A figured popped jetted outside a thick blanket of gray cloud and relentless rain. Square like in shape, gray with rounded edges, the glow of flat yet swollen thrusters lit the hole it made behind them with a warm dull glow. A hole that quickly filled up with gray mist and fluff, swallowing the rays of light behind it until they visibly faded away one beam at a time. Once closed, the vessel increased in speed towards a sea of sand and water, the planet it flew over, Vorpal. In the distance, tornadoes of waters swirled up into the atmosphere; and over on the horizon, ruins of what seemed like an ancient civilization, sitting there broken yet also untouched. The closer the ship got the more objects it had to dodge. Eventually, it would dance around towers of rock, each decorated with rainbow minerals, over just as color rocks, some covered in moss others without a plant in sight, until it went for a touchdown in a large sandy clearing cul-de-sac in appearance.
Particles of gleaming sand blew away. The nearby shell flowers rushed out of the ground. Over by the shore, under the waning shoreline, a blue shark like canine creature, curious at first, watched the ship sluggishly yet gracefully float towards the landing zone before it jumped into the water and swam away. In the past, the creatures would be more curious and inquiring. Nowadays, they knew better than to stick around. Since the day they came here, those strangers in unusual clothes, several of the fish, reptile, and amphibians alike would be slain in the name of justice and mercy. Some did it for sport. Others hoped the population’s infection would decrease along with the darker’s presence. And as it so happened, the ship dropped down for this very reason.
Closing in on the sand, two flaps, each nearly the length of the bottom hull lifted upwards in a ninety degree angle. Flaps tucked in neatly behind the large thrusters, wheels covered by a long belt would then shoot out and dropped into place. From underneath, four small thrusters, one on each corner of the dropship, pushed the vessel upwards as the treads touched the sand. Carriage slightly lower than the wheels, they began to feel the weight of the ship it successfully carried, the engines shutting off once it had successfully landed.
Now on the ground, its ramp slowly opened up and gently dropped onto the sand. Once on the floor, three figures creped outside. The first one, Arron, a man wearing a black jacket over an onyx knight suit, took point. Out of vessel and down the ramp, he knelt down and yelled “clear,” before a larger robot stepped out. Following behind came Stamato, equal in color, who went out in the opposite direction, looking over the B-01s left rather than the right, gunslash readied in the air. Preforming the same kneeling position as the human, he calmly said, “All clear, commander.” Once said, a female newmen in a well-protected black combat suit stepped outside without a care. Unlike the previous two, before she could walk down the ramp, a voice said to her over the intercom, “Commander, I don’t have to be formal do I?”
“No Yoshi,” Yvonna replied, a finger on her right ear. “Just make sure you get the job done. You do remember what the mission is right?”
“Yeah,” said Yoshi in a cheery voice. “Shoot a bunch of bad dudes, take everyone to the next island when done. Should be easy enough but now that I’m down here, look how narrow these paths are,” Yoshi groaned. “You sure it’s a good idea to bring a tank here?”
“You’ll do fine,” Yvonna replied, looking back into the vessel. “Stamato, you got the scanners and markers right?”
A black metallic hand snapped its fingers for a red tubed to appear in its palm. “Right here, commander,” Stamato replied, giving the device a few shakes.
Yvonna then roughly slapped the inside of the ships hall, turned around, stepped off of the water spilling ramp and continued, “Good. Let’s move out. We’ll go left. Yoshi move ahead and scout the area to our right.”
“Right away, commander,” Yoshi responded. “Let me know if you need an assist.”
In the next instant, the airship deployed the main cannon, which sat directly right of the driver and drove away. As it did, Arron got off his knees and strolled over towards Yvonna’s right side. With one hand on his katana hilt, he leaned over and whispered, staring at the rear of the tank, “Commander, a moment of your time?”
“What is it, Arron?” pleasantly asked Yvonna as she turned to face the man, both hands kept on her rifle. At the time, Stamato, doing the same with a launcher, joined up with them and listened. In response, Arron looked over his shoulder and quickly glanced at the looming CAST. Having had his fill, he then looked back at Yvonna and added,
“Is this off the record?”
In a show of frustration, Yvonna shifted her weight around and said, “Just tell what you have to say before I change my mind.”
Arron pointed two fingers at the rear of the tank and said in a low voice, “You sure it wise to let a partner machine man the turret of a tank- let alone trust that thing with our lives.”
“According to the reports, a Lillipan used the same turret and has seen high praise by both Yoshi and the survivors of Shield Scar incident,” Stamato butted in. “Her stature shouldn’t be of any concern.”
Yvonna tilted her head slightly towards the floor and leaned forward. “Look, Arron, I don’t know what the problem is between you and Yoshi, but when we’re out on a mission, I expect you to leave it back on the ship. Got that?” After that she then spun around and added, in a low voice, “I never had this problem when I worked with Yoshi.”
“Yeah and when was the last time you worked alone with him?” Arron asked with a smug look on his face.
“Two weeks ago,” Stamato replied, walking forward to keep up with Yvonna.
“Hold on,” Arron said in an unpleasant tone of voice, as if he felt betrayed. “You worked with him two weeks ago and you never told me?”
Yvonna stopped in place and irritable turned back around. “Alright, whatever is said now… will now be on the record. What do you want to know?”
“Nothing commander,” said Arron, putting on his hazmat grade, armet style, helmet.
Yvonna stepped forward and twitched her head for a split second. “No, no; by all means, go ahead and ask.”
“What was the mission about?” asked Arron cautiously.
“Well if you must know, the higher ups deemed Yoshi’s modifications to the B-01 to be illegal and hazardous to the wellbeing of everyone around him. So he asked me to come with him and make sure they didn’t mess anything up while ripping the ship apart.”
“Were any inconveniences found?” asked Stamoto with interest.
“After a few runs, we found out that they replaced his engines with the default set, stripped it of its barrel chamber options, took out some of the coding done for the targeting system- as it was deemed unnecessary and made it venerable to hacking. The upgraded top hatch turret was ripped out and replaced with a regular ground variant and last but not least, they took his comfy leather seats and replaced them with the harder standardized ones. Said the crew was safer that way. Of course, none of it is on the record as the modifications were illegal to begin with.”
Stamato twisted his head and said, “Aren’t both parties in violation of regulations?”
“Apparently not; seems he pissed off the original designer, if you could call him that, of the B-01 after he found out; wanted that thing back to the way it originally was to be begin with. Personally, I think he just felt attacked over Yoshi improving his design, but seeing as he is one of more prominent designers of ARKs however, they had no choice but to comply with his demands. I hear he also oversaw the stripping of Yoshi’s vessel. Be that as it may, they were kind enough to leave the suspension intact in and they left the emergency power supply and the refrigerator alone as well. Overall, you could imagine how happy Yoshi was after getting it back. Well, about both his food and his missing upgrades. And before you ask, Arron, after we had finished up, he then promptly left me for a meeting with Marisa, his newmen co-pilot and gunner. Are there any further questions?”
“No, commander,” said Arron, walking past the two.
“Good,” smiled Yvonna. “I was starting to wonder when we’d start accomplishing anything here.”
“That was a joke, yes?” Stamato asked while he walked alongside Yvonna.
“Yeah Stats, that was a joke. Now come on, let’s go kick some darker butt before they infect the sun or something.”
“Right with you, commander.”
As the three started their adventure leftward, the other trio continued their drive down their path of the right beach uninterrupted. Much to their dismay, the road was peaceful with neither a darker nor native in sight. During their drive, the trio eventually got bored. Yoshi started to slump in his seat, Marean held her head up with a dashboard supported elbow and back behind them and a spinning Arethusa twirled in her turret seat. Though she increased in speed with every turn, her voice remained a dull monotonous “weeee,” as she had nothing to shoot at and nothing else to do. After a while of driving, having gotten enough distance to be seen by anyone, Yoshi then sat upright in his seat and leaned over by Sia.
“Marisa,” he whispered. “I may have some photon powered turbo doohickey installed in this ship. Want to try it out?” he asked, smiling a childish smile towards a bored raised brow newmen.
“And where did you get this from?” She asked.
“I didn’t use your connections if that’s what you’re wondering. May have picked it up from a certain ship wreckage,” Yoshi replied, eyes back on the road and his body wiggling like a snake.
“Do you know what happened to everything else that was installed in this ship?” smiled Sia.
Yoshi nudged the newmen co-pilot and said, “Come on, it will be fun.”
“Last time you said that, we almost died taking a joy ride through the Anzio’s left wing wreckage.”
Yoshi chuckled and flatly waved his hand towards Sia. “Hey, that joy ride found us some stranded engineers. But, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll take it out when we get back, alright?”
“I’m with da-erm, him,” butted in Arethusa. “It might be fun. How fast will we be going and how come you didn’t get in trouble the last time?”
“Seems they liked what I did to the tank enough to give me a free pass. Said it will help the development of future vessels. Anyways, the average speed is around one hundred forty kph, but I plan to be pushing two hundred by the end of this.”
“One forty, that’s all? And why turbo?” asked Sia.
“Hey, this thing is a heavy machine,” glanced Yoshi before putting his eyes back on the road. “And it was the quickest thing that came to mind, something to do with the excess usage of photons that move this thing. I am open to opinions though.” A short pause was had before he then added, “So you ready to burn some sand or what?”
“Does sand even burn like that?” asked an amused Arethusa.
Yoshi tapped a few screens, flipped a few switches and said with an even larger grin on his face, “Only one way to find out.”
“I really hope we don’t get in trouble for this,” said Sia with hand on her forehead.
“You know you enjoy the shenanigans.”
“That’s the part that scares me.”
Back with Yvonna, they eventually came across a hunter and force hiding behind a rock. While they peeked, peering over the droop in the middle, they watched as five large blue creatures gather around their meal. Too preoccupied at the moment, all of them failed to notice Yvonna and her team approach the two until she was just a step away.
“Whoa,” said the hunter, throwing his body against the rock with sudden fright. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Commander Boga, Zelatus squad. We’re here to assist.”
“Kyo… a hunter and this is my friend, Lily, a force.”
“I see you found our targets. Nice work. What can you tell me about our current situation?”
“Five Org Blans sit over on the other side of this rock,” the hunter said, pointing a thumb behind him. “Two of them boosted; one level one, the other level two. They haven’t noticed us yet and it’s just the two of us. So there’s no need to worry about someone getting caught by any them.”
“Good to know,” smiled Yvonna, who then looked towards Stamato and said, “Stats, take the force with you and flank around the right. Get a Jellen shot out on all of them. Let the force flash make their eyes bleed with grants.” She then turned towards Arron and continued, “Arron, you stay here with the hunter and wait. When it time for you to attack, I’ll let you know.” After there she then towards Kyo and finished, “I’m going to shot each one with weak bullet. If you don’t know how it works, your hud will let you know which one is shot and which isn’t. When I do, the five of us will focus on each one until it’s all clear. Questions anyone?”
“Commander,” Stamato suddenly said in an informant tone. “There’s a Bal Rodos lurking in the area. Your orders?”
Yvonna nodded and placed a finger on her ear. “Bitol,” she shouted.
Over the radio, she could ear and excited girl yell, “Did you see those shell flowers go ‘boof’ and then when the whole crop come up, ‘bwoof’. That was so awesome.”
“This is Yoshi,” Yoshi nervously responded.
“Are you having fun over there?” asked Yvonna with smile on her face.
“If fun means nothing in sight, then yes- I mean, no… commander.”
“Good, going to need you over here,” she then replied, staring in the direction of where she wanted Yoshi to be. “When you do, go on patrol duty just ahead of our current location right now.”
“Roger that commander. We’ll be there before you know it.”
“ETA?”
“Well, we don’t want to let you down so, but let say three minutes? Two at best?”
“Make it one, pilot.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
After that, Yvonna placed her hand on the trigger of her rifle and said, “Let’s get to work, Zelatus.”
Originally Posted by AIDA
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Also, Lilliman saying he "needs help killing a few traitors" sounded pretty dark coming from a cute little furball!
Is Yoshi at all inspired by Spike from Cowboy Bebop?
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