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((This is an RP thread for the members of Team __________. ( sweatdrop ) Please do not post in this thread without permission from Dark_Wings, Izchi, or myself. Thankies.))

Granules of rough sand blew across the dry, cracking street of the desert city like a billion angry flies, throwing themselves about in the wild wind and battering against his face as he drove his vehicle through the city gates.

Dry, dusty and windy, not to mention well out of the way... this town was Rion's kind of place. Even so, he was glad of the aviator sunglasses protecting his eyes from the wind-swept sand and the heavy, fur-lined tactical jacket that, despite being excruciatingly hot in this desert environment, provided excellent protection from the elements.

Not that the elements weren't putting up a damn good fight.

The sand made sharp tinkling noises as it glanced off of the gold-plated Republic medallions on the shoulders of Rion's jacket and scratched across the lenses of his sunglasses. The Vulture hover bike he was driving had been a literal steal, and was well suited for extended periods of travel over rough terrain, but he was beginning to wish he had gotten something with a higher windshield. Pulling over to the side of the street, he hopped off the bike and grabbed the heavy brown leather duffel bag from the front compartment of the hawklike vehicle. Quickly slinging the strap over his shoulder and hefting it up to the base of his neck, he looked around: Time to find someplace to stay.

As he walked down the streets, he took note of his surroundings: The city seemed to be arranged in a fairly standard urban layout: square blocks separated by dusty, empty two-lane streets setting a checkerboard pattern of stone and steel across the harsh desert. Brick seemed to be the prevalent building material here, and the wear of the elements on the chipped, browning building fronts was clear.

Speaking of the elements...

Rion grimaced at the seemingly increasing amount of sand flying about on the wind; if it kept up, he'd have kids trying to build sand castles in his hair. And speaking of kids... where were they? Where was everyone? The streets, as well as the shops and apartments lining them, were entirely devoid of life, and it was putting Rion on edge.

Is it Sunday? Maybe they're at church... ********. Who am I kidding? Everyone at the same time? No way. Maybe there's some sort of party... a town festival?

Several more minutes of wandering proved fruitless, and Rion made his way back to his bike. The sand was definitely thicker than it had been before; the outline of his Vulture a hundred or so feet off was blurred by the swirling granules of rock in the air. Just as he had stashed his bag and was about to vault into the pilot's seat, he looked out across the street and spotted the outline of a man running down the sidewalk, desperately clutching at the hat on his head to keep it from getting blown away. Despite the quickly increasing amount of sand on the air, Rion decided to risk opening his mouth.

"HEY!"

The man in the hat stopped at the sound of Rion's voice and turned to face him, peering through the dust and sand. A moment later, he had run across the street and was standing face to face with the ex-soldier. He appeared to be in his mid-to-late forties. A large man with a slightly prominent belly, he nevertheless had the look of someone who was truly formidable in his prime, made most evident by his broad shoulders and thick neck. It seemed, however, that he was currently out of shape, as he was sweating profusely from his running. Conscious of his appearance, his quickly mopped his face with his hat, revealing for a brief moment a rather large bald spot in his scraggly brown hair.

"I'm new in town," Rion said quickly, finding himself having to shout in order to be heard over the wind. "Just got in. Where the hell is everyone? It's like a ghost town around here!"

"They're all inside! There's a huge sandstorm coming! It'll be here any minute! We've got to get indoors, or we're as good as dead!"

"Well, s**t!"

Rion ran up to the door closest door and pounded on it with his fist.

"No good!" The hat-man shouted. "They can't hear us; the storm fortification makes the buildings practically soundproof! We'd have to get to my place!"

"Where is your place?"

"Three blocks down this street and one to the left, but we'll never make it now! The storm's practically here!"

"The hell we won't!"

Rion leapt onto his bike and brought the machine roaring to life.

"Get on!"

The man complied with haste, and the bike shot forward at breakneck speed as Rion pushed the throttle to the absolute maximum. Three blocks blurred by in what seemed like hours as the storm intensified around the pair. The Vulture coasted through the left turn. Rion could hear the man seated behind him shouting, but it was now completely impossible to discern what he was saying over the screaming of the murderous wind. Suddenly, through the sand tearing at his face, he spotted movement on his right: the large steel hangar door of one of the buildings was slowly rising, disappearing into the ceiling above it. That was it. Rion whipped the Vulture around, flying through the opening at full speed. As the craft cleared the door, Rion slammed on the brakes, sending the hover bike into a wide, drifting spin. A heart-stopping second later, the bike came to a stop just a foot away from the back wall of the building.

Rion put his head down on the crook of the handlebars with a 'thump', a triumphant smirk on his face.

Nice to know I can still pilot something like that...

The hat man, against all odds, had managed to hold on to his cap, his right hand clamping it firmly to his head and his left planted firmly over his eyes.

"D-did I d-die? Is this h-heaven?"

Rion rolled his eyes and sat up.

"No, you're alive. Now hurry up and cl-" he stopped suddenly as he saw just where he was.

A Zoid garage. A big one. There were ten of the beasts inside altogether, and each was in a different state of disrepair. The shiny, well-kept ones caught his eye first; these must have been the ones upon which work was nearly finished, or that were ready for pickup: A Barigator, small but strong; a Zaber Fang, tough and feral; and a Blade Liger, regal and proud. Sitting nearby, a Redler, Heldigunner, Command Wolf and Helcat all seemed to be in need of minor cosmetic repair and, in the case of the Redler and Wolf, new armor. A lone, black Scout Fox was more severely damaged: something considerably larger than it appeared to have twisted its front right leg almost completely backwards. Rion winced. Only an Imperial Iron Kong was capable of such an attack, and he knew it was one that their pilots were quite fond of, as it ended battles rather abruptly. The last two Zoids, however, were the ones that interested him most, as he had never seen anything like either of them in his entire life. One was some sort of long serpent, and the other was clearly supposed to be a dog. Both were damaged almost to the point of no return, and judging by the layers of dust covering them, no one had bothered trying to fix them for a long time.

The hat man, obviously a Zoid mechanic, spoke, snapping Rion out of his Zoid-induced reverie.

"You like Zoids, eh, boy?" He laughed. "Well, lemme give the full tour of my garage, but first I gotta close up the-"

The mechanic cut off suddenly; Rion had grabbed his arm before he could press the remote to close the door.

"Hey, I gotta close up, or the storm'll get in."

"No. Look."

Rion pointed out into the swirling sands, his sharp eyes squinting into the dust.

"I think there's something moving out there..."

The girl with blackish blue hair wiggled a bit and fell onto the side, shuffling to a stand as grains of tan fell off her clothes. She shook her head slightly, sending the grains of sand flying off long hair.

"Looks like we made it inside.. good work Lauren." Spoke the girl as she pushed back stands of hair behind her ear. Dull grey eyes searched the building, spotted the board crashed agaisnt the wall, and the two men. "Thanks for keeping the door open." She bowed and specks of sand fell off gray frame.

"Eli... " Eli trailed off, soon forgetting to mention a last name as she looked around the garage, Zoids were so damn interesting to her. After a longing gaze on the Zaber Fang, she snapped back to attention. "Leveth."

"Nice to meet you Mr. Coburn and Mr. O'Ryan..."

That O'Ryan guy seems familiar... oh well... She spotted the Republic jacket the black-haired man wore and inwardly groaned, she just had this feeling he worked for the Republic... probaly even one of those murderers. Well, she was going to be stuck inside here with him for a while.

(( Alex is an APC, by the way; feel free to use him whenever. (And save me the trouble of doing all his dialogue. XD) ))

Ryan covered his face with a hand, pulling downward slowly. Wonderful. Careless, careless. And he called himself a stealth operative. He'd just have to wait this out; keep them in the dark. The storm would clear, and he could be on his way with no one the wiser...

Alex Coburn smiled at the collective group.

"None of that "Mr. Coburn" stuff, now; just call me Alex. As long as we're stuck in here together, we might as well get familiar, eh? As for how long the storm will last..." he trailed off, looking at the garage door as though he could somehow see through the metal. "I can't rightly say. It's no judge tempest; this here's a real, natural storm, so there's no real way of telling how long it'll keep up. And don't worry about payment. As you can see, I have a very frequent clientele; it's the least I can do to put you folks up 'till the storm passes, especially considering I owe Mr. O'Ryan my life."

Rion cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

"I believe you just said something about familiarity?"

"Ah, Andrew, then. Of course." He gave a slight laugh. "What was that about 'Batman'? I assume you three know each other, then?"

"It's a story; and we've met only once before," Rion replied nonchalantly, looking over the damaged, dusty body of the strange serpent Zoid that had caught his attention before.

"...I see. Well, shall I show you your rooms, then?"

Rion nodded absently, then turned to the mechanic and spoke, gesturing at the odd Zoid.

"What IS that thing? I know my way around Zoids, but I've never seen one of those before."

Alex nodded sagely.

"It's understandable. That's a Stealth Dragon, one of the Republic's newer marvels; the prototype model came off the line 'bout six or seven years ago. They're still quite rare."

"Newer?" Rion repeated, "Then what the heck happened to it? And why haven't you repaired it? You could stuff a mattress with the dust covering it."

"Well, there's really not much point repairing the body now; a large chunk of the combat data and part of the command program are corrupted when it was mangled. I keep it for the parts. As for what happened to it... THAT did," Alex said, pointing to the other dusty Zoid, the canine.

"Never seen one of those either... Looks like a pretty old model. What is it?"

Alex had just opened his mouth to answer Rion's query about the Zeekdober when Eli asked about the shower.

"Hm? Oh, yes! Let me show you to the washroom. Andrew, Lauren, you might as well come too; I should give you all the tour of the place now anyway."

Rion gave Alex a casual wave, not taking his eyes off the Stealth Dragon.

"You guys can go on ahead... I'm going to stick around and look at the Zoids. If you don't mind, that is, Alex," he said, finally turning his head to face the mechanic.

"No, not at all," Alex chuckled. "Taken a liking to the Dragon, eh? Maybe you'll buy it off me, then?" He laughed harder at what he meant as a joke.

"Maybe I will," Rion replied absently, his eyes going back to the Zoid.

"Sure, sure..." Alex said, his laughter petering out. "Anyway, the main living area is right through here." He gestured with his thumb at an anachronistically plain wood door on the wall to the left of the garage entrance. A few steps and a click of a key later, the door swung open.

"Right this way, Eli. Coming, Lauren?"

She made her way to the door before she was suddenly yanked back. A humble, "Eep!" was emitted before nodding to Lauren's words, she did know best being the bodyguard. Though, a shower would feel awfully good...after the storm was over and back at home.

"His name's Mr. Coburn... well he wishes to be called Alex..." whispered the disappointed Eli, pieces of sand weighed on her head in a constant reminder of its presence.

"A whole week..." Eli unconsciously scratched her head, releashing more grains of sand from the navy strands. Her eyes drifted slowly back to Lauren and quickly shifted her eyes to the door, then back to Lauren, then the door to the 'shower' again. "We could be here a while... and you could guard the shower place while I go... well.. after um.. he goes..."

She turned her gaze over to 'Andrew' and studied his face. She knew he saw him from somewhere before, but couldn't quite place it. Eli shrugged it off and frowned slightly. They'd probaly be stuck here... thus halting her slowly but steady cause.

With Mr. Coburn leading 'Andrew' to the shower, Eli took the time to walk around the hangar, observing some of the zoids more closely.