Newbie Meet n' Greet

[cityship]

For the newbies, there are people waiting for them in the Obs Deck. A whole gaggle of people. Behind them is the nasty statue, and the beautiful sight through the windows of the stars streaming past and the swirling vortex of collars that was interdimensional travel.

There are more questions than answers, but the crew is willing to help, especially the Command Staff and greeters.

Comments

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

"Whoah." Vega has to stop and think about that for a moment. He has to drag his mind away from the Royal Cup and get it to focus on the new serious thing with the meat ship. It's not as much fun. This is pretty deep, and while Vega's a smart kid this is going to take a bit of digesting. He's kind of scared really, but he's not gonna let that show. No way.

"That's weird. But don't tell me how it ended, okay?" he says. Vega's sure he won anyway, but if he knows that it'll kill the suspense.

"What do you have now?" he asks. It's totally relevant, okay? If Vega's gonna be Zoid tagteaming space aliens or something he wants to know what's on his side.

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, weird is one word for it." One corner of Jamie's mouth curls up slightly into a sardonic not-smile. "I guess you get used to it after a while, though."

He's pretty sure he wouldn't've told Vega the outcome of the Cup, regardless of the kid's opinion on it - considering Vega's from his past, telling him anything like that might have some kind of weird effect on the timeline or something. (Isn't that usually how it works in time-travel movies, anyway?)

At Vega's next question Jamie actually does smile a little bit, and though it's small and sort of hesitant, it's genuine. "She's called a Geno Saurer. 's a tyrannosaurus-type like your Zoid, only she's geared a little more towards ranged combat than melee - got eight-shot missile pods and a pair of long-range laser rifles instead of buster claws."

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

"Well, I guess that's good. But I hope we're not gone long. I have a schedule I have to stick to." Jeeze, Sarah's gonna be mad. Vega knows it already. He's not allowed to go places without telling her. She's really no fun sometimes.

"Whoah, a Geno Saurer?!" Vega totally knows what one of those is! "I mean, those are old right? Old as my Fury? How did you get one?!" His eyes just light up on the subject. "They're kind of similar, I know. You can probably hit pretty hard with a Geno even if it's not built for that specifically, you've still got plenty of weight to throw around."

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

At Vega's reaction Jamie is simultaneously surprised, amused and kind of flattered; the kid actually sounds kind of impressed. "I didn't think there were any Saurers back home," he says. Or at least, not very many; then again, the only ones Jamie knows of came from the Backdraft, just like Vega, so maybe it's not surprising that he's familiar with them.

"She's definitely close-combat capable, sure. She's got some pretty impressive jaws, for one thing." And she was only too eager to use them, too. "I kinda prefer fighting from a distance, though."

He scratches his cheek thoughtfully. "But yeah, I...guess she's pretty old. And how I got her, well...that's kind of a long story."

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Vega very nearly mentions that three of them were found submerged with the Berserk Fury, and barely manages to stop himself. No matter how cool this is, it's one of the things he's Not Allowed To Talk About. "Yeah, they're pretty rare," he says instead. "They're from the old wars, I think. So there aren't a lot of them still around." Vega likes history when it has Zoids in it.

"Oh," says Vega. Long story, huh? "Maybe you can tell me sometime? But like... not if you're busy now." He looks around at all the people moving through. "I wanna hear about it, though. That's really awesome."

No animosity at all, Jamie. You're part of another team (at least, as he remembers you) but that's totally cool anyway.

[riseupnchargem.livejournal.com]

Jamie's a little surprised by just how agreeable Vega is; then again, he'd seemed to have taken his loss to Bit and the Liger pretty well. He's not such a bad kid, for being (presumably) raised by the Backdraft.

The teen shrugs, following Vega's gaze briefly as he scans the room. "'m not busy," he says. "So I guess, if you really wanna hear it..."

He chews his lip a moment, ordering his thoughts. "About three years ago, not too long after the Royal Cup, I got, uh. Transported to another place kinda like this. Not a ship...thing, just a desert - at first I thought I'd just wound up in some little backwater on Zi somewhere, but there were people there from a bunch of different universes, like there are here.

"After about a year there we all got sent to this tropical island, and there was this lady there, Ryss, from a couple hundred years in our past, when those wars were going on. The Geno Saurer used to belong to her, but when she got sent home from the island her Zoid got left behind...'m not really sure why." He shrugs again, and then looks a little sheepish. "I kinda...wul, felt sorry for it 'cause it didn't have anyone to take care of it anymore, so I started looking after it. And...she sorta became mine, after that."

Huh. Well, that wasn't as long a story as he thought it was going to be. Convoluted, maybe; sort of painful, because he doesn't like thinking about everyone he left behind on the island that he's likely never going to see again. He watches for Vega's reaction; it's a bit much to swallow, he knows.

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Vega's quiet for a moment, taking all this in. Jamie's pretty much a stranger to him, beyond Vega knowing that he's on the Blitz team. He's a rival pilot, but that's all in the spirit of awesome Zoid battles. So there's no reason for Jamie to lie to Vega about anything (as long as it doesn't have to do with the match anyway) so though the story's weird Vega figures he can go with it. It can't get too much weirder than this shippy place, can it?

"Oh, okay." He nods. "I think I get it. I mean, besides the weird desert and island thing. But I don't get this place either." He makes a face at that a little bit, but he understands on a basic level. "But yeah, I know a lot of people think they're just mindless robots, right? But Zoids can like people and things. If you treat them good, they'll like you. Especially the smarter ones."

With Vega, it's mostly "if you pilot them well and try not to let them get all shot up".

"I wish they'd let me help take care of the Fury, but they're always busy studying him and they have all these plugs and wires all over the place and keep saying it's too dangerous for a kid." He rolls his eyes.