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- Note:
- This topic begins while she is still in stasis, to show her beginning as a pilot and some of what she does up until she gets invited by Takeshi to join Highguard.
"Come on you two! There's no telling what else could be in these Ruins! Pick up the pace so we can clear it all before it gets too dark and we have to head back to our Zoid!" The man that spoke wore standard white and brown clothing that was thin enough to keep him from overheating while in the desert heat while still retaining his dignity. The two other men with him walked quickly behind him to keep up while the trio looked through an ancient ruin that had recently been unearthed in the unregulated territories. For a new object to explore to appear, and one this old, was something to take advantage of; and this group of bandits had a leader that realized that. They had not been there long, and were slowly making their way down to the lower areas that were more likely to have working items and undamaged goods. "This place looks older than any of the ruins I have been to so far. Maybe this is will have some old Zoid parts or something, valuable stuff if you find the right people to sell it to!"
The others in the group just grumbled about the dirt, dust, and debris as they went further and further into the ruin. It felt what seemed to be hours before they came across an old Command Wolf. The paint on it was nearly peeled off, and when one of the bandits went in it seemed to be in an old language that none of them could understand. "Eh, there's no way we're going to be able to pilot that Zoid out of here. And it's already bare and stripped, someone may have beat us here. Or the original inhabitants left if like that." The bandit was smart enough to realize that the people here may have left in a hurry, or may have run into something that required whomever to run with whatever they could load into vehicles as quickly as possible. A Zoid was bigger than most vehicles, meaning that if they wanted to leave quickly they could do so a bit more stealthily in one.
"Hey boss! We got some kind of green pod over here! Looks like there's something in it!" The words would cause everyone to run over, including the one being called boss, to try and figure out what it actually was. The boss, a man known as Dmitry, would fiddle with the controls nearby until a strange, high pitched, hissing noise would startle them all before the pod opened to reveal a woman. There were plenty of things the men would not notice due to the nakedness of the being before them. The pointed ears and the strange claws that took the place of her nails did not get pointed out by any of the group while they simply stared with a mix of awe and surprise at what lay before them. One man began to walk forward, Dmitry stopping them by grabbing their shoulder before speaking up. "No, let her get her bearings. Imagine if you just came out of whatever that pod was, naked, and have a man pick you up? I would rather not get her hostile immediately, would you?" The man's common sense speech would result in a nod of agreement from those that worked under him.
A strange hissing noise would reach the ears of the slowly awakening woman as a rush of air pierced through to touch her bare skin. Legs, unsteady from years inside of the stasis pod, would feel like jello as she slowly slid down to her knees before falling to the floor to rest on her side. Her head swam in the fog of sleep, a forced one that she had been in since the Organoid fusion test that had put her into stasis while a cure for her deformation was researched. Had they finally found the cure? How long had she been under? A groan would leave her lips as she forced herself up from the dusty floor of the room. Wait...dusty? Why was the lab dusty? Eyes would slowly open to a site that made her gasp out of fear. Three men in strange garb were before her, looking quite perplexed as they stared at her. The lab was in ruins, literally, and the only light there was the lights the men had and the console to the stasis pod behind her.
"Who are you?" Aiyana's words would come out in a dry, raspy, voice that gave away the obvious fact that she had not spoken in a long time. The men looked even more confused as she spoke. It was as if they did not understand, so the woman asked another question instead. "Why are you here? Should I be afraid?" This questions would result in the three talking silently to themselves after they huddled together. Their whispers would be impossible for her to hear, which gave her concern for her safety. There were three grown men before her. She had no clothes, no weapons, and no way of stopping them if they wished to take advantage of her. A few minutes later, which felt like an hour to the woman who was beginning to grow scared, the group would leave their huddle as all but one man stepped back. Words would leave his mouth, but not one of them was in a language she had ever heard before. Odd, she had known a decent amount of languages before being put into stasis. This one was strange, unlike anything she had ever heard before. Had a new group shown up with a new language? Or was it a secret society that spoke in their own made up language? Aiyana's head would turn slightly in confusion before the group huddled back together for a bit longer this time. After a while, the same man would take a step closer as he pointed to himself and said one word. "Dmitry." It was clear he was trying to figure out how to communicate with her. Generally, the first thing one would use was a name. Following in kind, being intelligent enough to know how to break language barriers, the woman would point to herself before speaking as well. "Aiyana." After saying her name she would point at the other two with an inquisitive look on her face. Their names would turn out to be Jason and Carl. Odd names, if one were to ask her about them, but who was she to judge? They surely thought the same about her name as well. Wanting to try other words, Aiyana looked around the room until she saw a highly depressing site. The Command Wolf used in her experiment, a Zoid she had began to bond with for weeks before the test, had paint that was nearly completely peeled off. Dust and debris covered it, and it was likely still in a coded sleep mode to keep it from wandering off in its own without a pilot. With a sad countenance, she would point at the Zoid and say two words. "Aiyana, Zoid." It was to say that it was her Zoid, if the word Zoid was actually in their language. It turned out that it did, and that the man trying to communicate with her understood exactly what she was saying.
"Your Zoid." A nod of his head would go along with it as he said a word she did not understand, though he seemed to understand something now and was back to talking to his friends. There was no whispering this time, as it was clear she could not properly eavesdrop and know what they were talking about. "All right guys. I am not the kind to take woman prisoner. I say we give her a set of clothes and let her take her Zoid. Neither is going to make us money, or give us a reputation we want. Agreed?"
"Yeah, and I think after that we should leave. I do not think there is anything else in here for us to take. She's speaking a weird language, so she must be pretty old compared to us. Makes me think this place was already looted at another time and then ended up buried again, if you ask me that is." Jason would give a valid point with what he said, and Carl seemed to be content with silently agreeing for the time being.
”All right, then we will let her go. Carl, get some of the spare clothes for her to put on. We can at least save her modesty outside of this room. There's no reason to put her in danger once she leaves here due to her lack of clothing. Also, give her some of the ration bars. I'll buy us some more, out of pocket no less, after we get back to a place to buy goods. I'll make sure she understands we are letting her go. I'd rather her not attack us the moment she gets in that Zoid, if it even works anymore.” It would be a few minutes before Carl would get the clothing and food out of the bags before they were handed off to Dmitry. Dmitry would walk slowly over to Aiyana, gently moving his arms out with the items in his hands, and allowed her to slowly taken them into her own hands.
Aiyana would say thank you in her own language, though the look on her face surely said enough anyway, before she would quickly set the food down and don the garbs gifted upon her. They were quite loose, besides at her chest, but they would do until she could acquire something more along her style. After pocketing the food, Aiyana would look to the three and smile gently to them. There was no way she could repay their kindness, and she had no way of asking for a way to contact them in the future. Well, there was a way for her to do so. ”Dmitry, Jason, Carl...Zoid?” The man by the name of Dmitry seemed to realize what she was asking and nodded his yes in an affirmative. He also pointed upward and to his right, signifying that his Zoid was elsewhere.
Aiyana would nod before she swiftly walked over the the Command Wolf that was in the worst disrepair it had ever been in. The girl would hug the front leg of the Zoid before speaking to it. ”There there, we will get you fixed up and repainted as soon as I can. There's a lot to do, and we will need to rely on each other from here on out. Zoid 29108, reactivate.” The Zoids internal systems would activate and a heavy grinding from the gears of the mighty beast would be heard echoing throughout the ruin as the Command Wolf moved ever so slightly in each direction. Dust poured off of the long-time immobile creature as it went through an array of checks before the internal panels began showing every error and issue that the Zoid had at the moment once she sat down in the cockpit that resided in the head of the Wolf. ”Give it time. We need to find a place to work on you, and it looks like I need to learn a new language first.” A whine seemed to come out of the external speakers as the Zoid's mouth opened up slightly, bringing a tear to her left eye as she tried to keep from crying. ”It has been a long time. We need to learn about this world again, and you are my only friend I have left. I've missed you, 29108” The woman would search for Zoids in the area, the radar barely working, and would find a single Hover Cargo that had a communication array. A message would be sent, the only thing in it was a channel code and a password for it. If they knew about communications they would realize that it was a private, long distance, channel that they could reach her at if they so chose in the future.
With that done the woman would gingerly pilot the Zoid out of the confines of the building. It was clear the majority of the place had been buried, and after getting to the hangar she would have to ram the door open with the Zoid and quickly jump back so that the sand piled up enough for the Command Wolf to be able to climb out safely. Once out she would push sand until the hangar was filled and hope that the desert winds would make it look more natural so that others would not find the place and try to loot it in the future. She would come back here once she had a safe way of finding the information she needed from the console near her stasis pod. Until then she would get herself learned in the language of this area so that she could get what she needed and possibly find a way to survive.
A MONTH LATER
The woman would sigh heavily in frustration as she stood in front of the Zoid painting shop's counter as she tried to say the words again. ”Can paint Zoid white?” The man at the counter seemed to finally understand her words, her heavy accent and lack of proper sentence structure making it hard to understand at all with previous attempts, and spoke up in response.
”Ah, yes! We can paint your Zoid white! The Command Wolf should be easy to strip of the old paint and make a nice white. We'll even make the gears a black to make it look nice and pretty. It'll be eight hundred credits though.”
Aiyana would nod, some of the words not making sense as she listened. She understood that it would cost 800, and the colors mentioned, and would thus hand over the money before saying thank you.
The last month had been rough. After making her way to a town she had had to find a place of learning, finding a school that appeared to be for children and a teacher there that seemed to think of her as a special needs kid at the time. The two had gotten close and a lesson in language had been ongoing for three weeks before the elderly teacher passed away in her sleep. It had been heart wrenching, but the woman had moved on to try and teach herself the rest while using the lesson books and listening to speech recordings and videos while piloting her Zoid. So far she had gotten the gist of the major words. But holding a whole conversation? That was nearly impossible! Some people talked so fast that she had trouble picking out some of the words, or they mixed words together and they lost all meaning to her as they sounded like new words until they mentioned the two words separately. It was her hope that she could learn the language and keep out any accent that would give away that she was not a native speaker of the language.
The girl had taken to the 'skimpy' clothing, as other people called it, that had been given to her. The shorts were extremely short, though she quite enjoyed the feeling of the breezes upon her legs, and the black bands that were on her thighs made her feel oddly safe while they were there. The baggy shirt she wore, orange in color, was enough to keep prying eyes away from the chest of the short girl as she spoke and interacted with others. There were two things, however, that were not provided by the bandits. These were the jewels in her hair and the hat she had bought to cover up the blue markings upon her forehead that gave away what she was.
Aiyana would listen to a audio disk with some headphones until she saw the man appear in her vision again. Taking the headphones off would allow her to hear him tell her the job was done and to have a good day. A thank you from her would be enough for the guy to smile warmly before walking back to the counter to assist a gentleman that was awaiting attention from the shop. Walking outside, Aiyana would quickly go to her Zoid and find it a clean white with black edging and gears. He was beautiful, though she would likely pay for a blue and green coloration when she could afford to be fancy rather than doing the most basic colors for the sake of saving money up. ”You look beautiful now, 29108.” The sound that came from the Command Wolf as it nudged at Aiyana with the gentlest of movements was one of happiness. It was clear the Zoid was happy being with her, though many seemed to find it odd that a Zoid could be so expressive on its own. They must be used to the mass produced Zoids that many did, as they were programmed with artificial intelligence rather than having a mind of their own; though an AI could become self aware and they would be the same after that point. Aiyana would get into the pilot's seat of the Zoid before speaking to the Command Wolf again. [color=pink]”How about we go home buddy? I need to keep watching these tapes and lessons and I'm sure you would love to sit around and not bother with the big city for a little while.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Aiyana, having learned enough of the language to speak properly and hold conversation, had just finished talking with a Zoids Battle Commission representative about joining the amateur bracket for Zoids battles. It was not something she really wanted to do but the promise of such high amounts of money, as well as her knowledge of Zoids, made it the best way for her to make the cash that she needed to have a life for her and 29108. The woman still needed a name for the Zoid, but she wished to buy an Organic Psycom System for the two of them so that she could understand what the Command Wolf was saying before she decided on a name. For all she knew the Zoid already had one that she could call it by.
Who knew how she would do in the fights, and what would be in her future. Would she find others to befriend and help her on her journey? Or maybe she would end up a failure in combat and end up with no money and a loss of her best friend; a Command Wolf that had become a family member over the last few months she had been awake. Only time would tell, and in time her story would be told by those she affected.
[3144 words]
