Panting, his left leg nothing but a
barely-moving stump from the knee down, Zektor painfully made
his way to an as-yet unknown destination. He’d transformed back
into his human form, and managed to find a good sturdy support
beam that he’d bent into a useable crutch, some time ago. And
now, as he struggled to find some place to rest where the
ceiling didn’t look like it would fall and bury him if he
breathed too hard, Zektor couldn’t stop the tears from streaming
down his face.
He’d failed, finally and
ultimately, to stop Aptom from killing the last of Team Five.
All of his friends were now just parts of that Zoanoid-eating
thing.
Elegen, Zancrus, Gaster and Darzerb. Hell even him if not for
his last, desperate gamble. Dr. Balkus would probably
congratulate Zektor for his alleged quick-thinking, but the hard
truth was that he’d all but panicked when he’d felt Aptom’s
cells invading his body.
Shooting his leg off and burrowing
through the floor to escape had just been something Zektor had
done to give himself a few seconds to think. He’d figured that
Aptom would just come right after him again. Running with only
one leg, in his heavy Hyper Zoanoid body no less, wasn’t
something that Zektor ever wanted to try doing
ever
again. Moving in his human body was easier, of course, but now
he had to deal with the tears.
He just couldn’t seem to stop
himself from crying now. Elegen was one of the greatest people –
well okay, Hyper Zoanoids – that Zektor had known in all the
time that he had worked for Chronos. And the other three had
been like brothers to him. Boisterous, gregarious, occasionally
annoying brothers. They had been his
family.
The five of them had all been together for longer than Zektor
could even remember.
In fact, Zektor was sure that
there hadn’t been a time when Team Five hadn’t been a team. If
there was, he
sure as hell didn’t know about it. Zektor didn’t know what he
was going to do now, without his friends by his side or at his
back. He did know one thing though: Aptom
wasn’t
going to get away with this.
XxXxX
Staring through the body-sized
hole in the wall that Reholt had made, Alkanphel smiled calmly.
The Supreme Zoalord could feel
the fear and desperation radiating from the mind of his former
Twelfth Zoalord. It was interesting to watch the indecision
flicker briefly across Reholt’s face, before his features
settled into an indifferent mask. Reholt’s thoughts still gave
him away, of course.
"As you can see, Reholt, your
struggling is pointless," Alkanphel said calmly.
I might as well make one last
attempt, if only to amuse myself.
"No matter what you attempt, you are not going to overcome me.
Why not just give up?"
The human phrase ‘the hell I will!’ was
what Alkanphel picked up just after he had finished speaking.
Even if he had not been able to read the minds of his Zoalords,
Alkanphel would have been able to read Reholt’s answer from the
expression on his face. He had been right from the outset: the
human who had once been known as Reichman Wilhelm was not to be
trusted.
However, Reholt
had
at least been useful for one last thing: he had found his own
successor. All that remained for Alkanphel to do now was to
dispose of Reholt, and Chronos’ plans could continue apace. Of
course, teaching a child the ways of a Zoalord would most likely
absorb a great deal of his time from this point on, especially
since Alkanphel did not want to chance having another traitor in
his organization.
The matter of the boy, though, was a
matter for another time.
Now, however… the power that
Alkanphel could sense building inside Reholt’s body caused the
Supreme Zoalord to focus on him to the exclusion of all else.
What does that arrogant
creature think to accomplish? He must know by now that there is
no way that he can defeat me. So what… no. He cannot possibly be
thinking to use that attack inside this facility. He would
expend almost all of his energy, not to mention the damage that
it would do to this facility.
Still, it did indeed seem as if
Reholt was going to attempt one last attack. Alkanphel just did
not exactly know whether to hope that Reholt
was
foolish enough to attempt that attack, or whether he would come
to his senses before that point. Considering that this facility
would be all but destroyed if Reholt used the attack that it was
seeming more and more likely that he was building to; there was
still the fact that Reholt would exhaust himself it he used it.
So at this point, there was somewhat
more of an advantage to the situation than a disadvantage.
Still, there would be the matter of withstanding Reholt’s
attack. Something that Alkanphel was sure that he could do.
"I will warn you one last time,
Reholt," Alkanphel said, just to watch Reholt fume. "Do
not
try my patience."
Alkanphel again watched as differing
emotions, mostly anger and hatred this time, flickered across
Reholt’s face. Now there was no doubt that Reholt would use his
pseudo-black hole, using up most of the energy that Alkanphel
had not yet forced him to use when he had been pursuing Reholt
through Mt. Minakami. The facility itself would be utterly
destroyed, of course. However, that could not be helped, and a
new processing facility could be built to serve this area.
-My Lord! Please escape from this place!
Gyou’s next attack is-
-I know, Hamilcal.-
-You… know?-
-Oh yes, I know very well just what our
impetuous former Commander is going to attempt. In fact, I look
forward to watching him try.-
-My Lord?-
-Hamilcal, we both know that Reholt does
not have any attacks that would be capable of defeating me.-
-Yes,-
Hamilcal’s nervousness still came through clearly.
-I will perhaps require your assistance,
however I am quite certain that I will be able to deal with
Reholt as he is now.-
-Yes, my Lord.-
Turning his attention back to
Reholt, Alkanphel saw that all of Reholt’s Zoacrystals were
glowing. This was a sure sign that Reholt was about to use his
pseudo-black hole. I might as
well put on a decent act. No sense in letting the fool creature
know anything. Alkanphel
raised his shield, taking care to make it appear as if he was
frightened. The motes of strange light that were the visual
manifestations of Reholt’s gravity points coalesced into a
single mass in from of him.
And Alkanphel waited.