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Prelude
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The Void between universes is not quite the empty nothingness many think it to be. Rather, it is a realm of elemental Chaos and infinite potential. >From the Void are all realities formed. Forces beyond most beings contend here for supremacy. Some are mindless, some are not... and some are beyond even the concept of Mind.

This last set of being's, Gods for lack of a better word, embody ideas. Not small ideas, (there is no God of 'Home Shopping Network') but rather 'universal' idea's such as 'Good' and 'Evil'.

At this level, the struggle for dominance is incredible fierce, but remarkable stable, as each God has an opposite which is essentially equal in power.

This equality has it's disadvantages however. The God's are usually so focused on each other, exerting their full power to counter the other God's full power, that a seemingly insignificant force, if it penetrates to the right layer of unreality, can tip the balance either way. And that is exactly what happened.

A race of powerful inter-dimensional raiders reached the correct layer of reality and, discovering a 'race' of incredibly powerful beings, these raiders, in their arrogance, attacked indiscriminately. They did little real damage, but the difference was just enough for several of the God's to overpower their opponents... 'Good' was on the list of overpowered. Several of the newly freed God's realizing the peril to their own existence if evil were given free reign, joined together and bound 'Evil' into a state resembling slumber. But sleepers dream... Oh yeah, and the raiders got their butts' kicked.

*****

"Oh Yeah!!!"

Rei Oko Shinra was happy. Considering the scorched blackened Earth passing below outside her cockpit, this might seem slightly odd. After all, her family, friends, and everyone else she knew died like nearly everyone else in the rain of fiery death that had so recently destroyed the world, but well... Rei was an insensitive cuss.

"Eat flaming Death you large assed bastard!"

Rei was also taking pot shots at the green hulk of a Zentradi Cruiser.

An wrecked, abandoned Zentradi Cruiser. Okay, so Rei wasn't totally happy.

It wasn't her fault they refused to give her a Vertech until the war was already over. She had demonstrated her skill to them a thousand times on the simulator. What did they want?

While she was daydreaming she overshot the Cruiser, still firing, and neatly slagged the runway she was supposed to land on. What did they want anyway? So what if she blew up the SDF 1's bridge in the simulators? It was in the way! Ooops. There goes the Control Tower. Ah good, she hadn't blow up maintenance yet. She thought there might be something wrong with her lasers. What was their problem?

She converted to Guardian and did a five point landing just outside of the maintenance building.

"Hey you" she called, annoyed, to the tech currently standing right in front of her, staring at her fighter with a cross eyed expression. This could be because she had landed five inches from his nose... nah, nobody was that sensitive.

"Yo, wake up!"

The tech pivoted on his heel and looked at Rei with that same glassy eyed expression and replied in a dull, stunned, almost mechanical voice. "Yes? May I help you... miss?"

"Yeah, you can tell me where Vincent is."

"Oh... he's in there somewhere..." At this, Rei turned on her heels and walked into the maintenance shed. The tech gingerly walked back to his quarters. He had to change his pants. **Who the seven bloody HELLS was that?**

*****

The maintenance shed seemed to be a filthy mess of scrap metal, spare parts, and grease. Scattered around, in a seemingly random and haphazard pattern were what appeared to be whole machines. Whole, clean, machines. There was a Vertech in guardian mode in one corner, several miscellaneous small humanoid forms elsewhere that could be anything from scale models to power armor to boomers. In fact, one was an obvious copy of the BU-55-C. **Never should have let him borrow that BGC video. God only knows what else he's cooked up.**

"Vincent! Get your scrawny ass up here before I blow your miserable little shack into the stratosphere!" Her voice reverberated through the shack, neither miserable nor little, gaining in volume as each echo reinforced the next until the entire building was rattling. A scream of pure agony drifted up from below, and Rei gave a self satisfied smile, before pulling her helmet, with it's built in auditory compensators, off.

Several minutes later Vincent dragged himself out of a hatch in the floor muttering about overdone acoustics and satanic pilots with death wishes.

As he pulled himself upright, Rei walked over. Together they made quite the pair. An eighteen year old 5'4" female blue haired albino hot shot pilot standing next to a twenty four year old 6'9" brown haired male Zentradi who happened to be the local (or planetary given the current population problem) self styled mechanical genius.

"Rei? What are you doing here? I thought you joined the military?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look I need you to look at my Vertech. I think the weapons are off. They're too damn weak!"

"Vertech? Weapons? They actually gave you WEAPONS?!?"

"Just shut up and fix em damn it!"

"Isn't that illegal. You know, modifying RDF property without official consent?"

Rei just looked at him. When he didn't respond, she looked pointedly at the Vertech standing in the corner. "Illegal? If a civilian owning a Vertech is not illegal, then how could modifying one be?" Vincent was looking more and more nervous as she went on and finally...

"Aghh! Alright, I'll do it! You're going to be the one to deal with administration though."

"Serves 'em right! They're the one's who assigned me to Squadron 47. 'Justifiable Loss' my ass! What the hell is a 'Justifiable Loss' and what sort of irresponsible anal wipe would name a squadron like that anyway?"

"'Justifiable Loss'?" And with that, Vincent burst out laughing and didn't stop until Rei kicked him in the kneecap, dropping him to the floor with a thump.

*****

After Vincent recovered, the two of them went out to look Rei's Vertech over. Vincent made 'hmm' noises for a while then...

"Well, Rei, you were wrong. There's nothing wrong with the weapons."

"What!"

"Instead, the power feeds are shot, the transformers are almost dead, the armor is sub grade, the missiles are duds, and it's powered by a fusion reactor. All things considered, this is the crappiest Vertech I have ever seen. 'Justifiable Loss' doesn't even begin to describe it."

"Why those arrogant, insufferable, pig swilling..."

"Um... excuse me?"

"What!" Rei rounded on the newcomer, that tech she had seen earlier. She noted idly that he was now wearing different pants. "What do you want?!?"

"Um... well... the guys at the tower..."

"What about the infernal tower?"

"Um... well... theykindawannatalktoyou."

"What?"

"They want to talk to you... mam."

"Ahhh jeez, what do they want?"

"Ah... well... you did kinda blow up the tower."

"Ohh... um... well if that's all they want I'll just pay for the stupid thing!"

"Ah yes, speaking of pay," interrupted Vincent, "there is going to be a substantial bill involved if I am going to fix your plane."

"What! You would charge me? Your old childhood friend and confidant? Me?"

"Ah... money's been sort of tight lately, and well... yes I have to charge you! And I've only known you for six months anyway."

"Man is that all? It seems like forever..."

"Doesn't it though?" muttered Vincent.

"...with everything that's been going on." continued Rei, not even noticing.

"Anyway, I have to get started on your plane, why don't you go relax in the bar?"

"Bar? Where, where?"

"Um... I'll take you mam?"

"Yeah, yeah, lead the way."

*****

In deep space (these thing's always happen in deep space, don't ya know) a figure stood, er... floated... whatever. A figure stood and smiled at a flicker of energy between his palms. All was going according to plan.

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Author's notes:  This is my first fanfic.  Please be brutal (in private!).  C&C would be much appreciated.

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Jeremy Barton AKA Tim the Omnipotent AKA Lord Psi

lord_psi@hotmail.com

http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/palace/6572/