"He was an idiot, and now he’s dead," Gyou grinned, seeing again the perfect way to get to Murakami. "And that’s your fault too, isn’t it? You couldn’t save your friends, you couldn’t save your son, and you can’t save yourself. How many more transformations can that body of yours withstand, anyway? How long so you have left, do you think? Two weeks? Six days?"

The only thing that Gyou received from Murakami was an inarticulate, hateful growl. Apparently, the man would need a little more prodding before he would be in the proper mood to attack heedlessly. With this in mind, Murakami’s sudden, aggressive charge was all the more surprising for him. Surprising, but not at all disappointing.

Dodging Murakami’s initial charge, Gyou pivoted on one foot and cracked the annoying Proto-Zoalord across the back of the head with the Remover. Murakami stumbled, but still somehow managed to stay on his feet. Turning most of his attention to Makashima, Gyou grabbed Murakami in a chokehold, mirroring Alkanphel’s earlier maneuver against him. Aiming the Remover at Makashima, Gyou fired it before the boy who was the Third Guyver could get out of his way.

Gyou was rewarded with the sight of Makashima’s Guyver coming apart, seemingly into a fluid mass of organic tendrils. He was not so pleased by the fact that Makashima somehow managed to hang onto his Guyver. Gyou had known that the boy had a strong will. Anyone who rose as far in the ranks of Chronos as Makashima had, especially in the utterly ruthless way that the boy had done so, was indeed a person to be reckoned with.

Gyou had just been sure that his own will would prove the superior. But perhaps it was not a matter of will at all… The sudden pain that shot through Gyou’s left arm distracted him from Makashima. Looking back at Murakami, Gyou saw the worthless Proto-Zoalord just starting to remove Gyou’s hand from around his neck. Gyou’s severed hand. Murakami even had the unmitigated gall to smirk at him when the Proto-Zoalord noticed that Gyou’s attention was fixed on him.

Closing the end of the Remover, since he knew that he didn’t have enough bio-energy for another shot at the moment, Gyou made up his mind that he would bash Murakami’s skull in with the device. The Remover’s dull, uniformly white surface could only be improved with some patches of color. And the red would contrast so nicely with the white.

A sudden burst of power, along with a very unnerving feeling of familiarity, caused Gyou to turn his attention away from his currant opponents. No. No, it cannot be! Nothing could have survived my final attack!

XxXxX

Alkanphel, after having Hamilcal disperse Reholt’s pseudo-black hole, had tracked the mind of his wayward former Twelfth down to the basement of Relics Point. It had been a somewhat commendable strategy for Reholt to hide the Remover in this area. Disused for the most part, to the point where most would forget that it was even there. Such had been the case for the laboratory where Reholt had placed Kenji Murakami as well.

It was the rather unfortunate downside of building this large a facility. Mt. Minakami had only one-third of the personnel that it could support. There were more being brought in from the surrounding areas yes, but there had not yet been enough to patrol all of the laboratories. There was also the matter of the other things that Alkanphel had gleaned from Reholt’s mind. Such as the fact that not all of the scientists who worked in this facility were truly loyal to Chronos. They put on the façade, yes, but their true loyalties were elsewhere.

XxXxX

As Balkus’ psychic waves spread throughout the Mt. Minakami base, they sought out Zoanoids who had been designed for far more specific purposes than being cannon fodder. Zoanoids who were stationed in small pockets throughout every one of Chronos’ many bases. One of them existed for every hundred Standard Zoanoids.

They were not Lost Numbers, nor were they Hyper Zoanoids. One thing that all of them had in common was their build: they were lighter, smaller, and faster than even the fastest Hyper Zoanoid. They were also united by purpose: not as frontline soldiers, but as anti-insurrectionists. They were there to make sure that any rebellion within Chronos would be dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

As the psychic waves advanced farther, certain personnel within the base began to show signs of being affected: a computer technician who had been buried beneath a pile of rubble suddenly kicked their way out, diving into a nearby ventilation shaft and quickly disappearing from sight; a secretary leapt to the ceiling and clung to the conduits and piping there, shedding human skin and growing fur, claws and fangs; one of the janitors backed into an empty room and changed into a Zoanoid.

The most obvious thing that all of these newly awakened Zoanoids had in common though was this: they were all female. It had originally been Dr. Balkus’ idea, since who would suspect such an unassuming creature as a woman to turn out to be such a formidable warrior. And Dr. Balkus still considered it one of his more brilliant ideas, even in spite of the rise in status that some females had managed to attain.

After all, females were looked down upon as weak and inferior in enough parts of the world that his female Zoanoids would not be expected until it was too late. At the moment, though, Dr. Balkus had enough to concern himself with. Giving orders to his female Zoanoids to gather and detain the remaining scientists, those who had not already been crushed to death under falling rubble, Dr. Balkus continued to monitor their progress.

It would not do to have Lord Alkanphel’s signals inadvertently causing his female Zoanoids to stray from their assigned tasks.

XxXxX

Sensing that Hamilcal had put their contingency plan into motion, Alkanphel nodded to himself. It had been a rather ingenious idea on Hamilcal’s part; to have a secret army ready and willing to deal with any problems that came up inside Chronos itself. Tuarhan, irreverent as he sometimes was, had called them variously ‘Chronos’ Angels’ and Chronos’ ‘very own KGB’.

Alkanphel had not understood what his Eighth Zoalord had been talking about, and he had never had any real interest in finding out. Tuarhan, while loyal beyond question, was somewhat odd at times.

Looking back down at Reholt, Alkanphel saw that the Proto-Zoalord who had apparently been engaging his former Twelfth in battle had taken advantage of Reholt’s momentary lapse in attentiveness. Alkanphel was rather impressed, since Proto-Zoalords by their very nature were almost instinctively subservient to their Zoalord masters. It took a great deal of willpower for any Zoaform to break away from their natural instinct to obey. This one almost reminded Alkanphel of himself.

Also, it had been rather amusing to watch the Proto-Zoalord grab hold of Reholt’s outstretched right arm and use it to fling the former Twelfth Zoalord over his shoulder. What did the humans call that combat maneuver again? Ah yes, a shoulder-throw. Rather aptly named, Alkanphel thought. Apparently, Reholt was not so amused as Alkanphel himself was about that.

When he saw Reholt begin to swing the Remover around, Alkanphel frowned. The Remover was a delicate interment, it was not to be used as a cudgel. However, when the Proto-Zoalord grabbed the blunt end of the now-closed Remover and used it to add force to his kick, the First Zoalord was rather amused. Alkanphel chuckled softly as he saw the Proto-Zoalord’s foot being slammed into Reholt’s face.