tornado approached, doing a short hop-skip, as if to say, see what I did there? I'm awesome.
Tornado rumbled in response, almost glaring a bit. His look seemed to say, you cheated.