Descent into Deception

As Sho made his way out of the house, trying to be careful so no one would notice that he was gone, he listened to make sure that no one was behind him. Sho didn't want anyone else to be put in danger by following him. He didn't want any of his friends to be put in harm's way by trying to help solve a problem that he had caused in the first place.

It was his responsibility to save Yukari and Aptom; it was his fault that they had been captured in the first place. If he hadn't been so slow, Ms. Murakami would have never have been able to capture her like that. And if Aptom hadn't had to defend him from those three Zoalords, then he wouldn't have been captured and frozen the way he had been. Aptom wouldn't have been dying if it weren't for him.

This was his responsibility; Yukari and Aptom were his friends.

"Guy-!"

"Sho, wait!"

Sho turned at Mizuki's voice. "Mizuki? What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing here?!" she demanded, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him close. "What are you trying to do, kill yourself?!"

"I'm sorry, Mizuki," Sho said, feeling torn between staying and leaving by the betrayed look in Mizuki's eyes. "But I have to do this. I can't just abandon Aptom to Chronos. And Yukari; I have to save her. She's a Guyver, like me; and you know how much Chronos hates us. Please understand, I have to stop them from hurting any more of our friends."

"But what if you can't use the Gigantic, Sho? You'll be killed!"

"I know I'm taking a risk by doing this, and I know Chronos announced that they had captured Aptom and Yukari to lure me into a trap, but I have to at least try to save them. Aptom sacrificed himself to save me, and Yukari helped me when Mr. Murakami was," Sho swallowed past a knot in his throat. "Was trying to kill me. I owe them both; I can't just leave them with Chronos."

"Sho..."

"Try not to worry so much about me, Mizuki," Sho said, as he took her hands and squeezed them gently. "I won't try to fight Chronos' Zoanoids. I'll avoid them whenever I can, and I'll dedicate myself to rescuing Yukari and Aptom. I've been inside Cloud Gate before-"

"And that means you know your way around," a very familiar voice finished his sentence for him. "I can't let you go into Cloud Gate alone, Sho. I'll come with you, to help you navigate better and to even the odds against you there."

"Hayami, no! I can't ask you to do something like that!"

"You don't have to ask, Sho," Hayami said, his voice calm. "I'm going to go with you. I worked for three years studying the lowest level of that building. I know how to avoid the patrols, and I know how to get into the computer systems in that building. And I owe Aptom a debt of gratitude for helping to save us when we were attacked by those Zoalords."

"Hayami..." Sho wanted to protest farther; this was his fight, and he didn't want any more of his good friends falling into Chronos' hands. He'd lost enough as it was.

But Hayami didn't look like he would easily back down from this, and every second they wasted meant that Chronos had more of a chance to do horrible things to his friends.

"Sho."

Sho turned to regard Mizuki, who was giving him a look of fierce longing. "You have to make me a promise: you have to promise me that you'll come back alive, no matter what happens."

"I promise," pulling her close so he could hold her tight. "I promise that I'll come back to you, Mizuki. I'll bring Yukari and Aptom back, I promise."

Squeezing Mizuki one last time, Sho let go and turned away. Walking past Hayami as he transformed, Sho took a deep breath and called for the Guyver. Once the bio-armor had fused completely to his body, Sho breathed out and resolved himself to what he was about to do.

Aptom, Yukari; I will save you, I promise.

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Since he was going to be controlling her during her debut anyway, Jabir would often take control of the little girl's physical functions. It was rather entertaining to make the girl open her eyes, nod her head, and look around at the various objects and tables filled with various equipment. Of course, it would have been a great deal more amusing if the little girl had a mind of her own; so that she could try in vain to resist his control.

It would be so much more amusing if the little girl could try fighting him, and he could crush her pitiful defiance into nothingness as he took control of her body. Shin would have never approved, of course; but then, it wasn't any of Shin's business what the three of them were doing. Besides, there was no pressing need for him to know just what they were planning to do with the little girl that they had had transferred to this base.

Tapping into the girl's physical functions again, Jabir chuckled softly as he made her roll her head from side to side, nod, and then blink her eyes with such rapidity that the view through her visual senses became a sort of strobe-ish slideshow image. The girl was a very entertaining little puppet; it would almost be a disappointment when the girl was given her own mind again.

Or at least a semblance of such.

Still, with a mind of her own, the girl would be able to struggle. That would provide him with a modicum of amusement.

"Jabir, I think you should stop playing with little Isis' mind," Luggnagg said. "The Guyver may be paying us a visit soon, and we wouldn't want the boy to get the wrong idea about his little friend, now would we?"

"Of course not," Jabir said, smiling slightly as he relinquished control of the girl's physical functions. "I'll just wait until the right time comes."

"I think we're all waiting for that," Kablarl chuckled, speaking for the first time. "The Guyver boy will probably arrive soon, to try and rescue his little friends."

"Of course, given what happened in Washington, it might be somewhat impetuous for us to be drawing that very creature back to this base," Luggnagg said, in a tone that suggested he was somewhere between serious and amused.

"There has been an attack on this building once before, and this was made by two Gigantic Guyvers," Khan said. "I honestly doubt that one alone will be enough to cause us any significant trouble. Shin will most likely be rather unhappy, but I suppose that is unavoidable."

"Then again, the possibility remains that Sho Fukamachi is unable to use the Gigantic armor," Luggnagg stated. "I don't think Shin is aware of that."

"True," Jabir nodded. "Still, I wonder if the boy had truly lost the ability to transform into the Gigantic. It would indeed be useful for us if that were the case; I simply don't think it would be wise for us to discount the possibility that he was merely at the limits of his strength when he fought us."

"Indeed," Luggnagg said. "Still, there is time. Time for us to formulate a strategy that considers all the variables of this situation. After all, nothing like this has ever happened before: the Gigantic Guyver and the Gigantic Dark appearing at almost the same time."

"Yes," Khan said, leaning back in his chair but not relaxing his hands. "The only time that two Gigantic Guyvers were spotted in the same vicinity at the same time was when Guyver I and his little counterpart attacked us. And we all know what happened to that little girl."

"True," Jabir said, smiling slightly. They knew better than most. Then Jabir's expression became one of mild confusion. "Still, what does that mean for us? Does that mean there are merely two Gigantics instead of four?"

"So it would seem," Luggnagg said, nodding. "Remember that the time Sho Fukamachi lost control of the Gigantic coincided almost exactly with the appearance of Gigantic Dark. And, there is still the fact that Akane Makishima had not been spotted using the Gigantic."

"I would think that would be rather obvious," Khan stated in his sagacious way. "The two Makishimas have left Sho Fukamachi to fend for himself. They even seem to have betrayed the boy."

"Those two are working to expand their military's influence, one step at a time," Luggnagg said, expanding on the point that Khan had brought up. "Now, neither of them seems to have any use for the boy," he smiled coldly. "This is truly a rare opportunity for us. We should send some of our personnel out to investigate; there is a very good chance that we will be able to turn this situation to our own advantage."

The cityscape beneath them glittered with possibilities. Possibilities that the three Zoalords fully intended to capitalize on when the time came.

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Sho panted from exertion; he'd never had to fire the Pressure Cannon continuously for this long. Even when he'd escaped from Purg'stall and the other Zoalords, that hadn't taken anywhere near as long as this seemed to be taking. Sho just hoped that the Guyver would have enough energy to fight when he needed it to.

It wasn't just his own life on the line this time; it was Aptom's and Yukari's, and Mr. Hayami's too. That was why he was going to have to be at the top of his game when he came out of this tunnel that he was digging: he had to keep all of his friends safe from Chronos.

"You were right, Mr. Hayami, they're waiting for us in the sewers, too."

"I had a feeling they would be," Mr. Hayami said, his voice echoing slightly in the rocky tunnel. "Still, what we're looking for is a lot deeper than the sewers. It's at the deepest level of Cloud Gate; that's our way in."

Sho nodded, and kept burrowing. Just hold on a little bit longer, Yukari, Aptom. Hayami and I will be there to rescue you soon. Please be all right.

He could sense a large, liquid-filled space just in front of him, only half a meter of rock between him and his goal. Focusing on his friends, blocking out all the thoughts of what Chronos might be doing to them, Sho blew the remaining rock apart with one shot from the Pressure Cannon. Throwing himself into the water even as it flooded into the tunnel, Sho flew through it and burst out in a violent spray of disturbed liquid.

The two Zoanoid guards who had been assigned to patrol the area on the off-chance that the sole remaining Guyver in Japan made it into the area somehow suddenly found themselves in the very situation that their superiors - and even the Zoanoids themselves - had deemed so very unlikely.

"It's here! The Guyver I is actually here!" one of the Zoanoids, the one on the left, shouted.

"We have to contact the Main Control Center!" the other Zoanoid exclaimed.

"You'll never get the chance!" Mr. Hayami growled, as a blanket of freezing mist covered the two Zoanoids before they could make another move.

Sho supposed that he might have felt some mercy for the Zoanoids at one point, but that was before Chronos had taken Mr. Murakami. Before he'd found out just what kind of horrible people he was dealing with. Now, as the frozen corpses of the Zoanoids crashed to the ground and shattered, Sho felt only a distant kind of professional satisfaction.

That, and the subtle feeling of wrongness that was nagging at him.

"I think this is all a little too easy," he said, looking at Mr. Hayami to try and see if he felt the same.

Sho couldn't really read any emotions on the strange face of Mr. Hayami's Zoanoid form, though.

"This place isn't that well protected, Sho. This is about the level of security I was expecting them to have. None of the people in charge would be likely to think that we would enter from this deep in the building; that's what gives us the advantage."

"Yeah," Sho breathed, taking a moment to really look at the place where he now stood. "It's really amazing that they managed to create such a large reservoir two-hundred meters underground like this. How did you know about it?"

"I have the technical plans and blueprints for Cloud Gate that I stole back when they were working out how to build this place. Back when I worked in Relics Point, I always used to look at the plans and wonder just how Chronos was going to construct such a huge building in the city center; I never imagined that I would ever be trying to infiltrate it someday."

Sho could just barely make out the smile on Mr. Hayami's face, and from his tone Sho thought it would have been wistful.

"Look up there, Sho. Several floors above us is the electrical power plant that supplies energy for the whole of Cloud Gate. The main processing facilities will be one floor above that. Chronos always puts them as close as they can to the generators."

"Do you think we'll find Aptom and Yukari there?" Sho asked, following the cables and piping until they disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.

"I don't know; but it's the first place I expect Chronos would put them. Both because Aptom's one of Balkus' lost specimens, and Yukari... because they probably want to find out something about the Guyver. We'll begin our search there."

Sho nodded, wordlessly following Mr. Hayami deeper into Cloud Gate. He wanted to find Yukari and Aptom; wanted to get them out of this place. He wanted all of his friends to be safe.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

-It's wonderful, isn't it my Lord? Our little family seems to have grown just that much bigger.-

Curling his arms more securely around Hikari's waist, Imakarum nuzzled her slightly. -Yes. It is wonderful to have at least one of the children that were so dear to us restored. Now, if only Sho could be persuaded to listen to reason, then our family would be complete again.-

-Yes,- Hikari said, sounding pensive. -Still, perhaps Yukari will be able to talk some sense into him after Lord Alkanphel restores her to consciousness. The two of them did seem to be rather close to one another. A function of sharing so many memories, one would suppose.-

-Isis,- Imakarum said firmly.

Hikari made a soft sound of confusion, so Imakarum decided to elaborate. -Her name is Isis now; Lord Hamilcal gave her the name and Lord Alkanphel approved it. We should respect their wishes, my Lady.-

-You're right, of course. It will take some time for me to break myself of the habit I have of using Isis' human name, but I think that I could manage it given enough time, my Lord.-

-Good. I look forward to the day when Isis joins us in her full capacity, my Lady. And the day that Sho rejoins us, as well.-

-I eagerly await that day also, my Lord.-

As Hikari leaned more deeply into his embrace, Imakarum looked down at the floor of the Ark. Somewhere far below them, back on Earth, Sho Fukamachi was searching for his counterpart. As well as Aptom; the insane and dangerous Lost Number that he had somehow formed a friendship with. He would not find what he was looking for this day.

Imakarum did not know precisely why Lord Alkanphel's last wish had been that the two of them refrain from making their presence known; why they had been ordered to stay on the Ark, with Lord Hamilcal as their only connection to Chronos and Earth. Still, they were both faithful servants of Lord Alkanphel, and that meant that neither of them would question their Lord when he gave them an order.

That was most likely the reason that both of them were so comfortable in the other's presence. That, and the fact that they shared so many memories; as Hikari had surmised that the case had been between Sho and Yukari Fukamachi.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

They had made it into the main laboratory by now; it'd taken them a little longer to beat down the opposition than Toshiaki had been expecting - evidentially these scientists had had at least some amount of combat training, though not anything like the Zoanoids that would be sent after them if something went wrong - but in the end the two of them were able to overcome them. It wasn't as if any of them could hope to fight on equal terms with either a Zoanoid or a Guyver. And certainly not both at once.

"The bulkheads in this area have been disabled; and the alarm systems are off," Toshiaki informed Sho, as the boy continued to glance around the room with the mien of one looking for threats. Toshiaki doubted he'd find any, but appreciated his dedication all the same. "I'm setting the security cameras to replay the footage from six hours ago until now."

His fingers danced over the computer's keyboard, programming in the necessary codes to get the cameras to loop the footage properly.

"There. Now, even if someone decides to check the security tapes, all they'll see is business as usual going on. Do you sense Aptom or Yukari in this area?" Toshiaki asked, turning to regard Sho.

Sho, for his part, tilted his head up and stared at the ceiling just long enough for Toshiaki to start wondering what he was doing. So he asked.

"I have to focus on them if I want to find them," he said.

"What about your connection to Yukari through the Guyver?" Toshiaki asked. "Can't you sense her through that?"

"No," and here Sho sounded genuinely worried. "It's like our connection was cut off, somehow."

"How could that be?"

"I don't know," Sho said, shivering slightly as he looked around the room. "I just know that I haven't been able to contact her since last month. And I- I think…"

"It's all right, Sho," Toshiaki said, trying to be reassuring. "Can you at least sense Aptom?"

"No, I can't do that, either. It might be just that his dormant body doesn’t give off the right kind of signals for me to track."

"It could be," Toshiaki said, nodding. The idea made sense, after all. "Come on; we should go check out the laboratories. Maybe we'll find them."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

The next thing that Sho heard was a loud sound, almost like a submarine alarm, echoing through the laboratory. Sho turned, knowing that neither one of them would have activated an alarm. And, even though Hayami had told him that the bulkheads were disabled - which meant that they couldn't be trapped in this laboratory - Sho was still worried about what might be happening.

Those alarms could be bringing guards and Zoanoids into this area even as they spoke.

"What the hell did you just do?!" Hayami demanded, grabbing the man by his lapels and shaking him viciously.

"Hayami! The processing-tanks! Look!" Sho pointed to the monitor that was now showing a slightly fuzzy image of five processing-tanks that were draining and starting to open even as he watched.

"What the hell... It shouldn't be possible to release incomplete Zoanoids from the tanks! Zoanoids in the early stages of development are almost completely useless in combat; even if these are some new breed, they shouldn't be completed to the point where they can be safely released yet."

"Hayami, they're transforming! And they're coming right at us!"

The five newly released Zoanoids leaped and bounded across the tops of the processing-tanks that stood between them and their prey. Hissing, snarling and growling, the five Zoanoids landed in front of the two of them. The gagged scientist watched in satisfaction, even as Sho recognized the creatures they were facing.

"Those are Enzyme IIIs!" This can't be possible! How could they have known that we would be coming in this way? And how could they have made these things so quickly? Hayami said that Zoanoids take a full two weeks to process.

A gargling scream cut into Sho's thoughts, and he looked over at the bound Chronos scientist who had been sitting next to him. That scientist was dead now, after having been impaled by the lead Enzyme III. Not wanting to put Hayami in any more danger than he had to, Sho ran away from Hayami and into the group of Enzyme IIIs that had attacked them.

Hayami may have been a Zoanoid himself, but he didn't have the advanced healing capabilities that a Guyver had. Even with the Enzyme IIIs and their ability to dissolve his armor with their acid, he could heal faster from the damage than Hayami; that was why he had to protect him. Sho was not going to lose any more of his friends to Chronos.

"Sho!"

Hayami's shout, coming when he couldn't afford any type of distraction, was something Sho had to tune out. He had to find a way of killing these Enzyme IIIs before they killed him. Firing the Head Beam into the nearest Zoanoid's chest, Sho was surprised to realize that even a wound to what would have crippled another breed - even another type of Enzyme - barely slowed this one down.

"Look out behind you!"

Turning as another Enzyme leaped at him, Sho found that Hayami had already tackled the creature. The Enzyme now seemed to focus its attention on him, forgetting that Sho even existed.

"Stay away from him!" Sho snarled, kicking the vicious, mindless Zoanoid under the chin hard enough that its head snapped back on its mobile neck just after it had knocked Hayami to the floor.

The Guyver's head sensors detected motion coming from the Enzyme almost directly behind him, but too late for Sho to do anything but be impaled by the sharp, harpoon-like spike at the end of the Guyver-killer's tail. Managing to retain at least some of his focus, Sho clamped his arm down on the Zoanoid's tail and blasted the offending appendage apart with his Head Beam.

There were still three fully functional Enzymes waiting for them, however, and Sho knew that he wasn't in any shape to fight them anymore. Hayami would have a better chance than him now, but there was no way that he would leave his friend to the mercy of those monsters.

"Hayami, hold on to me!"

Wrapping his arms around Hayami's waist, Sho leaped out of the range of the Enzyme IIIs and flew up to the catwalk above their battleground. Landing, he pulled the harpoon-like tail spike out of his arm where it had been stuck. That was when he started to hear the buzzing; like a small fleet of helicopters had been launched.

The Enzyme IIIs were flying after them now.

"Run!"

Sho, suiting actions to words, took off with Hayami not far behind him.

"There's a blind alley just up ahead, under that ventilation shaft. If we can lead them into it-"

"I think that could work!" Sho broke in excitedly. "Let's go!"

Running down the corridor, Sho heard all five of the Guyver-killers following them. Turning to confront the frozen forms of the Enzymes - Hayami's work, of course - Sho opened his Mega-Smasher and began to charge it. I have to make this shot count, but since I don't know if Yukari or Aptom is on this level, I have to destroy these Zoanoids without doing too much damage to the laboratory itself. Well, here goes…

The Mega-Smasher screamed out of Sho's chest, hitting and then disintegrating the frozen Zoanoids in short order. I have to control it! I will control it! Once the light of the 'Smasher had cleared, Sho beheld the results of his attack. The building wasn't falling down on them, so that was a good thing. And all of the Enzyme IIIs were gone, so that was substantially better.

"Good work, Sho. There's not a trace of those creatures left; thank you."

"I should really be thanking you for distracting them and holding them in place for me, Hayami."

"No, you probably could have done that on your own. It's not like I have the power to actually destroy those freaks of nature on my own," Hayami said, sounding uncharacteristically depressed. "I'm glad I was able to offer you at least some help, though."

Breathing deeply, Sho concentrated on healing the damage that the Enzyme IIIs had done to him. At least, he did until he saw Hayami stumbling and moving to support himself against the far wall.

"Hayami, are you hurt?" he called anxiously.

"No, no I'm fine," Hayami said, panting. "I must have overexerted myself when I froze those Zoanoids. I'll be all right after I have a chance to rest a bit. You did very good work with the Mega-Smasher, though," Hayami said, leaning against the wall to get what rest he could. "The monitor cameras will be deactivated for a while longer, but Chronos will most likely be sending lower level Zoanoids down to investigate the cause of the damage in this area. We should be gone before they arrive; let's get moving."

"Are you sure you'll be all right? I thought you needed to rest."

"I'll be fine, Sho. I was just a bit winded, that's all."

"All right," Sho nodded as they started walking. "Hayami?"

"What is it, Sho?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't control myself better when I fired the Mega-Smasher. If I'd have been more careful, then this wouldn't be a problem."

"That would have helped, but there's nothing for it now. Best not to think about it."

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Their spy, the newly developed Zoanoid Gastahl, had just reported the progress of Sho Fukamachi and his Lost Number cohort.

Luggnagg smiled. "I've received the latest report from Gastahl; Sho Fukamachi and the Lost Number Bio Freezer have entered the laboratories on the lower levels."

"That's good," Jabir said, smiling slyly.

"Still, there is a chance that they will realize this is a trap set for them, and make an attempt to escape," Khan, who was either being contrary or simply overestimating their currant opponents, stated.

"If that unlikely scenario were to come to pass, we would know about it and be able to take the needed precautions," Jabir assured him. "I have placed concealed operatives along all the routs that these two will need to use to access the laboratory where their little friends are being held. Our welcome guests will not be able to escape their fate."

"We will want to ensure that Sho Fukamachi is delivered into our hands with minimal harm," Luggnagg said, speaking for the benefit of his more rashly inclined fellows.

"All things in due time," Kablarl demurred. "If do not take such precautions, all of our work to claim the boy's Guyver would prove to be fruitless. Besides, I am certain that the boy's little counterpart will be able to handle him quite well."

Khan gestured to the computer that had been set to monitor the vital signs of one Yukari Fukamachi. Or rather, Isis Mirabilis.


 
 
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