He hoped he was wrong, but something
about the way they moved—the way his Guyver was reacting to
them—made him fairly sure that he was right.
One of the Zoanoids lifted its head,
letting off a shriek that Sean thought would have been more
appropriate coming from a bird of prey. Then all of them
charged, galloping on all-fours, their pinchers snapping at the
air and some kind of weird green drool dribbling from their
insect-like mouths. The soldiers of the Hunter Division fired
into the mass of charging Zoanoids, but they leapt out of the
path of the barrage with more agility and speed than their huge
bulk would have even hinted at.
Even Sean had a bit of trouble keeping
up with the movements of the Zoanoids, and his senses had been
enhanced by the Guyver. He didn’t even want to think about what
the normal soldiers were going through, fighting those things.
Without another thought, Sean charged into the fray. Those
furry, bug Zoanoids were fast, but they couldn’t be any real
match for a Guyver. They just couldn’t be.
XxXxX
Ryan was just about to get out of bed
and see if there were any bathrooms in the immediate vicinity,
someone else came into the hospital room—someone severely built;
someone who definitely looked like trouble. Ryan tensed
slightly, careful to make sure that Mr. Badass didn’t notice him
doing so, since it really wouldn’t have endeared him to the guy
if he’d seen Ryan tensing up just at the sight of him.
Or maybe it would have, and in that case
Ryan didn’t want to give the jerk the satisfaction of knowing
just how much his presence affected him.
"The nurse
said
you were up," Mr. Badass said, sounding gruff and at the same
time completely disinterested in what he was doing at the
moment.
Ryan figured he could work with that.
When Mr. Badass walked up behind the bed he was still on and
started pushing, Ryan leaned back and tried to make it look like
he was relaxed. All the while, though, he was wondering just
what the hell was going on.
"Hey, big guy, just where are we going?"
Ryan asked, even as he crossed his arms behind his head and made
a concerted effort to appear relaxed.
"Can’t tell you," Mr. Badass said
shortly.
Strike one,
Ryan thought grimly, clenching his teeth briefly. "What’s going
to happen to me?"
"Can’t say."
Strike two.
"Where am I, anyway?"
"That’s really none of your business,
kid."
Strike three; I am so outta here.
"Well, if that’s what you think…"
Lunging sideways suddenly, Ryan
threw himself over the side of the bed. Then, before Mr. Badass
could get out more than a few surprised syllables, Ryan ducked
under the bed and leapt out from the other side. Getting to his
feet, he ran—he may not have known where exactly he was, but one
thing he was sure of was that whoever Mr. Badass was, he didn’t
want to have anything to do with him. And so he was going to
haul ass out of here, wherever
here
turned out to be. Turning his head at the sound of heavy
footfalls behind him, Ryan saw that Mr. Badass was following
him.
He’d pretty much expected something like
that to happen, since the guy hadn’t seemed like the type to
take his escape well. Not that Ryan gave a flying fuck about
what Mr. Badass thought of him, but still—the guy looked pretty
buff. Maybe he should start looking for somewhere to lose the
guy, but the wall looming just ten feet in front of him startled
him almost enough to stop him in his tracks.
Since that would have been an
extremely bad
idea, what with Mr. Badass hot on his heels and all, Ryan turned
the corner into the hallway he’d seen out of the corner of his
eye. Mr. Badass tried to come after him, pretty much like Ryan
had expected. Seeing him almost crash headfirst into the wall
was pretty funny, though, and it gave Ryan at least
some
hope about his current situation.
Can’t corner worth a damn; I can work
with this.
Mr. Badass evidently heard Ryan laughing
at him, because he shot Ryan the filthiest glare he could, and
Ryan grinned back, flipping him off just as he lost sight of him
around the corner. The hallway in front of him was empty, but
Ryan had the distinct feeling then that that situation wasn’t
going to last very long—not with him loose and Mr. Badass so
obviously chasing after him.
Whatever screwed-up hospital this
place was—and it had to be
seriously screwed-up, given
the fact that he’d managed to catch a glimpse of actual
restraints
on that bed just before
he’d run like hell—Ryan was willing to put at least some money
on there being orderlies here. Or, more likely, some kind of
strong-guy guards, like those hairy, sweaty, no-necked, severely
mentally deficient guys that he’d always made it a point to
strenuously
avoid
in school.
This is going to be just a joy,
Ryan thought sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Looking for
someplace to hide that Mr. Badass or his cohorts wouldn’t think
to look for him, Ryan heard the man running after him.
Well, this day officially sucks.
XxXxX
Sean had long since learned that,
whatever breed of Zoanoids these new ones were, they were more
dangerous than any other that he’d ever faced before. Their
claws were extremely sharp, and what was worse, they exuded some
kind of acid that was powerful enough to dissolve even the
Guyver’s tough armor. He’d been a lot more careful to stay out
of spitting-range when he was facing those things.
He still found it strange that
these things would actually
spit the acid at him, rather
than having it come out of some other kind of nozzle like
Panadyne’s had been set on his shoulders. But as one of the
buglike, white Zoanoids leaped at him, Sean found that the
spitting wasn’t quite so funny anymore. Now it was dangerous
again.
He also knew that he had to find a way
to get past their heads and the long, sharp pinchers that stuck
out of their backs. Their heads, despite the fact that their
necks looked about a foot long, weren’t very flexible. Then
again, that was probably why they had the pincers in the first
place: to keep any of their faster targets from being able to
get a shot at their heads. Racing at the nearest white-furred,
insectile Zoanoid—one that was harassing a group of ACTF
Hunters—Sean zigzagged to avoid the acid that it had started
spitting at him.
Once he had gotten within
stabbing-range of the Zoanoid’s pincers, he was even more
careful to avoid getting caught by them. It wasn’t that he was
afraid of the pincers themselves, since the Guyver’s armor was
probably tough enough to stand up to them, as Sean didn’t know
of any Zoanoid that could pierce the Guyver’s armor just by
scratching it, but he knew they
would
be able to hold him in place long enough for the Zoanoid to spit
enough acid at him to incapacitate him.
Moving out of the way of the long,
stabbing pincers, he managed to leap up onto the Zoanoid’s back.
Grabbing onto the base of the long, spider-like legs that the
pincers were attached to, he extended the sword on the Guyver’s
left arm and slammed it deep into the yielding flesh of the
Zoanoid’s back, just below the thing’s left shoulder. Sean was
exultant, at least until the pain hit him, and then he wasn’t
quite sure who screamed louder— him or the Zoanoid.
Ripping his blade out of the
Zoanoid’s back, Sean saw the damage that the Zoanoid’s blood –
blood
of all things – had done to his armor. The blade on his arm was
eaten through almost entirely, and even the armor itself showed
signs of corrosion. But what mattered far more than the damage
to his armor, although that in itself was very worrying was the
pain that he was in. What the
hell is this thing—some kind of Xenomorph?!
Either someone had been watching
too many Alien
movies, or- Sean was in too much pain from the Zoanoid’s
corrosive blood to finish that thought. What was even worse was
that the Zoanoid had thrashed hard enough to throw him off, and
it was now turning toward him with murder in its four red eyes.
Sean dodged, just as a particularly large spray of acid was
discharged from the Zoanoid’s mandibled mouth.
Ducking out of the way as the white
Zoanoid spat at him twice more, he leaped backwards and out of
the way of a stab from all four of the pinchers. Panting, he
looked back over his right shoulder as his sensors alerted him
to the other Zoanoid closing in on him. It was another of the
white ones, of course, obviously trying to help the first one
double-team him. While he hated Chronos for making these
Zoanoids, Sean had to wonder just how they had come up with them
in the first place.
He had never seen anything even
remotely like them in all the time he’d been fighting Chronos
and the Zoanoids they’d created. Sure, he had faced off against
his share of insect-like Zoanoids, but none of them had
possessed extra limbs, and more importantly
none
of them had been able to spit
acid. Sure, there had been
that one that had looked like a rabid bunny and had spit some
kind of sticky, saplike stuff at him, but that thing hadn’t been
what anyone would call dangerous.
None of the Zoanoids that Sean had ever
faced had been this dangerous. These things weren’t even
standing still long enough for him to use the massive cannon in
the Guyver’s chest to destroy them the way that he’d done with
Crane when he’d become a Guyver-Zoanoid. On top of that, though,
they were too fast for Sean to be confident of scoring more than
a glancing hit on them with that weapon, and stabbing them to
death was obviously out, since he certainly wasn’t going to
forget the pain of having parts of his arm dissolving in that
Zoanoid’s acid blood anytime soon.
The sense of something fast coming at
him from behind caught by the Guyver’s head sensors, and Sean
leaped out of the way. Thinking it was another one of those
white Zoanoids, Sean charged up the laser in the Guyver’s
forehead and turned to confront his new opponent, but it turned
out that he needn’t have worried so much, as it turned out to be
the ACTF’s Hunter Division firing on the attacking Zoanoids.
Their first shot hit the armored shoulders of one of the white
Zoanoids, not really causing much damage but still managing to
disorient the Zoanoid slightly.
The next shot hit above the armored
shoulder, but below the armor-plating on the creature’s neck. It
must have ignited the Zoanoid’s acidic blood, because the next
thing Sean knew the Zoanoid had burst into roaring flames. The
other eight Zoanoids, seeing the fate that would soon be theirs,
scattered and kept low to the ground. Sean didn’t think that
that was likely to help them, since the ACTF was now aware of
just how to kill those bug-headed bastards.
Looking around for any other
Zoanoids—preferably ones that
didn’t come equipped with
deadly Guyver-melting acid blood—Sean failed to spot any. This
group seemed to be made up of only the acid equipped Zoanoids,
which didn’t sit well with Sean at all.
XxXxX
Since he’d been headed to that area
anyway, and since Kenji had seemed to be getting bored cooped up
in Cloud Tower, Imakarum had decided to take his son to the
South American Section to visit with Lord Waferdanos. Kenji
seemed to be very eager to learn about the workings of Chronos’
Zoanoid Development Division, and so Imakarum thought that it
would be good for him to see another Division with other
Zoanoids being developed there.
Even though the Zoanoid Development
Divisions within the various branches of Chronos were all laid
out on the same basic floor plan, the Zoanoids developed there
were distinctly disparate from one another, especially the ones
that had been developed to thrive in tropical environments, as
Lord Waferdanos’ were. They would be quite different than those
that were developed in more temperate climates like Japan. It
would be very instructive for Kenji to see these Zoanoids,
especially if what Lord Fried’rich said had about his interest
turned out to be true.
For now, though, Kenji seemed enthralled
enough just looking at the thick jungle passing beneath him that
Imakarum didn’t want to disturb him.