Gyou picked the Remover up by what
looked to be its base, and was only slightly surprised to
discover that what he had taken to be the back of the Remover
was in actuality its front. The front of the Remover opened up
to reveal a long, intricately carved structure with what looked
like an exact copy of a Guyver’s Control Medal on the end of it.
The back end opened up as well, and Gyou stuck his hand inside.
He was pleased to discover that the Remover did indeed have a
handle.
It was hidden inside the back of
the device, yes, but at least it was still there. Once Gyou had
wrapped his large hand around the Remover’s handle, a set of
five matched antennae extended from the Remover. Three from the
outside of the casing and two from the inside of the device, one
on either side of the Control Medal lookalike.
An interesting configuration,
Gyou thought to himself. I
wonder just how this device works.
Well, time enough to figure that
out later, I suppose. Gyou
smirked. Now all he needed to do was find out just where that
annoying Guyver I had managed to hide himself, and then all his
plans would be one step closer to fruition.
"You have done most admirable work, as
usual, Dr. Shirai," Gyou said, since he had found that the man
had always responded best to flattery. "I thank you."
As he transformed back into his
human form, Gyou set the Remover back in its case almost
reverently. One piece of his plan had gone just as he had wanted
it to, and now Gyou intended to move on to the next. He still
needed to design a Zoalord body for Murakami’s son, after all.
Walking over to one of the computer consoles that actually
wasn’t
being used for anything that Gyou could readily see, he inserted
the disk in a terminal and sat down on the only chair in the
room.
It was one of those wheeled, office-type
chairs, convenient for getting around quickly. But Gyou couldn’t
help the thought that it would have been a great deal more so on
a surface that was covered so thickly by cables and wires. Gyou
wondered for a moment just how many times Shirai had had to pick
this chair up and carry it, so as to avoid one clump of wires or
another on the floor. Pushing aside those pointless thoughts,
Gyou turned his attention to what he was really concentrating on
here.
Thinking of how the Murakami boy’s face
and body had looked when he had seen him in the processing-tank,
Gyou had a rather interesting inspiration. Balkus, who was the
one that had created most if not all of the other Zoalords’
battle forms – even his own as Gyou recalled – had never created
something that Gyou had personally found aesthetically
appealing. Now that he was creating a Zoalord of his own, there
was no reason that he had to follow the same pattern that Balkus
had established.
Looking over at Shirai, Gyou found that
the old scientist had been predictably absorbed by his research
again. In fact, Gyou was willing to wager that he could have
done anything short of exploding a bomb in Shirai’s ear without
distracting the old man from whatever he was doing now. Smiling
with self-satisfaction, Gyou called up the data on the disk that
he had brought into the laboratory with him.
It was a base design for a certain
Proto-Zoalord form, Murakami’s own in fact. While he might hate
the man a great deal on general principal, Gyou had to admit
that Murakami’s battle-form was a fair amount more aesthetically
pleasing than his own. Balkus’ work of course. Some things would
have to be changed, of course, since even Murakami’s battle-form
wasn’t altogether pleasing to his eyes. Gyou huffed, lacing his
fingers together and resting his chin on them.
The face was the first thing that Gyou
intended to change, since he barely found it appealing at all.
It was too wide for one thing, and for another there was that
cleft in the chin. Gyou disliked those since he found them a bit
visually distracting. And then there was also the fact that
Murakami’s son’s face was both too sharp-featured and too
rounded to benefit from being rearranged like that. Typing in a
few commands, Gyou got the computer to focus on the
Proto-Zoalord’s face.
As he made his desired changes to the
Proto-Zoalord’s genetic structure, the image changed to reflect
what he had done. The Proto-Zoalord’s face narrowed until it was
almost exactly the same shape as it was in Murakami’s son’s
human form. Satisfied with what he had done so far, Gyou looked
over the other features. The Proto-Zoalord’s face was a fair
amount more square-jawed than that of Murakami’s son, so Gyou
changed it until it looked exactly like his human form.
Nodding with some pride for his
accomplishments, Gyou turned his attention to the facial
markings that he had noticed. Without the cleft in the chin
there was really no reason to keep the triangle of under-armor
that showed through on the chin itself, so Gyou removed it. This
action gave the lower half of the face an almost mask-like
appearance, which Gyou personally preferred over the original.
As Gyou considered the other attributes of the Proto-Zoalord’s
face, he decided to dispense with the under-armor on the
underside of the chin and around the eyes as well.
Making some more changes to the
Proto-Zoalord’s genetic structure, Gyou watched in satisfaction
as the under-armor was covered. The face now had a definite
mask-like look to it. All that now remained of the under-armor
on the face were those parts on the top of the head near the
main Zoacrystal, the strip down the center of the nose, and the
two oddly teardrop-shaped patches under the eyes.
Considering the face again, Gyou found
that he thought the ‘teardrops’ made the face look almost like
one of those clown dolls with porcelain heads that his mother
used to collect. The ones whose name he could never remember.
Making a few more minute changes, Gyou watched as the patches
extended and changed shape until they resembled a pair of slash
marks. Or alternately a pair of crescent moons, if one was in
the mood to be poetic about such things.
Now that he had made all the desired
changes to the face, Gyou turned his attention to the long
structures that extended from both the underside and the top of
the ears. The way they stuck out so far, while it was almost
exactly the same as his own battle-form, wasn’t very appealing
to Gyou personally. Altering another part of the Proto-Zoalord’s
DNA, Gyou watched as the Proto-Zoalord’s ear structures – Gyou
didn’t know what else to call them – slowly came into line with
his head.
Once Gyou was satisfied with the changes
he had made to that one part, Gyou input a simple command and
the computer turned the Proto-Zoalord’s head so that Gyou was
able to see it as if he was looking at it from the left side.
Seeing how the ear-structures stuck almost straight out from the
back of the head, Gyou considered them. Changing the genetic
structure again, Gyou watched as they curved gracefully upward
until they resembled the crest of some exotic bird.
Now that his work on the head was
complete, there was only the matter of the body.