Gyou picked the Remover up by what looked to be its base, and was only slightly surprised to discover that what he had taken to be the back of the Remover was in actuality its front. The front of the Remover opened up to reveal a long, intricately carved structure with what looked like an exact copy of a Guyver’s Control Medal on the end of it. The back end opened up as well, and Gyou stuck his hand inside. He was pleased to discover that the Remover did indeed have a handle.

It was hidden inside the back of the device, yes, but at least it was still there. Once Gyou had wrapped his large hand around the Remover’s handle, a set of five matched antennae extended from the Remover. Three from the outside of the casing and two from the inside of the device, one on either side of the Control Medal lookalike. An interesting configuration, Gyou thought to himself. I wonder just how this device works.

Well, time enough to figure that out later, I suppose. Gyou smirked. Now all he needed to do was find out just where that annoying Guyver I had managed to hide himself, and then all his plans would be one step closer to fruition.

"You have done most admirable work, as usual, Dr. Shirai," Gyou said, since he had found that the man had always responded best to flattery. "I thank you."

As he transformed back into his human form, Gyou set the Remover back in its case almost reverently. One piece of his plan had gone just as he had wanted it to, and now Gyou intended to move on to the next. He still needed to design a Zoalord body for Murakami’s son, after all. Walking over to one of the computer consoles that actually wasn’t being used for anything that Gyou could readily see, he inserted the disk in a terminal and sat down on the only chair in the room.

It was one of those wheeled, office-type chairs, convenient for getting around quickly. But Gyou couldn’t help the thought that it would have been a great deal more so on a surface that was covered so thickly by cables and wires. Gyou wondered for a moment just how many times Shirai had had to pick this chair up and carry it, so as to avoid one clump of wires or another on the floor. Pushing aside those pointless thoughts, Gyou turned his attention to what he was really concentrating on here.

Thinking of how the Murakami boy’s face and body had looked when he had seen him in the processing-tank, Gyou had a rather interesting inspiration. Balkus, who was the one that had created most if not all of the other Zoalords’ battle forms – even his own as Gyou recalled – had never created something that Gyou had personally found aesthetically appealing. Now that he was creating a Zoalord of his own, there was no reason that he had to follow the same pattern that Balkus had established.

Looking over at Shirai, Gyou found that the old scientist had been predictably absorbed by his research again. In fact, Gyou was willing to wager that he could have done anything short of exploding a bomb in Shirai’s ear without distracting the old man from whatever he was doing now. Smiling with self-satisfaction, Gyou called up the data on the disk that he had brought into the laboratory with him.

It was a base design for a certain Proto-Zoalord form, Murakami’s own in fact. While he might hate the man a great deal on general principal, Gyou had to admit that Murakami’s battle-form was a fair amount more aesthetically pleasing than his own. Balkus’ work of course. Some things would have to be changed, of course, since even Murakami’s battle-form wasn’t altogether pleasing to his eyes. Gyou huffed, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them.

The face was the first thing that Gyou intended to change, since he barely found it appealing at all. It was too wide for one thing, and for another there was that cleft in the chin. Gyou disliked those since he found them a bit visually distracting. And then there was also the fact that Murakami’s son’s face was both too sharp-featured and too rounded to benefit from being rearranged like that. Typing in a few commands, Gyou got the computer to focus on the Proto-Zoalord’s face.

As he made his desired changes to the Proto-Zoalord’s genetic structure, the image changed to reflect what he had done. The Proto-Zoalord’s face narrowed until it was almost exactly the same shape as it was in Murakami’s son’s human form. Satisfied with what he had done so far, Gyou looked over the other features. The Proto-Zoalord’s face was a fair amount more square-jawed than that of Murakami’s son, so Gyou changed it until it looked exactly like his human form.

Nodding with some pride for his accomplishments, Gyou turned his attention to the facial markings that he had noticed. Without the cleft in the chin there was really no reason to keep the triangle of under-armor that showed through on the chin itself, so Gyou removed it. This action gave the lower half of the face an almost mask-like appearance, which Gyou personally preferred over the original. As Gyou considered the other attributes of the Proto-Zoalord’s face, he decided to dispense with the under-armor on the underside of the chin and around the eyes as well.

Making some more changes to the Proto-Zoalord’s genetic structure, Gyou watched in satisfaction as the under-armor was covered. The face now had a definite mask-like look to it. All that now remained of the under-armor on the face were those parts on the top of the head near the main Zoacrystal, the strip down the center of the nose, and the two oddly teardrop-shaped patches under the eyes.

Considering the face again, Gyou found that he thought the ‘teardrops’ made the face look almost like one of those clown dolls with porcelain heads that his mother used to collect. The ones whose name he could never remember. Making a few more minute changes, Gyou watched as the patches extended and changed shape until they resembled a pair of slash marks. Or alternately a pair of crescent moons, if one was in the mood to be poetic about such things.

Now that he had made all the desired changes to the face, Gyou turned his attention to the long structures that extended from both the underside and the top of the ears. The way they stuck out so far, while it was almost exactly the same as his own battle-form, wasn’t very appealing to Gyou personally. Altering another part of the Proto-Zoalord’s DNA, Gyou watched as the Proto-Zoalord’s ear structures – Gyou didn’t know what else to call them – slowly came into line with his head.

Once Gyou was satisfied with the changes he had made to that one part, Gyou input a simple command and the computer turned the Proto-Zoalord’s head so that Gyou was able to see it as if he was looking at it from the left side. Seeing how the ear-structures stuck almost straight out from the back of the head, Gyou considered them. Changing the genetic structure again, Gyou watched as they curved gracefully upward until they resembled the crest of some exotic bird.

Now that his work on the head was complete, there was only the matter of the body.