"Professor," called one of the other
scientists from his post at a monitoring station. "Commander
Gyou is coming again."
"Is he headed for this room?" Prof.
Odagiri asked, remarkably calmly Sho thought.
"No. It looks as if he’s heading for Dr.
Shirai’s laboratory, as usual," the scientist said.
"Good," Prof. Odagiri said.
"Dr. Shirai? Who is he?" Sho asked.
"Dr. Shirai is the actual head scientist
on this level," Tetsuro explained. "But he’s one of those
obsessive types, thinks about nothing but his work."
"I couldn’t have put it better myself,
Tetsuro," Prof. Odagiri said, nodding and smiling slightly. "I
may run this level in Dr. Shirai’s absence, but he is still
considered the head of this division."
"Oh," Sho said, turning to look at the
video of Gyou walking past the purple hill and out of sight,
seeming to be heading for another closed door.
XxXxX
As he made his way past the Relic
spacecraft that had been concealed beneath Mt. Minakami since
even before the base here had been built, Commander Gyou
casually fingered the disk he’d concealed in his jacket pocket.
Dr. Shirai’s personal laboratory was ideally suited for
clandestine projects, such as the Unit Remover. And now, it
would serve as the ideal place to conceal the new Zoalord body
he was going to develop for Murakami’s son.
Because while Murakami and that annoying
Makashima were dead now, Sho Fukamachi and all of those at
Chronos who would oppose his plans were not. The Murakami boy
would be useful when he finally made his move against Alkanphel
and his supporters. And, while it was rather disappointing that
he wouldn’t be able to take the Third Guyver for his own, the
Fukamachi boy was still in possession of the First. Gyou knew
Guyvers well enough to say with some degree of certainty that
Fukamachi would find some way to survive against the Enzyme IIs
that Gyou had sent after him.
Reaching the center of the room, Gyou
stopped suddenly as he felt something pass through his head.
Some feeling. If he had still been human, Gyou would have called
it a headache. But he wasn’t human anymore, and there was some
kind of strange resonance along with the spiking pain in his
head. If he’d any in his lifetime to compare it to, Gyou might
have been able to say that this – whatever it was – was like a
migraine. The flashing lights and shooting pain were almost
identical.
But Gyou had never had anything
like that to compare this to, and so all he knew now was that he
wanted it to stop.
His breath was becoming short, and Gyou reached up and clamped
his hands to his head. Alternately pulling at his hair and
digging his nails into his scalp to try and take his mind off
the pain, Gyou nearly fell to his knees as the pain intensified
and he gasped for air.
Not having any kind of reflective
surface nearby, or much presence of mind to focus on anything
but the agony in his head, Gyou couldn’t know that his main,
Control Zoacrystal was glowing brightly enough to be seen even
through his human skin. Biting down on his lower lip hard enough
to draw blood, Gyou tried to focus on breathing to the exclusion
of all else. By now the pain was so great it was starting to
make his vision blur, and for a moment Gyou thought he might
pass out from the intensity of it. At this point Gyou would have
welcomed the bliss of unconsciousness with open arms.
And then, miraculously, it all
stopped. The pain knifing its way through his head abated to
nothing, and the feeling of not being able to get enough air
into his lungs went with it. Gyou breathed deeply, slowly
regaining his bearings and his sense of self. Looking over at
the dormant Relic, Gyou could just hear the end of a massive
vibration winding down. What
was that? Is it possible that the Relic and my Zoacrystal could
have been in resonation with each other somehow?
Beyond that… no, it couldn’t be
possible, Murakami and Makashima are both dead!
Yes, that had to be true. No one and
nothing could have survived his final Gravity Wave attack, least
of all those rebels or the useless humans that had been
traveling with Murakami and Makashima. So there was no reason
for him to consider the ridiculous possibility that those
annoying rebels had become the first to actually do so. Still,
the strange resonance that had developed between his Zoacrystal
and the Relic was slightly unsettling.
Gyou blew out a breath, his mien
slightly annoyed. Annoyed that he had been diverted from his
goal by something that was both intensely painful and would
probably prove to be completely useless. He continued on his way
to Dr. Shirai’s personal laboratory. Once he stood at the door,
Gyou decided that he would also make an inquiry about the status
of the Unit Remover. It wouldn’t do to have Dr. Shirai become
suspicious about his motivations, after all.
The man may have been an irksome,
aggravating, sniveling little cockroach, but for the moment he
was still useful to Gyou’s overall plans. That thought caused a
secretive smirk to work its way onto Gyou’s face. Perhaps, once
he had fully fashioned the Murakami boy into a Zoalord loyal to
him, Gyou would give him all the knowledge he needed to become a
competent replacement for both Dr. Shirai and that annoying
Balkus. Gyou chuckled. Yes,
that idea definitely appeals to me. I think I will do that.
Now that he stood in front of the door
to Dr. Shirai’s laboratory, Gyou keyed in his entrance code and
walked inside. There were strange sounds coming from the glass
case where Dr. Shirai had helped him to hide the Remover when he
had dug it out of its resting place in the Relic and brought it
the man in the first place. Shirai seemed to be very excited
about something, pacing and muttering to himself as he always
did when he had either found something extremely important, or
even when he just thought that he had.
"I must report this to Commander Gyou at
once!" Shirai said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together
with obvious glee.
When he turned around to leave his
laboratory, he didn’t notice that Gyou was standing right in
front of him. Shirai ended up walking right into him in what
Gyou thought would have been a good scene for one of those
idiotic sitcoms that he hated so much. Firmly reigning in his
urge to smash Shirai’s skull, Gyou straightened his coat in an
effort to distract himself while Shirai made an effort to gather
his wits. Such as they were.
"What in blazes are you doing in my… Oh!
Commander Gyou!" Shirai was obviously both flustered and
surprised. "I was just going to go and get you."
Shirai was smiling, and for a moment
Gyou wondered if his missing teeth were due to poor dental
hygiene or if someone had finally gotten fed up with his inane
blather and punched him in the mouth. It was an interesting
thing to consider, and it also kept Gyou’s mind off of a few of
the more painful things that he would have liked to do to the
man.
"What did you intend to tell me,
doctor?"
"Oh, yes," Shirai nodded
sycophantically. "The Remover. It reacted to that strange,
powerful vibration that was emitted from the Relic five minutes
ago," here Shirai paused, looking at Gyou. "You
did
notice that vibration, didn’t you Commander?"
Idiot. Of course I noticed it,
seeing as I was probably the one to cause it in the first place.
"I noticed it," Gyou said
neutrally.
"Well, the Remover was somehow activated
when that massive vibration from the Relic ensued," Shirai said.
"I was only going to ask you to come down here so you could test
if this theory of mine will pan out."
"What do you need me to do?" Gyou asked.
"If you could just transform into your
Zoalord form," Shirai rubbed his hands together, evidently
expecting something. "We could find out if the Remover will
respond to your bio-energy. I have found that it runs on
bio-energy, but I am still not sure if it will respond to your
own bio-energy, Commander. I mean to say that I am fairly sure
that it will, but there are still other factors that I have not
yet managed to determine-"
Shirai was rambling to himself,
something that annoyed Gyou to no end, so Gyou tuned him out and
focused on the one important thing that Shirai had said in his
entire idiotic spiel. Removing his jacket, since he rather
doubted that the disk that had in the pocket could withstand
being exposed to the energies of subspace, Gyou draped it over
one of the freestanding computer consoles that Shirai had set up
in the room.
The laboratory itself was a haphazard
scattering of freestanding computer consoles amid various
bundles of wires and cables. There were any number of things to
trip on, and the one time Balkus had visited he had taken one
look at the mess and had never come back again. So in a way,
Gyou was glad that for all the detritus on the floor, for all
the myriad tripping hazards that were everywhere that one might
try to put their feet. It meant that he had to be careful how he
walked, true, but it also kept Balkus out of his hair.
Once Gyou was sure he was rid of
everything that he did not want to expose to the unpredictable
energies of subspace, Gyou focused his thoughts down to a single
point. He felt his inner energies respond, and then Gyou started
to feel the familiar and exhilarating sensation of his body
growing larger and more powerful. His thirty-nine Zoacrystals
emerged from their hiding places in his human flesh. Gyou could
feel it when his transformation into his Zoalord form was
complete, as the claws sprouted from the ends of his fingers to
replace his useless fingernails.
"Now, what was it you wanted me to do?"
Gyou asked, his voice now sounding like that of an apocalyptic
doomsday machine instead of his usual low, husky tones.
"I want to see if the Remover will
respond to your bio-energy, Commander Gyou," Shirai said.
Gyou was thankful that at least this
time Shirai had the sense to shut up once he had said what he
needed to. Walking over to the glass case that held the Unit
Remover, Gyou carefully hit the release button with his clawed
finger. The case opened without fuss, or even much sound, and
soon Gyou noticed that the Remover was indeed reacting to
something. Whether or not it would react the same way to Gyou’s
own bio-energy was still to be discovered, though.
If it didn’t, Gyou would lean
heavily on Shirai to discover an alternate means to control the
Remover. And he would also step up the development of the
Murakami boy’s Zoalord body. After all it was always better to
have more than one trump card, especially when dealing with
someone as powerful as Alkanphel was rumored to be. But all of
that would be a consequence of his
not
being able to use the Remover for some reason. It was Gyou’s
intention to be able to possess the Remover and use it for his
own purposes.