The Distant Stars

This episode begins with the arrival of a Colonel from the Republic's forces who comes up with a computer simulated plan to take out the GenoBreaker using the Blade Liger, Lightning Saix and the D-Bison. In this plan, they identified the GenoBreaker's Achilles Heel as that of its requirements to have the equivalent of traction control (eg with its claws locked onto the ground) for it to use its charged particle beam cannon. The Shield Liger will draw the first cannon blast and in the time duration required for the GenoBreaker to recharge its particle beam, Irvine and Thomas will attack to distract Raven while Van uses the Liger's blades to try and damage the GenoBreaker's feet. Once this is done, the rest of the assembled Republican and Imperial forces will hammer the GenoBreaker to bits.

Of course, this rubs off the wrong way with Irvine and Moonbay who can't believe that they were expected to follow a simulated plan. Surprisingly, Van agrees with the Colonel. When Van leaves the room, he is told by the Colonel that he used to serve with Van's father in the old days and that he expects Van to be as good a Zoid pilot as his father provided ... he follows orders.

The next day we have Moonbay in the Gustav towing a mock up of the GenoBreaker, with the Lightning Saix, Shield Liger and D-Bison chasing her. They executed the plan and gets to under 5 seconds of the recharge time. The Colonel of course wants them to re-execute and retrain to get even better response times. This riles Thomas and Irvine but strangely Van again sides with the Colonel.

Fiona then explains to the group of friends that Van has changed recently in that he wants to train harder and better so that he can face off Raven without endangering his friends. Van knows that his friends almost died for him, Irvine in his Command Wolf that was savaged by the GenoSaurer and Moonbay in her Gustav who protected the Shield Liger when they last met Raven.

Unnoticed to them.. a small bug belonging to Ryss flies off from the Gustav having recorded the attack plan.

The scene shifts to Raven who is piloting the GenoBreaker. He is intercepted by Ryss in her GenoSaurer which she cloned (wow .. wouldn't you want this technology). Ryss tells Raven regarding the attack plan developed by Van and his friends. She showed it to him using a holographic projection. This naturally angers Raven who makes a show of using the GenoBreakers charged particle beam to do a 360 deg strafe of the images of the D-Bison, the Lightning Saix and the Shield Liger. (Oh oh.. this is something the good guys will probably not anticipate). During this time, Ryss quietly counts up to 100 and beyond.

Raven offers to kill Ryss and attempts to.. when all of a sudden the GenoBreaker's command system freezes. Shadow ejects himself from the zoid core and collapses in front of the GenoBreaker. Both Raven and Ryss dismounts. Ryss tells Raven that there is a limit for an organoid to operate a zoid as powerful as the GenoBreaker and that she's surprised that Shadow lasted over 3 times as long as any other organiod. She proposes to give Raven a crystal that can help Shadow revive quickly but Raven says its better for Shadow to die than to take the crystal. Ryss then sighs and attacks Raven with a cloud of her bugs.. causing Raven to start remembering his past.

<flashback>

On top an observatory, a young Raven (8 to 10 year old) looks at the stars with his father. His father apologizes for being rather involved with zoid research and not being able to spend time with him. Raven tells his father that he hates zoids. He is then called away by Raven's mother that the organoid pod that they were monitoring was about to hatch. He promises Raven that he'll take the family for a holiday once they completed this research. Raven dances for joy under the starry sky when in mid-step a scream and explosion rocks the building. He rushes down to the lab to find his parents dead and a organoid staring at him. The organoid knocks him for a loop and escaped.

Raven then finds himself in the first aid tent of the unit Van's Father commands. He is physically okay but mentally in denial. (If you are a 8 year old kid and you see your parents killed..it's okay to be in denial). Van's father takes him in and proposes to take him home to adopt him (or look after him.. whatever) but only after the unit completes its mission which is to locate another organoid.

The next day, they located an organoid pod but the imperial forces got to know about it. The imperial forces demanded the surrender of the pod and all weapons but one of the Republican soldiers triggers the pod freeing the organoid (this is Shadow) rather than let the imperials get it. The imperial forces then turns to chase the organoid. Van's father jumps into his Command Wolf and attacks the imperial forces. Somehow in his Zoid he managed to destroy the imperial forces and himself in the process. It wasn't clear how he did it but it looked like he detonated a mini-nuke or something.

Raven is found wandering in the desert by Prozen. Prozen then takes Raven in training him up to become a zoid pilot. Throughout all stages of his training, Prozen was impressed as Raven blitzed the field. Finally before letting Raven out of his proverbial cage to wreck havoc, he offers Raven Shadow provided Raven can tame him. Raven jumps on Shadow and stared him down.. (weirdest way of taming an organoid that I have seen). As Raven left the room with Shadow he reminded Prozen that he hates all zoids.

<end flashback>

Raven awakens to find himself in pool of water in the middle of a cavern. Ryss and Hiltz stand there telling him that Raven should join them for the Dark Kaiser requires his services. Raven defiantly tells the Dark Kaiser to take a hike.

Next scene we see Raven flying the GenoBreaker on his way to kill Van.