The telepathic contact from the other
Zoalord cut off, leaving Sharru once again alone inside her own
head. That was a welcome change after having so many people in
her mind with her. Walking over to the cracked processing-tank
that held the Proto-Zoalord in his stasis sleep, Sharru gave it
one good, hard punch. The weakened Plexiglas splintered around
her fist, and the fluid pressure inside the tank did the rest.
Well mostly, since Sharru herself still
had to rip open the bottom of the processing-tank to be able to
get the unconscious Proto-Zoalord out. But all of that was easy,
and after Sharru had pulled off all of the monitoring devices
from the Proto-Zoalord’s body, she was left to sit with him and
wait for the other guys that that other Zoalord had said he
would be sending. Cradling the Proto-Zoalord in her arms, Sharru
wondered just who he was.
Had he worked for Chronos before getting
slated for processing as a Proto-Zoalord? And had he really
known just what he was getting into when he’d volunteered for
the procedure? It was interesting to think about those kinds of
things, despite the fact that Sharru knew she wouldn’t be
getting any answers to her questions. The Proto-Zoalord was kind
of nice to look at, even in spite of being caught at the stage
where he looked like some bizarre cross between a Proto-Zoalord
and a human.
He’d look a lot better when he could
transform back into his human form, Sharru knew. His long,
bluish-black hair hadn’t yet been lost to the transformation,
and was now soaked through from the processing fluid. The rest
of his body wasn’t much better off, and it was odd for Sharru to
be holding someone who so obviously still belonged in a
processing-tank. When the small army of Standard Zoanoids came
up to her, Sharru was grateful to see them.
"Well, at least we don’t have to ask if
that’s the guy," a Gregole quipped.
"Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious,"
Sharru said, smirking. "You guys need my help for anything
else?"
"No, you go on, shark-girl. We can
handle things here," one of the Ramochis said.
"Good, cause I’ve still got rounds to
make," she said, laying the Proto-Zoalord back on the floor and
standing up.
"Go on and finish your rounds,
shark-girl. We can take care of things here."
XxXxX
Gregole watched the sharkelike female
Zoanoid leave, then turned his attention back to the
Proto-Zoalord she had left laying on the floor. If he’d had to
hazard a guess, Gregole would have said that this guy was about
midway through Stage One.
"Let’s get him off this unstable floor
before it starts collapsing right out from under us," Gregole
ordered the rest of his unit.
The other Zoanoids nodded, and quickly
went to work moving the Proto-Zoalord. The seven of them had
been able to retrieve one of the many transport containers from
the storage area. This one was specifically intended to
transport Zoanoids from one branch of Chronos to another. Old
man Balkus had at first thought the indignity of having a
Proto-Zoalord transported in a container that had originally
been meant for a Zoanoid was too much.
Gregole had almost given into a rather
strong urge to laugh. It had just been so damned ridiculous that
old Balkus would think that the so-called dignity of an
unconscious Proto-Zoalord was more important than his survival.
Ridiculous, and completely in character for the old crank.
Luckily Alkanphel, who seemed to have a lot of sway over old
Balkus for a Zoalord Gregole had never met before, had managed
to talk him down.
Picking up the halfway-transformed
Proto-Zoalord, Gregole carried him over to the holding tank. The
tank itself was filled with something that looked a lot like
processing fluid. The guy named Alkanphel had said it was stasis
fluid, and Gregole figured that he probably knew what he was
talking about. Alkanphel had been the one who’d told them where
to find the transport container, after all.
Setting the Proto-Zoalord down inside
the tank-full of stasis fluid, Gregole was helped by a pair of
Ramochis to close the container and lock it up tight. Without a
word exchanged, six of the seven Zoanoids took hold of the
handles on both sides of the transport container, and Gregole
led them out of the collapsing remains of the laboratory.
XxXxX
The battle was over, with no losses
suffered by any of his children. The Guyver-child had somehow
managed to engage the Relic’s hyperspace capability even as the
Relic had disintegrated with him inside it, removing the black
Guyver from battle and teleporting him somewhere. Alkanphel was
not entirely certain just how the boy had managed it, but such
things were not his main concern at the moment. He was pleased,
however, that the boy Kenji Murakami had been recovered.
It would have been irritating on a
somewhat personal level to have the child die merely because the
Mt. Minakami facility was collapsing. Striding calmly over to
the dead Proto-Zoalord, Alkanphel swept up Reholt’s Control
Zoacrystal as he passed it. He had dropped it sometime during
the battle. Reholt himself was gone, most likely dead after
having fallen into the magma chamber that had been opened by one
of Tuarhan’s attacks.