fanfic_name = Skull Leader

chapter = 2

author = Dwparsnip

dedicate = K71, who I think is a better writer than she gives herself credit for.

Rating = AP15

Type = Romance

fanfic = The same Zentraedi that reveled in the destruction of the SDF-1 at the hands of Khyron celebrated again, this time in response to their own actions in the complete destruction of New Detroit.



The attack on the city had been textbook in design and implementation. Their Lord Khyron would be most proud of them indeed.



Some had wanted there to be some survivors in New Detroit, survivors who would tell others of the attack and spread the word of the fierceness and strength of the Zentraedi. But in the end, it was decided that the strongest message would be sent by the absence of Micronians to tell the tale. The destruction would be total, complete and unmerciful.



And it was.



And they celebrated.

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Rick's Skull One Battloid walked among the destroyed and burned out buildings that remained of the Monument RDF Command Base. He stopped and turned the Battloid's head to the left to find Max's blue Battloid walking parallel to him fifty meters away. He then turned his Battloid's head to the right to find Miriya's red Battloid crouched down to look at something on the ground about thirty meters from his position.



He brought up Miriya's image on the communications display unit and asked, "What have you got, Miriya?"



Miriya looked at Rick, and though it was over a communications channel he could feel the heart breaking sorrow in her voice as she spoke just a single word. "Death."



He closed his eyes for a brief second and nodded to her, understanding what she had meant. When he opened his eyes again he turned the Battloid's head to look forward, but as it turned the screen in the cockpit showed something that made his blood turn ice cold. Instinct and fear took over as he ran his Battloid towards the nearly leveled building that he had noticed, and knew well.



"Rick!", Max yelled over the communication net as he brought the Battloid's massive canon up to cover Rick's advance. "Rick, the area isn't secure. Rick!"



Miriya, like Max, had her weapon raised, and it was her that realized what had driven Rick to the wild advance he was now in the middle of. Her green eyes began to fill with tears of great sadness and she whispered, "No."



The Skull One Battloid was running as fast as Rick could get it to move, and some tiny part of his mind registered that it was above the documented maximum speed for a Battloid. He reached the building he had seen in seconds. More accurately, he reached the ruins of the building in seconds.



He switched the external view to infrared and scanned the ruins, looking for heat signatures that could indicate any survivors that may be underneath the rubble.



His heart sank as no heat signatures appeared on his screen. He faintly registered Miriya's red Battloid appear beside him, her canon still raised. His radar indicated Max was still in the vicinity of where he left him moments earlier.



Miriya appeared on his communication screen again and she said calmly, "Rick, we don't know that she was here when the attacked happened."



Rick knew the cold truth. "She was.she was supposed to be here all day, Miriya. She said she couldn't.even leave for lunch."



He maneuvered his Battloid closer to the ruined building. When he was close enough, he knelt the Battloid down and began to slowly remove some of the larger pieces of debris. Rick manipulated the Battloid's hands like a neurosurgeon, taking into account with painstaking thought what would happen when each piece was removed.



Miriya continued to remain by Rick with her weapon raised, and Max continued to recon the area ensuring that there weren't any Battlepods or Power Armor attackers still around waiting to catch them unawares.



Rick removed a flat piece of debris about the size of the Battloid's hand, placing it down behind the Battloid on an empty part of the street. When he turned the Battloid back around to continue with his work, his world came crashing down in a storm of grief and profound mourning.



His mind wandered and his hands slipped on the controls, so much so that the Battloid rocked backwards as though it were physically struck. His Battloid crashed down onto the pile of rubble that it had moved there over the previous several minutes with a resounding crash.



Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks and the picture of what he had just seen was in front of his eyes, whether he kept them opened or closed. The image was burned into his mind and soul.



He began clawing at his safety harness, in so much of hurry and so distraught that it took much longer to get the belts unfastened than usual. Finally free of the restraints he activated the emergency exit with a harder than necessary punch of the button.



Skull One's Battloid head tipped forward on a massive hinge at the front of its neck, revealing a hatch that slid open automatically. Out of the hole that the hatch had concealed, came the pilot's seat of Skull One and it's occupant: Rick.



He jumped out of the seat before it had even stopped moving. The Battloid was leaning back, so Rick jumped on the shoulder of the Battloid and then slid down its chest onto the ground. He scampered as fast as he could around the legs of the Battloid and up the pile of rubble that still remained, and when he reached the top of the pile he froze.



"My God, no", he said in a barely audible whisper. He took another step forward and studied what he saw. He saw someone lying face down on their stomach with their arms to their sides. On the sleeve of the blue and white uniform were Captain's stripes, and the skirt indicated that the person was a female. Rick forced himself to move his gaze upward on the person and his heart fell out of his chest into his stomach when he saw her long, brown hair, matted down in several places with blood.



"Rick, please wait", he heard Miriya plead with him over her veritech's external speakers. He could tell from her voice that she grasped what he had realized.



He ignored her, moved to stand beside the person and went to his knees when he reached her. He took a deep breath as a fresh batch of tears invaded his blue eyes. His left hand reached across her to grab her left shoulder.



'So cold, even through the uniform she's so cold', he thought absently. He closed his eyes, trying to clear the tears out and opened them again.



He placed his right hand behind her neck for support and gently pulled her shoulder toward him, turning her over so that he could see her face.



His heart shattered into a million pieces when he looked unto the bloodied and bruised face of the woman he loved so much.



"Lisa", he wailed in a terribly pitiful voice. He sat down and brought her up to him so that her head cuddled into his chest. He brought his left hand up to her face, and though he still had his pilot's glove on he could feel the coldness of her skin.



He sat there, moving back and forth as if trying to rock his beloved to sleep, when he leaned his head back to glare at the heavens and screamed her name.



"LISA!", and he closed his eyes.



When he opened his eyes again he was looking at the ceiling of Lisa's quarters. He was still lying on her couch, but she was gone.



He quickly sat up and looked all around him and tried to confirm his surroundings.



"Lisa!", he called out. When there was no immediate response he got up and searched her quarters, the kitchen, the bedroom and finally the bathroom. She was nowhere to be found.



He walked back to the living room from her bedroom and his eyes noticed a note on the table with his name on it. His name was written in Lisa's elegant handwriting.



He picked up the note and sat down at the table. It was then he noticed that his palms were sweating, along with the rest of him, and that his heart was still pounding from the adrenaline rush he had received from the intense dream he had just had. He opened the note and began to read:



        'My Dearest Rick:

        I am so sorry, but I couldn't get out of the meetings that I had this afternoon at the base. You fell asleep and I didn't want to wake you, you looked so peaceful and I knew that you were exhausted.

        Please don't be upset, but after what you told me I took the Skull off of the duty roster for forty-eight hours, so that you, as well as Max and Miriya, could get some well deserved and well needed down time.

        Try to relax and I'll be back as soon as I can, hopefully before 1700 hours.



I Love You,

Lisa.



He took the note and carefully folded it, then took it and held it against his chest and hugged it to him as though it were Lisa herself. He looked at the clock on the counter: 1537 hours.



He was still dead tired, but after the nightmare that just shook him so badly he didn't want to go back to sleep.



He needed to talk to someone, tell them the terrible things he had dreamed, but the only person he really needed and wanted to talk to was at the RDF Command Base in meetings.



It was times like these that Rick missed Roy Fokker, his "Big Brother". All during his basic training and early days in the RDF, it was Roy that he could talk to about everything, ask questions to and get sage advice from. More often than not, Rick just needed a tap on the head, which Roy was more than willing to provide at anytime.



It was Roy that got him through the rough times during his first combat missions, not to mention the first time he actually killed someone, the fifty foot Zentraedi during his very first Veritech flight on the day the SDF-1 launched from Macross Island.



Rick thought back to something Roy had told him after the first Daedalus Maneuver, when he watched a Zentraedi soldier get blown away while standing right in front of him. It was the most serious that he had ever heard Roy speak:



'It takes a special person to be a fighter pilot, Rick. Some people think you have to be cold and unfeeling, but that's wrong. A fighter pilot has to have some of that sure, but a fighter pilot isn't always a fighter, is he? He's a protector, a savior even, and you can't be that without compassion and love.'



Seeing the confused look still on Rick's face he continued, 'We will do and see terrible things, Little Brother, things we won't be able to forget. But we will have to live with them because people depend on us to do what we do, no matter what. Just realize and understand, that what we go through isn't for ourselves, but for a higher purpose. We do it because we can, because we must, because we wouldn't want others to suffer. Just remember, you're not alone. I'm here for you Little Brother, and one day you will love someone so much that she will be your strength in the really tough times, like Claudia is for me.'



Rick looked at the clock, which now read 1605 hours. He got up from the table and moved to the couch, Lisa's note still clutched tightly in his right hand. He sat down, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.



He hadn't really understood all of what Roy was trying to tell him that day. He really didn't understand how much he would endure. He really didn't understand the importance of his role as protector of the innocent. He sure didn't really understand anything about love.



"You will love someone so much", he repeated out loud to himself, and as he spoke his mind automatically flashed him a picture of Lisa and he smiled. At the time he was miffed at Roy because he thought Minmei loved him like that, and Roy seemed to be saying that she didn't.



He shook his head at the absurdity of the thought. Minmei never really understood what Rick went through in the cockpit. She never could. And her love for him, whether real or imagined, was not even close to being able to give him the strength to deal with some of the pains he had endured as a pilot.



Not for the first time since Khyron's final attack, he looked back over his relationship with Lisa. He couldn't believe the times that Lisa had been there for him, the rough times and he didn't realize it. Whenever something terrible happened, it was Lisa he wanted to talk to, Lisa he needed to talk to, especially after Roy died. She understood, and now he realized that she loved him, proving what Roy had said was very true. It was Lisa that gave him the strength to carry on and deal with the demons that encroached on his very soul because of his actions and the horror he witnessed. It was her love for him, and, though he didn't know it at the time, his love for her.



"Love someone so much", he said again. "Thanks Big Brother."



He sensed the warm feeling of unrestrained love enter the room and turned around to see Lisa just as she was about to speak.



"They say talking to yourself is the first sign of old age", she said whimsically from the doorway.



He hadn't heard her come in, but he knew that she was there. He smiled at her and said, "Then I guess it would be a bad idea for me to tell you that I was talking to Roy."



Her eyes narrowed in confusion as she walked towards him and as she put her hands on the back of the couch he felt compelled to explain. He placed her note on the coffee table and said, "I was just remembering something Roy told me, and I thanked him for it."



He took her hand in his and guided her around the couch so that she stood in front of him.



"Are you all right, Rick?", she asked with concern radiating from her emerald eyes.



As an answer he gently pulled on her hand so that she was forced to sit across his lap, and as she did so he put his arms around her delicate waist. He gave her a loving squeeze as he hugged his head to her chest and he said quietly, "I am now."



She put her left arm around his shoulders and brought her right hand up to caress his cheek. Her head leaned down to his and when she spoke her voice filtered through his unruly dark hair.



She had seen this type of thing a few times over the last couple of years after Rick had a particularly bad dream or a memory of a terrible event. "What happened, Rick?"



As she caressed his cheek his eyes caught sight of the Captain's stripes on her uniform sleeve and he instinctively tightened his embrace. "Have I ever thanked you for being there for me?"



The question caught Lisa completely off guard and she didn't have the slightest idea of what to make of it. "Thanked me?", she asked.



His head nuzzled tighter to her and he said, "Yes. Have I ever thanked you for all those times you were there for me when I needed someone?"



"Yes Rick, you thanked me whenever I listened to you."



He looked at her with tear filled eyes. "No Lisa. Have I ever thanked you for.loving me?"



"What are you talking about?", she asked, still confused by his bizarre questions.



"I had a dream, a nightmare", he said shakily.



He told her of his horrendous vision, the whole dreadful story and when he finished he told her of the thoughts he was having just before she came home.



She listened to him intently, as she always did and was struck first by the distress that Rick suffered because of his dream, and second by the words of Roy Fokker. Beginning to understand what Rick was driving at she said softly to him, "You don't owe me anything, Rick. I love you, and helping you made me happier than you can know. You never had to thank me for anything, and you never will have to."



He looked at her, saying with his blue eyes how much he loved her. "All the difficult times you were there for me, I never realized that I needed you, that I loved you. Roy was right when he said I would love someone so much that she would be my strength. I just thought that I would realize it when it happened, not ignore it like a blind fool."



He began to turn away but she stopped him with her hand. Her hand turned his head back towards her so that he faced her, and she gently pulled his chin upward do that she could lean down and kiss him.



Her lips were as sweet as honey, and as he kissed her back with all the love and tenderness he could bring to bear, he heard Roy say again, 'You will love someone so much.'



State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = dparsnipAThotmail.com