ZOIDS ASTRAY ACT 016

 ACT 016: INT. GUSTAV – MESS HALL – EARLY EVENING

Dusk deepens as the Gustav rolls through a rocky pass, mountains looming on either side. The air is cool, quiet, and heavy with travel, a light mist starting to roll in.

Danny and Paige sit a table together in the mess area, Danny eating while Paige sits looking out the window, watching the shadowed horizon.

PAIGE
So... Chelonia.
That’s where you’re all from, right?

DANNY
Yeah. Grew up there. Huge city on the back of a Zoid.

PAIGE
You’re serious? Like… it moves?

DANNY
It doesn’t move anymore, its dormant but It’s not just a Zoid.
Chelonia is one of the Elder Pantheon Class Zoids.

PAIGE
Elder Panth.. what?

DANNY
Elder Pantheon, There’s four of them. Each tied to an element — water, land, air and fire.
Like Zoid Gods, I guess.
Chelonia is water. The calmest of them. It fell dormant centuries ago.
Let people build on its back. Became home for hundreds of us.

PAIGE
And the others?

DANNY
King Gojulas, the land titan.
Gilvader, master of the skies.
They fought once. Something ancient. Something awful.
The ground split open and they fell between the tectonic plates.
Swallowed them both forever.

PAIGE
And the fire one?

Danny doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze goes distant. The air in the Gustav feels heavier.

DANNY
Elder Guylos.
(a pause)
The Elder Pantheon of Fire… and Destruction.
A mountain sized dragon or something similar.

He says the name like it costs him something.

DANNY
No one knows what it really looked like.
There’s no images. No records. Nothing.
Just whispers. Hushed stories.
It didn’t fall. Didn’t fight.
Apparently one day it just left. Took off into space and never came back.

PAIGE
Why?

DANNY
Some think it couldn’t stand what the world was becoming.
Others say it will come back — when things get bad enough.
All I know is... if it does come back...
That’s the end.

Silence follows. Outside, the land rolls on in darkness. Somewhere far ahead, Chelonia waits — vast, ancient, alive, sleeping.

EXT. GUSTAV – ROCKY PASS – EVENING

The fog thickens. The Gustav rounds a slow bend in the pass. Everything beyond a few feet is swallowed by dense, soupy mist. Stillness hangs heavy.

Up ahead, a shape. Hulking. Waiting.

The Gustav stops, still.

The silhouette of a King Liger.

It stands motionless in the centre of the worn road — only just visible through the haze. Then, a sharp hiss of hydraulics — the canopy opens, a silver haired woman stands, a face full of determination and rage.

VANESSA (over external speakers)
Let’s not make this complicated.
Give me Neku
I’ll end her for killing my father, and maybe — just maybe — I’ll let the rest of you walk away.

No one answers. No one moves. Just mist and tension.

VANESSA (getting frustrated)
I will start ripping compartments off that Gustav one by one if you don’t—

A high-pitched distortion whines through the fog. Light bends. Something moves.

Aqua Fox de-cloaks mid-charge — fog rolling off its shoulders like steam.

It’s heavy clawed paw slams full-force into the King Liger’s face as its canopy closes.

Metal clashes. Sparks fly. The fog explodes outward from the impact.

The Liger stumbles sideways, three slashes across its cheek, momentarily dazed.

NEKU (over comms)
You talk too much.