Once Imakarum found a clearing—one that
was not liberally scattered with the remains of an insect-eaten
tent—he stopped. For a moment, as he settled Kenji back on his
feet, Imakarum wondered what had happened to his son’s books,
then realized that if the heavy canvas of the tent had barely
survived the elements intact, then there was no chance that any
of Kenji’s books had done so.
Imakarum found that slightly depressing,
but the simple fact was that books could be easily replaced.
Kenji, however, was unique, and even more so now, considering
all the things that had happened to him.
Imakarum, feeling Kenji’s warm breath on
his cheek, turned his head to look at his son. Kenji’s eyes were
closed and he was leaning against Imakarum’s chest. Imakarum
gently patted Kenji’s head and let him rest against his body.
Teleportation, especially the first time, could be rather
disorienting.
-I suppose you’ll want to hide now,
Kenji-chan.-
-Oh, right,-
Kenji said, surprising Imakarum with the fact that his
telepathic voice sounded exactly like the one that he’d had
before he had emerged from the processing-tank.
But the more Imakarum thought about it,
the more that it made sense that Kenji would
use that voice. It was the one that he knew, the one that he
expected from himself. It would most likely take a great deal of
time before Kenji was used to hearing his new voice, and then
his telepathic voice would most likely change to match that one.
Though, truthfully, Imakarum hoped that that would not happen.
-Go and hide, Kenji. I’ll give you to
the count of twenty, and then I’ll come and find you.-
-Okay, Dad,-
Kenji said, kissing Imakarum on the
cheek and then hurrying off, presumably to find a good hiding
place.
Imakarum smiled, as he watched Kenji
disappear into the forest. Turning around and leaning against
the tree that he had ended up standing in front of, Imakarum
closed his eyes and started to count.
XxXxX
Kenji moved through the forest
almost silently, though to him it sounded like he was stomping
over the ground and kicking up bucketfulls of leaves. He didn’t
know just how much his own hearing had been enhanced, and so he
wondered how he’d managed to mess up something his dad had
taught him even though he remembered the lessons so well. It
wasn’t like he’d been sleeping long enough to forget something
like that.
Wrinkling his nose in frustration, Kenji tried harder to make
his footsteps light and soft the way that Dad had taught him to.
XxXxX
Aptom, figuring that he could take at
least a few hours off from watching his prey’s friends and go
hunt some tasty Hyper Zoanoids, moved through the forest around
what used to be Mt. Minakami. He knew Chronos would probably be
trying to conduct at least a few salvage operations, on the off
chance that something had survived that little cataclysm.
Though, granted, there weren’t many things that could have
survived a volcanic eruption.
Still, with Chronos being as paranoid
about security as they were, if they weren’t looking for things
to salvage, they were probably looking for things to destroy.
After all, they’d definitely want to make sure that no one would
be able to connect anything that had happened in the area to
them. They’d use strength-enhanced Zoanoids for the lifting and
carting-away and Hypers for demolishing anything that either
couldn’t be carted away or wasn’t worth the trouble but could
still be connected to them. Aptom was counting on the Hyper
Zoanoids still being there for him to munch on.
Suddenly, Aptom felt a powerful
presence moving closer and closer to him. It felt like a
Zoalord, so Aptom forgot about the itty-bitty Hyper Zoanoids and
started tailing the Zoalord. He could always go back and snack
on a few Hyper Zoanoids later, but the opportunity to eat a
Zoalord
wouldn’t come around all that often. Grinning hungrily, Aptom
stalked after the Zoalord he was sensing.
Aptom found him moving softly through
the forest, with the manner of someone who was looking for
something. He felt about maybe half as strong as Gyou, but that
only meant that it would be all the more simple to catch him and
eat him. Stalking the little Zoalord proved to be a little bit
more difficult than Aptom had originally thought it would be,
since the Zoalord didn’t seem to have any real destination in
mind.
Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t
head the Zoalord off somewhere.
Scrabbling up a fairly tall tree,
Aptom started leaping from one treetop to the next, pacing the
Zoalord through the forest. Every time Aptom leaped, though, the
Zoalord’s head would turn, and he would look around as if trying
to pinpoint the source of the noises he was hearing. This was
how Aptom found out that the guy he was stalking really
was
a Zoalord; a Zoanoid wouldn’t have been able to hear Aptom.
It was also how Aptom found out that the
Zoalord had a nice face—the kind of face that people tended to
trust, or at the very least not take any notice of. It was just
too bad that he wouldn’t be able to use that particularly
adorable face to charm any of the dumber Hyper Zoanoids into
going along with him once he’d finished eating the Zoalord. But,
then again, maybe after he’d eaten the Zoalord there wouldn’t be
any ‘charm’ required.
Aptom grinned at the thought of
forcing his meals to go wherever he wanted them to with sheer
willpower. That would be fun.
Leaping out of the tree he was currently
perched in, Aptom landed right in front of the Zoalord. The way
the man yelped and jumped back in surprise made Aptom snicker,
but then the Zoalord got a definite curious look on his face.
Aptom didn’t know quite what to think of that response—it wasn’t
one he’d ever gotten before.
"Hi. Um, who are you?" the Zoalord
asked, peering more closely at Aptom than any of his meals ever
had before.
Of course, most of his meals were
scared out of their minds when he showed an interest in them, so
certainly none of them
had expressed any interest in
him.
Well, any beyond running for their lives of course, Aptom
thought with a mental snicker. Then again, it might be fun to
play with this meal a little before he ate it, because either
this little Zoalord was really stupid, or he just hadn’t heard
of Aptom before.
Either way, Aptom wasn’t one to pass up
a chance to mess with his meal’s head before he ate him.
"Me? I’m just your friendly,
neighborhood Aptom." He smirked at the little Zoalord.
"Aptom? That’s a funny name. What are
you doing around here?"
"Oh, I just figured I’d visit some
of my old buddies from Chronos. What are
you
doing all the way out here?"
"I’m playing hide-and-seek with my dad.
Oh," he interrupted himself, seemingly remembering something,
and meanwhile Aptom tried to subtly pick his jaw up out of the
crater it had made when it’d hit the ground, dust it off, and
stick it back onto his face. "I should really go hide now—Dad’s
going to come and find me soon."