Alkanphel knew that he would have to make sure that the body of the Lost Unit was completely destroyed before he left this time. Not even individual cells could be left intact, since there would be no other way to truly make sure that the Lost Unit was dead. Alkanphel was not a being who left many things to chance, after all. Two more Gravity Bullets, only one of which the Lost Unit managed to dodge, tore a hole in the Lost Unit’s left flank.

This time, Alkanphel could actually see the Lost Unit’s body working to heal itself from the damage that the Zoalord had inflicted on him. It was an interesting thing to see, although not nearly as impressive as his own recuperative powers or those of his children. But still, the fact that a Lost Unit possessed any recuperative ability at all was cause for concern in Alkanphel’s opinion. He would simply have to cause enough damage so that the Lost Unit would not be able to recover from it.

A barrage of Wind/Energy Scythes ripped the Lost Unit’s legs apart, rendering him immobile. Alkanphel then fired another barrage of Gravity Bullets. The Lost Unit screamed as his body was torn apart by the sheer energy contained within Alkanphel’s attack. Alkanphel felt no remorse over what he had done, since he had merely been eliminating a potential threat to himself and the rest of his organization.

Lost Units, while useful up to a point, were not to be allowed to run wild in this way. He would have to speak to Hamilcal about that. Looking at the burned ground where the Lost Unit had once stood, Alkanphel made sure that there was no trace of the Lost Unit, not even a cell could be left, Alkanphel knew. The regenerative capabilities of the Lost Unit were unknown, but Alkanphel now knew that they were great.

Scanning the ground with his senses, Alkanphel was pleased to note that there was no trace of the Lost Unit to be found. Turning away from the crater that marked the Lost Unit’s death site, Alkanphel resumed his interrupted journey to Mt. Minakami.

XxXxX

Aptom, through the connection that he had had to both of his clones, knew what had happened to the third member of his group. That bastard Zoalord wasn’t going to get away with killing him twice in one week Aptom promised himself grimly.

"At least we know where he’s headed now," Aptom’s one remaining clone said.

"Yeah, at least there’s that," Aptom himself said. "But I don’t know what he’d want with the old coot. Didn’t know the old coot had a first name, either."

"Hamilcal Balkus," Aptom’s clone snickered. "That’s even dumber than Reholt Gyou."

Both clone and original laughed at that, before quickly quieting down so as to avoid the attention of that Zoalord. Both of them still thought he was pretty, and they were both still determined to make a meal out of the pretty bastard. It would have to wait until they had absorbed at least one other Zoalord. Probably Gyou himself, and in fact that was what they were both hoping for. That it would be Gyou who had the bad luck to try to take them on next.

Gyou was strong, but he was also arrogant. It would be easier to get him to make a mistake that would let Aptom get the drop on him. But they were going to need more of them to even have a hope of taking on someone like Gyou. The battles, if they could even be called that, with the blond Zoalord had proved just how much more power they would need to steal to even be able to face off with Gyou. Absorbing the remainder of the Hyper Zoanoid Team Five would give them an edge in combat.

As well as pissing off Gyou, since he seemed to be fond of them for reasons that Aptom couldn’t have cared less about. As Aptom and his clone kept walking, they both kept a sharp lookout for any other Zoanoids, Standard or Hyper, that they could absorb to boost their strength. Or alternately infect and use as clone-fodder.

XxXxX

Back in the lowest level of Mt. Minakami, in the mostly disused laboratory, Reholt Gyou hummed softly to himself as he stepped off the elevator. The Remover had already been proven to respond to his bio-energy, so that was one trump card. Now all that Gyou needed to do was to have his second trump card ready. And then he could go out and hunt for his third.

Now that he had fully adjusted the plans for the Murakami boy’s Zoalord body, all that remained was to turn the disk over to his loyal scientists. From there, they would be able to design the retro-virus that would rewrite the child’s DNA and turn him into Gyou’s own Zoalord. At least, that was what he had been told was the standard procedure when a human was processed.

One of his loyal scientists, either Halverson or Henderson, had once tried to explain just what happened to the human body during the Zoaformation process. Gyou had tried to listen to what the man had been saying, truly he had, but at the time he had been distracted by the reports that Shirai had given him only a half-hour earlier about the Remover. Once or twice, Gyou had thought about asking one of the scientists to explain the process to him again, but there was really no pressing need for him to learn about it.

That was one of the things Murakami’s son was for, after all.