Fangs of a Zaber

[Crimson]

Chapter 9 – From the Shadows

Keith was very upset at himself for letting Jason get away from his grasps. He had Jason right where he wanted him, but he still got away. Keith was sitting at his desk brooding over the past events.

“DAMMIT! How could I be so careless?!” Keith shouted pounding his fist into his desk. “I knew he was part of the Fleugel Team; obviously Naomi could hit me at will. That really cost me.”

Keith further complained over his mistakes when he got a knock at his door. “Oh dammit, who could this be?” Keith went and opened the door. His heart skipped a beat at the image standing in front of him.

“Vin…Vincent?” Keith stammered out.

“Keith, it sure is good to see you again. What has it been three or four years?” Vincent said to Keith.

“No, it has been more like two years since I left your place and set out on my own.” Keith corrected him as he welcomed him in and they had a seat. Vincent Flamberge is an accomplished scientist, with many experiments that has helped the development of Zoids over the years.

“My, it has been a long time since we found you in the desert passed out and severely burned.” Vincent said.

“Yea, I owe you a lot. You helped me heal, you trained me in piloting Zoids with your training exercises, and most of all you gave me my Konig Wolf.”

“I am glad you said that…you owe me a lot, because that is why I am here. I am here to ask for your assistance in something.”

“Anything for you Vincent, I owe you my life.”

“You see, I have heard rumors about new Zoid in existence. I don’t know the exact details, but I know it is of the cat species. I have reason to believe that your father is involved with this Zoid. I want that Zoid destroyed! Once it is completed, it will be a threat to society.” Vincent said. He continued to say “only problem we have is that we have no idea where your dad is located now. He has stayed hidden since the explosion. That is where you brother comes in, he should know where your father resides.”

“My…father…I WILL kill that man!” Keith said with increasing intensity. “Him and Jason, those two are solely responsible for who I am today! They left me to die from the fire of our old house…the bastards. And now they will die by my hand!”

“So I take it I will have your cooperation on this? But do know that I will need your full cooperation, no backing out once you have committed.” Vincent said sternly to Keith.

“Oh yea, as long as Jason and my dad die in the process, I will follow you to the end Vincent!” Keith vehemently stated.

“Good, let’s get going, I am taking you to my headquarters.” Vincent said as he signaled for the two guards following him to lead them out. Once they go outside, Keith noticed there was a Gustav there with a Zoid carrier on the back. Almost like Vincent knew he would get Keith’s cooperation.

“Would you please load your Konig Wolf onto the carrier? Once we get to my headquarters, just unload it and move it into an empty holding spot in the garage.” Vincent motioned towards the Konig Wolf. Keith loaded his Zoid onto the carrier and they set out for Vincent’s headquarters.

They arrived at Vincent’s headquarters relatively quickly, which was loaded on the west side of town. Soon after they stopped, Keith unloaded his Zoid and moved it over into an empty spot in the garage just like he was told to by Vincent.

“Good, now that you are all set, I have a present for you.” Vincent said as he pointed behind Keith. Keith turned around and noticed new weaponry sitting near a crane ready to be placed onto a Zoid fortunate enough to wield them. Keith was in awe at what he was looking at, he had never seen anything like it. One was a clearly a back cannon because of its size. It appeared it flipped over when activated. The two other components were smaller and looked like missile pods, but modified. It had two barrels, a bigger one on the bottom and a smaller, more slender one on top.

“What exactly are these?”

“The gun is a Dual Sniper Rifle. I helped Doc Toros design it a little while ago. What is so special about it is that you don’t have to enter ‘Scope Mode’ to use it. You can fire it while on the move, but it still has its long range capabilities. The two things beside it are Weapon Binders. They are mounted on the side of your Konig Wolf. They will replace your Double Barrel Multi-discharger. You may have noticed the two barrels. The bottom barrel fires missiles which are pretty powerful, and the top barrel fires a laser at the enemy. It fires this missile and laser at the same time upon activation. So what do you think? Satisfied?” Vincent asked after breaking down the weaponry.

Keith was still in awe at what stood in front of him. “Yea…this will work finely.” Keith managed to squeeze out. “This will surely put an end to Jason in our next battle haha.” Keith followed up with a little sinister laughter as if he got his wits about him again.

“Good, we will install these immediately. It should take all of 30 minutes; go explore the headquarters while you wait.” Vincent stated as he directed Keith to leave.
Keith left and found him a place to set up shop, got familiar with the headquarters a little bit, then returned back to the garage.

“That was fast, thought I told you you could leave?”

“Nah, it is okay. I will wait here, gotta keep an eye on my Zoid.” Keith said sitting down.

Once the new weapons where installed on the Konig Wolf, Keith immediately hopped into the Zoid, ran a quick systems check, and started it up. It was pretty clear what he was going to do.

“Wait, we have to talk about plans of getting your father!” Vincent yelled up to Keith.

“That can wait; I am going to go test these babies out. We can talk about a plan after I return.”

“Okay, but don’t kill your brother until I get the whereabouts of your father from him first!” Vincent said as Keith left the garage en route to Jason

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“WHY? Why? Why now?” Jason said pacing around Naomi’s. Jason was still distraught at the reemergence of his brother after five years of thinking he was dead. It was starting to eat away at him. “Why is he targeting me? What did I do to him? Why come out to reveal yourself now?” Questions were running through Jason’s head at an extremely face pace.

“Jason! You need to calm down. Pacing back and forth won’t help the situation. Now is a good time to be calm and rational here before you do something brash and get hurt or worse…killed!” Rachel screamed at him. Jason was shocked at her for screaming because she never did it before. Although he was still fuming over the circumstances, he began to calm down.

“We can talk here, I have Naomi driving the transport, so it is all good.”

“*Sigh*, I just don’t know why the hell he wants to kill me. It’s not that I am scared or anything, it’s just…it is my brother…my brother!”

Rachel really felt for Jason. If a sibling of hers had a vendetta against her and she didn’t have any reason to support it, she would be eating away inside as well. Rachel gently rubbed Jason’s back, saying things to try and calm him.

“The only thing I can think of to why he wants you killed is the fire from your old house.” Rachel said. Jason eyes widened.

“That must be it! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. He must think I am the reason he was left in the house and that I wanted him dead!” Jason said coming to some rationale for Keith wanting to kill him. “Now that I have that knowledge, the hard part will be convincing Keith I didn’t do it.”

Just as Jason was feeling a sense of joy, the alarms on the transport went off. The buzzing reverberated throughout the entire transport. The incessant buzzing caused shooting pain to go in and out of Jason’s and Rachel’s ears. Behind the buzzing, a voice was heard. It was Naomi’s. “Guys, get up here immediately!”

Everyone entered the command center as fast as they could. Naomi through up a display screen and zoomed in on the situation. Everyone was in shock in what they saw. The remains of two Shield Ligers and a Blade Liger could be seen. Their frames were mutilated from what appeared to be severe claw strikes and piercing weaponry.

“Who could have done something like this?” Brad said.

“It had to have been Keith, that heartless bastard!” Jason exclaimed.

“How so, look at the wreckage. Look at those bullet marks those couldn’t have been done by his Multi-discharger. The bullets from that scatter and those shots on those Zoids were more concentrated on that spot.” Naomi pointed out for everyone.

“Yea, you are right. No way could Keith’s weaponry hit a Zoid like that. So it seems we have another heartless bastard on the loose.” Jason said slightly saddened.

“Haha, that is just what I would expect from someone as downtrodden as you are right now brother.”

“KEITH! Where are you?!” Jason said as everyone looked on the monitors trying to locate him.

“Quit looking for me, I will save you the trouble…” Keith said came from behind a nearby rock; revealing his Konig Wolf and its new weaponry.

“No way…he got a Dual Sniper Rifle…and what are those things on the side?” Jason said in shock.

“Heh, seems to know about my DSR, get in your Zoid and come out here. I will show you what ‘those things on the side’ can do. And remember that I said the next time I confronted you, I would kill you!”

“Agh…asshole, I will be right there! I won’t lose to you this time. Count on that!”