Keying in his entry-code Prof. Odagiri waited a second for the door to fully open before he stepped through, Sho following closely behind him. Inside this new room was a single processing-tank, and Sho wondered just why Prof. Odagiri wanted him to look at a Zoanoid when what he had wanted to know was what had happened to Mr. Murakami. Then, just as he was about to ask Prof. Odagiri what was going on, Sho saw that it wasn’t a Zoanoid inside that processing-tank after all.

At first Sho had a bit of trouble recognizing just who was inside that particular processing-tank, but then recognition snapped into place and he gasped.

"Mr. Murakami?! What- what happened to him, Prof. Odagiri?"

"Murakami was injured in addition to being exhausted by his battle with the Commander," Prof. Odagiri said, as he looked back at the unconscious form of his late colleague’s old friend and one-time student. "Commander Gyou was rather personally annoyed that one of his own prototypes could have survived and done so much damage to Chronos without him somehow being aware of it. More than that, Murakami also seemed to have some personal grudge to settle with Commander Gyou."

"Because of his son," Sho muttered sadly, staring at the alien figure suspended in the processing fluid.

"Kenji? What happened to him?" Odagiri asked, concerned.

"That bastard Commander Gyou kidnapped him," Tetsuro said, as he too walked into the room that held Masaki Murakami in his stasis sleep. "Then, during the battle, he actually had the nerve to taunt Mr. Murakami about the fact that he’d done it. Mr. Murakami was pretty angry about that, which I can sympathize with, but it did make him a bit sloppy while he was fighting."

Tetsuro’s fists were both clenched tightly and he was leveling a scathing, hateful glare at nothing in particular, both of those being sure signs that Tetsuro was extremely angry at Gyou for what the Zoalord had done. Come to think of it Sho was too, but more than that he was sad for both Kenji and Mr. Murakami for what had happened to them. Sad for Mr. Murakami because he had lost the only family member he had had left to Chronos. And sad for Kenji because he had probably ended up dying alone and afraid, buried alive at the bottom of a mountain.

Sho sighed and just continued to stare at the unconscious form of Mr. Murakami, as if he could convey his sympathy without words to someone who wasn’t even awake to speak to him or to see his face. It was probably a stupid idea, but Sho wasn’t sure just what else he could do at the moment.

"Prof. Odagiri?" Sho asked, trying to keep his mind off of other things. "What did you mean when you said that Mr. Murakami was Gyou’s prototype?"

"Murakami was never a real Zoalord, Sho," Odagiri said. "He was only a prototype. What’s known in Chronos circles as a Proto-Zoalord. In this case, one of the Proto-Zoalords that was used to further the development of Commander Gyou’s Zoalord body. He has all the basic powers of a real Zoalord, but only at half strength when compared to a full Zoalord like Gyou or any of the others."

"And Mr. Murakami’s nowhere near as ugly as Gyou in his Zoalord form," Tetsuro said, the slight maliciousness in his tone obviously directed at Gyou. "Or Proto-Zoalord form in Mr. Murakami’s case."

"Gyou’s Zoalord form was ugly, huh?" Sho asked, getting into the spirit of things, if only to take his mind off Mr. Murakami’s condition.

"Hideous," Tetsuro said, grinning. "He was a bit taller than Mr. Murakami when they both transformed. But Gyou was white with red undertones, and he had a face that could stop a train."

Sho laughed, and Tetsuro was quick to join in. They might have been one of the most dangerous places on Earth, more so for them since they were active and well-known rebels, but it felt good to be able to forget that fact for a minute.

"Tetsuro," Sho said, once he’d managed to regain control of himself. "Just what happened when Gyou attacked you? Agito didn’t really tell me that much about it."

"What did he tell you?"

"Agito told me that the last attack Gyou used on you was a gravity wave, but he didn’t say anything about Gyou taunting Mr. Murakami about his son," Sho said.

Tetsuro sighed. "After Gyou sicced those Enzyme IIs on you and you and Mizuki ran off, he want after the rest of us. Agito of course was already in Guyver form, and then Mr. Murakami transformed too. He said that there was very little chance of a single Guyver being able to fight off a Zoalord all on his own."

Tetsuro took a deep breath, took another look at the processing-tank that held Mr. Murakami, and then started speaking again. "He was right about that, since Gyou was even stronger in his Zoalord form than he was as a human. It took both Agito and Mr. Murakami working together just to hold him off, and even then they couldn’t beat him. Not even with Guyver III’s Mega-Smasher and Mr. Murakami’s Incision Wave."

"Incision Wave?" Sho asked.

"It’s the name of that weapon Mr. Murakami used on the Enzyme IIs that attacked us in the forest after we tried to escape from Takeshiro the first time."

"Oh yeah, I remember you telling me about that. What happened after Agito and Mr. Murakami tried their attacks?" Sho asked.

"That was when Gyou used his gravity wave on us," Tetsuro said. "It completely tore apart the ground where we were standing. It was just a little before that that Mr. Murakami ended up losing his right arm. If Mr. Murakami hadn’t used his forcefield to shield us, we all probably would have died. Even then, I wasn’t really sure how we were going to survive."

"How did you all end up down here?" Sho asked.

"Mr. Murakami shouted for all of us to get behind him, once he saw that Gyou was getting ready to attack us again. Then he activated his forcefield and told Agito to use his Gravity Controller. At that time, I was wondering just what good it would do to use one of the Guyver’s weaker attacks against Gyou when it had already been proven that the strongest attack wouldn’t do anything," Tetsuro said.

"What did Mr. Murakami want Agito to use it for? Did he really want to attack Gyou with it?" Sho asked.

"No," Tetsuro said. "As it turned out, Mr. Murakami wanted Agito to use the Pressure Cannon to blast our way through the ground where we were all standing. Gyou’s gravity wave actually ended up giving us a nice smoke-screen to hide behind when we escaped," Tetsuro chuckled at the irony of that. "I don’t really know how deep underground we ended up before Mr. Murakami passed out, but for a second I thought we were all going to end up buried alive down there," Tetsuro sighed heavily. "We weren’t, of course. When Agito noticed that Mr. Murakami had lost consciousness, he blasted a hole in the surrounding rock. I didn’t know what he was doing at the time, so I almost tried to stop him. But he held me back, and we all ended up inside an old monorail tunnel."

"Oh, like the one Agito, Mizuki and I used to get into Mt. Minakami," Sho said.

"Probably the very same one," Tetsuro said, nodding. "Agito said that it was one of the old monorail lines that used to be used to deliver supplies to Mt. Minakami. He also said that it wasn’t in service anymore, so when one of the monorail cars started coming down the tunnel we were all understandably surprised."

"I’ll bet," Sho said sympathetically.

"Though at first we didn’t know that it was one of the monorail cars that had startled us, all that we could see was a light heading for us, and all that we heard was a loud rushing sound. Agito had been carrying Mr. Murakami, since he was the strongest one in the group, but then he handed him over to me and started to open the Mega-Smasher," Tetsuro paused for a breath and Sho waited patiently for Tetsuro to pick up his narrative again. "That was when Prof. Odagiri called out to us and told us that they were our allies. We haven’t talked to him much since then, but he said that he would tell us as much as he knew about Mr. Murakami’s past once you and the others got here."

"He did?" Sho asked.

"Yes, Sho, I did," Prof. Odagiri said. "We scientists who work in the basement have our own eating area, presumably to keep us out of the other scientists’ hair. But it does have other advantages that the others are not aware of. If you would be willing to meet me in there, I can tell you about the things that Murakami hasn’t yet."

"Thank you, Prof. Odagiri," Sho said. Then he had a thought. "Wait, Tetsuro said that Mr. Murakami had lost his right arm when he fought against Commander Gyou," Sho said, as he looked over the whole and undamaged form of Mr. Murakami in the processing-tank. "How did Mr. Murakami get his arm back if he lost it in that battle?"

"A lot of that was my work," Prof. Odagiri said with some pride. "By using impetus chemicals to stimulate cellular division, we were able to restore his lost right arm to full working condition."

"Then why is he still unconscious?" Sho demanded. "Can’t you help him?"

"I’m not a miracle worker, Sho," Prof. Odagiri sighed. "My old mentor and I, we refused to work on Zoanoid models for Chronos. The only reason Prof. Yamamura, my old mentor, worked on the Proto-Zoalord project was because he was forced. I’m afraid I wouldn’t know much more than you do about the inner workings of Murakami’s Proto-Zoalord form."

"Oh," Sho said sadly.