Two Packs

[Killer Zoids]

"Riding you huh? Dunno, I mean, zoids are 'ridden' by pilots or organoids... sometimes both. How much zoid are you?"

Then he smiled, "But really, I had no idea what that was all about, and I just kind of did it to be funny..."

Itka did a virtual head-desk.

"J'ever consider having like a parrot or some other kind of pet maybe to hang out on your shoulder?"

Geneec leaned over to Rincon and grinned at Andertol, "Wouldn't he be so cute with a mini Rainbow Jark on his shoulder lol??"

Geneec sensed Andertol was looking for some connection, "I've never had that kind of desire exactly... Though, come to think of it, when I got back to base, I did have this powerful sexual-type urge around zoids in the hangar. It was like some inner z-libido or something, and it wasn't coming from regular 'me', it was certainly the organoid part of me. Sitting at the controls of zoids felt different after, like I knew I could do more if I had like 10 more arms or something. How do I explain it..." he tried to think of an aphorism "Imagine looking at the world with black and white vision, knowing the world was full of color."

[miokalia]

"100%", Itka said quietly, "He's 100%. Doesn't realize it though."
"I'm sitting right here", Andy said irritatedly.

"In general, once the process starts, it kinda takes it's course pretty quickly I guess.", she said, "All it takes is a core. If you have a core, then you're basically 100%, on the inside at least."

Andertol stared at nothing for about a minute then said,
"Rincon can I talk to you for a minute outside?"

[Killer Zoids]

"Of course Andy" Rincon stood up and Andertol stood up and they both walked outside, away from sight and earshot. "Whats on your mind..." was the last thing Itka and Geneec could hear.

A moment passed and Geneec sprawled out on his couch across from Itka, just getting a bit more comfortable.

"So by your reasoning, I should be totally a zoid, or at least an organoid." He looked up at the ceiling, to where the roof met and gazed out of the huge windows facing the lake. "Far out..."

"Well that's what he is anyway. But I guess he's not all that much different from you."

"Cept for the losing one's mind part" he chuckled, and then realized that wasn't funny. Changing the subject... "You know, I did try magnite once, it's not like I took an oath to stay away from the stuff..."

"Oh?" Itka replied.

"You know that thing organoids do when they're going to fuse with a zoid? They turn all lightning and stuff? Basically, I couldn't control the lightning thing for about a week. Sometimes only half of me would energize, other times I'd be whizzing through the mountains randomly. It was scary. Eventually, I did manage to get back to solid.." He pounded on his chest, to hear a slight metal clang "..but I really don't know how. I woke up sleeping on the back of a Shadow Fox."

[miokalia]

Itka looked to make sure Andertol was gone and then said,
"It's... well...

I have to look back really far here to remember the nuances of that.

Typically, that process itself is involuntary. Although the process to instigate it is voluntary.
My guess is it flickered on and off due to a hardware issue.
Typically that kinda only lasts for a second or so though, so that's highly unusual.

From what I remember, there were only a small handful of... *ahem* partners... with which I remember doing anything like that with.

The longest distance I remember doing it was over a half mile when Tessica was surrounded by... stuff...

I'm sorry, I kind of drifted off there.


Although I think it is entirely likely that you may have actually connected to that shadow fox for a bit."


She remembered a few things about that process Geneec described.

She remembered Tessica back then. Tessica was not unlike Andertol was now in many ways, just a whole lot bigger and quieter.
Genosaurer's were valuable back then. If you could capture and tame a wild one that didn't have an organoid paired to it.
Tessica and Ivanko were a somewhat independent pair. They spent a lot of time away from eachother. It was just their way.

So Tessica, appeared to be quite a prize to certain people.

Even zipping through the air wasn't fast enough. By the time she got there, Tessica was quite thoroughly tied down.
Once she was in the core, it was quite clear that they were facing a nightmare situation.

"I'm so sorry", Tessica's genderless, saw-like voice said in their internal dialogue, "There were too many of them and I couldn't keep track of them"


Months went by. They were bought and sold, transported between gangs. They watched gangs screw eachother left and right over them. A dozen or so pilots jumped into their cockpit and demonstrated various features which Ivanko and Tessica absently obeyed and complied with emotionlessly.
The pilots were all inexperienced little hotshots. None of them ever talked to Tessica/Ivanko. When they were unlinked, Ivanko never spoke a word.
The people around them were not worth speaking too. And if they tried: They would have been labelled, and thus doomed to being destroyed and scrapped as fast as possible.
The label which some put on zoids that dared to talk or otherwise show signs of civilization.
Malych.

Eventually a gang with enough money bought them and had a sleeperbox put in them.
A machine which basically forced it's host to only do the actions which it enabled at the time. It could not be reasoned with or talked to. It was not like them.
When it ran, it simply said: "WALK", and then there was no other thing they could do, but just that.
There were other zoids in their patrol too. A Shadow Fox and a Liger Zero.
The Shadow Fox never said it's name, but looked like it wanted to say something over the teletext, but just couldn't.
The Liger just kinda stared absently. It trudged along it's preset route with slow, jerky movements. Usually with it's head down.
Even when it was not in operation, it just stood there and never made an effort to teletext. As though it was dead inside.

After a few months, Tessica/Ivanko ended up in the same hangar with the Liger for a while when a blizzard delayed an order of replacement gyrocaps and a new CAS apparently to address the Liger's speed issues.

During one of those frigid nights, that's when the Liger finally said something.

In very faint, weak, whisper-like teletext, he said,
"Kill me. Please."

When the shipment came in, they installed the Jager CAS on the Liger.
Their owner, a creature which had never stepped into a zoid cockpit in his life, addressed the Liger for the first time.
"Now pick up the pace you piece of shit!", he said.

The Liger for the first time, really looked him in the eye.
Without flinching or ever breaking that stare, the Liger fired all of his shock cannons. The ones which were supposed to be disabled under the new CAS.

The shot blew the CAS apart and ripped the Liger's head clean off.
The rest of the zoid immediately caught fire.

After all this commotion, the owner, who expressed no sentiment, yelled out, "Order another one."
He then said, "Damn UX system. Fuckin' dies after 2 years. Every time."



Itka had been noticibly staring at nothing for a while now as all these memories became accessible to her.

"Um...", Geneec said after a while.

"2 years", she said inadvertantly.

"You were all lightningy for two years?!", Geneec asked.

"What?", Itka said, "Oh no.
No.
It was something else."


She traced the lines of the shadow fox against Geneec's profile across from her.
And thought of that shadow fox so many years ago.



All he ever did was squeak. Like he was trying to say something, but the sleeperbox was holding him down too much.

When he saw the decapitated remains of the Liger, he squeaked and whined painfully. He paced around the husk nervously and in restricted movements, tried to nuzzle it. But the sleeperbox was very potent and it made it hard for him to express himself.
That night, the shadow fox produced another sound. It threw it's head up in jerking restricted motion and let out a deep howl, which lasted for only a minute before the sleeperbox started extinguishing it into a flanged and grainy distortion.



"So: you think there might be pizza delivery up here, or is there something to grill?", Itka said.


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"Is Geneec okay?", asked Andertol, "Sorry I'm being so blunt"



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Later that evening: Itka remembered more of it.
An internal narraration compiled from the Ivanko and Tessica sources.


It wasn't that Tessica was mean or distant. Just bad at figuring out how to respond to emotion.
But she felt it. She felt the anguish expressed by that Shadow Fox.

In the next couple of minutes, an indescribable rage welled up among Ivanko and Tessica. This place had to be burned to the ground.
Tessica's turned away from the shadow fox and towards the doors of the hangar. Her tail straightened and Ivanko advanced a few kilograms of deochal in preparation for combat.
She fired the particle beam at the doors, setting off the alarm. But it didn't matter. So she fired again. And again.
She fired until a hole had finally been melted through.
Then they grabbed the still-soft, ragged metal rim and teared and teared and teared until it was big enough to climb through.
Then they emptied 200 rounds into the lock holding the door shut.
When the doors burst open, they had about 2 seconds to move before the security team was going to shoot a few AZ missiles into the hangar.
They apparently weren't worth enough to warrant the destruction of the camp.

Inside the Genosaurer's cockpit, the sleeperbox popped and smoked as Ivanko broke the voltage regulators, which also in turn, caused all of the controls and the screens to burn out. It didn't matter though.

But the shadow fox didn't have the mobility. His sleeperbox was still holding him back.

So Tessica stepped in front of him and fired her particle beam again and again and again.
Her mouth was charred from the repeated blasts. And the bullets were starting to take their toll against her armor.

She remembered 4 shield Ligers firing at her when Tessica went into core panic. The condition which the "command system freeze" is intended to avoid.
Tessica was dying. It no longer mattered if she survived. Nothing mattered anymore. There was nothing to lose.
So she continued firing into the barrage, even if it was just spit in the rain.
Ivanko decided that they would die if he didn't take the next step.

In a red flash, Ivanko opened up and connected completely to Tessica's core. Tessica staggered a bit as this process began.
Just before the process engaged, she said over teletext,
"Ivanko."

And then her eyes went dim and she fell over.


Itka hoped the shadow fox had gotten out of there, but wouldn't be surprised if the sleeperbox had marched it straight into the line of fire. If her components hadn't of lost their minds like that, then they wouldn't have endangered that shadow fox.


She remembered more.

While she was down, she had very limited sensor polling. But she did remember the rhythmic noise of a large machine gun nearby. Once which was not shooting at her.
Maybe the shadow fox broke his sleeperbox after all?
It would explain why they didn't just finish her off while she was down.

When she came back online that morning, everything had changed.
She was black all over. There was scrap metal pieces everywhere and she was about the size of Ivanko, slightly bigger.
She was outside the hangar now, maybe a mile away from the encampment.

The shadow fox was gone, but very quickly she figured out from the tracks that she had been dragged out here, and that the one dragging her had left tracks off and out into the desert.

It was then that she was able to parse through the combined knowledge of Tessica and Ivanko. Of what had just happened.
And then locked it away.