Dr. Balkus, checking once again to be
certain that he possessed the required tools, restraints, and
chemicals to facilitate the examination and eventual
reconditioning of the Fifth Guyver, cast his telepathic powers
out to monitor the progress of the three Hyper Zoanoids that had
retrieved him. The Fifth Guyver would be in his hands
momentarily.
XxXxX
Sean had gone to the gym, pleading
boredom and citing the fact that Cori would still be in the
meeting to take notes for him on the new, stronger breeds of
Zoanoid that the ACTF had been facing lately. Sean knew that it
was important for them to keep up on the developments at
Chronos, and that the only way he and the other members of the
"Monster Squad" could do that was to listen to the reports given
by the Espionage Division, but that didn’t stop the meetings
from being boring.
And then there was the matter of that
strange feeling that had came over him for a minute—the feeling
that something had just happened, like someone far away had
called to him or something. Now that he’d had a chance to clear
his head, he thought he’d just been under a little too much
stress, since there was no other reason for him to be hearing
things the way he had been.
As he worked himself up to a decent
sweat, Sean though back to that Zoanoid that he’d tangled with
about two and a half months ago. The thing had bragged about
being a hyper and had come closer than any Zoanoid – even Crane
as a Guyver-Zoanoid – had to killing him. The Zoanoid had called
itself Panadyne and had been armed with some kind of liquid that
shot out from huge, twisted nozzles that stuck out of both of
its shoulders—liquids that would explode instantly once they
mixed—not to mention the two long, bony whips that grew out of
Panadyne’s back. Sean still remembered the sight of Sergeant
Betty Lindson, one of the old hands of the Armored Division,
with the front of her armor blown open and the spiked tip of
Panadyne’s bony whip sticking out of her throat.
Up till that day, Sean had never
actually seen
someone get killed by a Zoanoid. He’d seen someone die after
becoming a Zoanoid, but that had been a long time ago, and he
didn’t really remember much about that. Even the soldiers who
fought for the ACTF hadn’t had all that much trouble with the
Zoanoids they’d fought up till then. Of course if Panadyne had
been telling the truth, that was because they’d never had to
face Hyper Zoanoids before.
Sean was hoping that Panadyne was just
bragging, but the fact that the ACTF had started taking more
losses lately seemed to argue that he wasn’t doing any such
thing. Sean shuddered, remembering the red and blue Zoanoids
who’d attacked them only two weeks ago—the ones who’d used those
sound attacks. Two more people had been killed then: Sergeant
Tara Weston and Lieutenant Arnold Berenson of the Mobile
Division.
Sean hadn’t known them very well, but
he’d still mourned their loss at the funeral.
Now, with the Tech Division working on a
new, upgraded version of their powered armor known as the Beta,
Sean was hoping that the new designs would be tough enough to
stand up to Chronos’ Hyper Zoanoids.
XxXxX
Ryan, still groggy from the shot back in
the doctor’s office, slowly rolled over and opened his eyes. The
room looked like a basic doctor’s office, but Ryan wasn’t really
lucid enough to tell what was what just then. When the door
opened and someone walked in, Ryan struggled to sit up and see
who it was, and the orderly, or whoever the frack it was coming
into his room, obviously saw what he was trying to do.
"Not sleeping in anymore, I see. How are
you feeling?" the man asked, as he hurried over to Ryan’s bed
and put his hand on the boy’s forehead.
"Luggshi," Ryan mumbled, meaning ‘like
shit’.
"I’ll take that as ‘not very good’," the
male attendant said, walking up to the bed where Ryan lay and
shining a penlight into his eyes. "Well, your reactions to light
are fine," he observed, then snapped his fingers next to Ryan’s
right ear a few times. Annoyed, Ryan swatted at him. "Well, I
think I can safely say that your hearing hasn’t been affected,"
the nursing attendant said, smiling calmly.
"I really hate you," Ryan muttered,
still not quite coherent.
"That’s what all ornery patients say,"
the nursing attendant said, laughing. "I guess I’d better go
tell Balkus that you’re starting to come around. I guess I’ll
also have to tell him that there haven’t been any adverse
affects. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear that."
"Bastard," Ryan muttered at the nurse’s
retreating back as he slumped back into the bed and proceeded to
fall asleep.
XxXxX
Felinos’ long ears twitched, just
managing to catch the sound of soft footsteps coming up behind
him. He was just starting to turn his head when something was
jammed into his mouth.
"Don’t worry; this won’t take a minute,"
a harsh, mildly psychotic-sounding male voice whispered in his
twitching ear.
Felinos could feel the hand—he knew it
was a hand from the fingers sticking down his throat—starting to
melt into the roof of his mouth. As the burning pain started to
radiate down his throat, Felinos noticed that he was starting to
lose control of his physical functions: his tail fell limp
against the sidewalk, the bone blade clattering against the
concrete.
"This genetic pattern, hmm… I think I’ve
seen it somewh- What the hell?!"
The hand was ripped—actually
ripped,
owing to the fact that it had partially fused to the roof of his
mouth—out, and Felinos fell to his hands and knees. Gagging and
coughing and occasionally spitting out a lump of dislodged flesh
and blood, Felinos turned one baleful yellow eye to look at the
jerk who had tried to kill him.
"So, you’re a Lost Unit like me,
right? What are you doing all the way out here? I didn’t think
Chronos sent our type out on any
real
missions."
"Don’t know what you’re talking about,"
Felinos gagged out, still not quite up to taking full breaths.
"I’m not with Chronos."
"Well, I guess that explains why
you’re all the way out here," the man with the large facial scar
said, flicking his black sunglasses so they flashed in the
light. "Still, why did you come all the way out here? What’s so
special about this
place?"
Felinos didn’t answer, instead turning
his head back to look at the house where they – his once and
future comrades, the ones who didn’t even know he was protecting
them yet – were all staying. He knew that Toshiaki, in human
form, was also standing guard somewhere just out of his line of
sight.
"You still didn’t answer my question,
long ears," the scarred man said, grabbing Felinos’ left ear and
jerking it down hard enough that Felinos’ head went with it.
"What are you doing here?"
"What’s it to
you?"
"There are some people in that house
that I’ve got an interest in," the scarred man said, gently
caressing Felinos’ jaw with his fingertips. "Now, you’re a
fellow Lost Unit, and you said you’re not with Chronos, so I
figure I can trust you. But if you’ve come here to cause any
trouble for the people in that house…" Here the scarred man’s
voice became a purr as he slipped his hand around Felinos’
throat and squeezed slightly. "I’ll make sure you regret it for
a very long time."