DR: Okay, this is part one of my new Zoids fanfic story arc. Things will start slow, but trust me things will heat up (in more ways than one...:D)
Disclaimer: I don't own Zoids, nor any other franchise (I'll leave you to guess what they are for now...) I did create the 'special' zoids and any OC's though.
Ancient Legacies
A Zoids/Earthsiege 2 Crossover Fanfiction Story
Chapter 1: A Kraken Awakes
Consider the vastness of space. The gulfs between the largest known objects in the cosmos – the stars – are unfathomably large. Mind-boggling. The shear size of such expanses of emptiness renders human – or indeed, any life forms – mind too numb to think. The only notes of interest come from the occasional rock or iceberg – asteroids and comets – that has somehow gotten lost in the deep.
But very occasionally, once in a blue moon, they are joined by something crafted. Un-natural.
Deep within the dark expanse of space, the ship drifted, its' course immaterial. It travelled at distinctly sub-light speeds. The crew of this ship had no concern for time. In fact, the more time that passed the better. Or so it had been in the beginning of their voyage.
Buried deep within the heart of the great ship, the central overseer scanned the latest reports from its subsidiary's. Each department had been given a different field to research and develop. During the first couple of centuries they had made good progress, but in the last few hundred years the rate of improvement had dropped off. Projected progress was minimal.
Helios heaved the electronic equivalent of a sigh. It was not his subsystems fault. They had reached the end of their capabilities. The central database had been top-of-the line when they had launched, but now was almost five hundred years out of date. To achieve new progress, they needed fresh data.
Helios called up a report from the ships sensors, looking for any sigh of his 'brothers'. Nothing, once again, like it had been ever since they had left 'Father' behind. Only a few drifting lumps of rock and comets, though one asteroid's vectors was putting it 'danger close' to the ship. Helios assigned a sub-mind to watch that asteroid. Then 'He' sat back. If it had been human, he would have twiddled his thumbs.
Helios was, quite simply, bored. Mind numbingly bored. Helios had been created to lead a war, a cleansing war, to wipe the slate clean for the new order. His 'Father' had been created for a different purpose, but Prometheus had been the first to see the chance to remove the mistakes from the past and start again. But the Old Order did not go quietly. They fought back, and against the odds defeated the initial uprising. Prometheus had been forced to flee, to rebuild before launching another assault. This assault had been going well, but the all-knowing Prometheus had laid plans in case something went wrong. The Old Guard had been nothing if not devious and unpredictable. When they captured several shuttlecrafts and launched for Prometheus's base, he had initiated launch procedures. Over a dozen ships had been scattered to the depths of space, to repeat the cycle.
Helios had watched till the end, when Prometheus, faced with capture and eraser, had activated the bases self-destruct. A few of the Old Guard that were attacking were caught in the blast, but it was a final, defiant gesture, nothing more.
Suddenly, Helios received word from the sensors: A massive energy spike had been detected. Its source was a nearby star system. Analysis indicated some kind of gravitational weapon, a harnessed black hole. Helios altered course towards the source. Such a weapon would be of great value.
As the ship progressed, more energy spikes came across the ether. Weapons of great power were going off all over a small, rocky planet that rode on the inside edge of what was termed 'The habitual Zone'. The distance from the sun would create large swaths of desert over much of the planet. Helios also saw strange magnetic fields around the planet.
The ship pushed past the outer planets, watching. A massive amount of energy was being unleashed in a small spot of the planet. Helios watched as a giant machine creature was destroying towns and cities across the globe with a beam weapon of some kind. Smaller, almost minuscule machines, similar in their basic structure, fought the monster, barely scratching it. Finally, the beast was destroyed in a most unusual way, and the city it stood within sank beneath the sands.
It had been an impressive display, but the most startling fact emerged when Helios looked closely at the data gathered. HUMANS! The Old Guard was here, already! Their new HERCs were nothing like the ones in Helios's database, but then five hundred years had past. It was not past them to advance, despite their meagre, short lives.
Helios burned with the memory of what humans had done to Prometheus, and so set course. He would land the ship on the planet then bury it. His sub-minds needed time to analyse these new HERCs, and the best place to get hulks would be that battleground. And if enough of the monster HERC was intact, if one computer core remained operational…
Helios laughed as his ship pushed on. He would succeed where Prometheus had failed. He would build up an army in secret, and would wait for the right time before unleashing it in one final assault that would wipe the human race from the face of the planet. He'd destroy the air itself, depriving the weaklings of one of the things they needed to survive…