The telepathic contact from the other Zoalord cut off, leaving Sharru once again alone inside her own head. That was a welcome change after having so many people in her mind with her. Walking over to the cracked processing-tank that held the Proto-Zoalord in his stasis sleep, Sharru gave it one good, hard punch. The weakened Plexiglas splintered around her fist, and the fluid pressure inside the tank did the rest.

Well mostly, since Sharru herself still had to rip open the bottom of the processing-tank to be able to get the unconscious Proto-Zoalord out. But all of that was easy, and after Sharru had pulled off all of the monitoring devices from the Proto-Zoalord’s body, she was left to sit with him and wait for the other guys that that other Zoalord had said he would be sending. Cradling the Proto-Zoalord in her arms, Sharru wondered just who he was.

Had he worked for Chronos before getting slated for processing as a Proto-Zoalord? And had he really known just what he was getting into when he’d volunteered for the procedure? It was interesting to think about those kinds of things, despite the fact that Sharru knew she wouldn’t be getting any answers to her questions. The Proto-Zoalord was kind of nice to look at, even in spite of being caught at the stage where he looked like some bizarre cross between a Proto-Zoalord and a human.

He’d look a lot better when he could transform back into his human form, Sharru knew. His long, bluish-black hair hadn’t yet been lost to the transformation, and was now soaked through from the processing fluid. The rest of his body wasn’t much better off, and it was odd for Sharru to be holding someone who so obviously still belonged in a processing-tank. When the small army of Standard Zoanoids came up to her, Sharru was grateful to see them.

"Well, at least we don’t have to ask if that’s the guy," a Gregole quipped.

"Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious," Sharru said, smirking. "You guys need my help for anything else?"

"No, you go on, shark-girl. We can handle things here," one of the Ramochis said.

"Good, cause I’ve still got rounds to make," she said, laying the Proto-Zoalord back on the floor and standing up.

"Go on and finish your rounds, shark-girl. We can take care of things here."

XxXxX

Gregole watched the sharkelike female Zoanoid leave, then turned his attention back to the Proto-Zoalord she had left laying on the floor. If he’d had to hazard a guess, Gregole would have said that this guy was about midway through Stage One.

"Let’s get him off this unstable floor before it starts collapsing right out from under us," Gregole ordered the rest of his unit.

The other Zoanoids nodded, and quickly went to work moving the Proto-Zoalord. The seven of them had been able to retrieve one of the many transport containers from the storage area. This one was specifically intended to transport Zoanoids from one branch of Chronos to another. Old man Balkus had at first thought the indignity of having a Proto-Zoalord transported in a container that had originally been meant for a Zoanoid was too much.

Gregole had almost given into a rather strong urge to laugh. It had just been so damned ridiculous that old Balkus would think that the so-called dignity of an unconscious Proto-Zoalord was more important than his survival. Ridiculous, and completely in character for the old crank. Luckily Alkanphel, who seemed to have a lot of sway over old Balkus for a Zoalord Gregole had never met before, had managed to talk him down.

Picking up the halfway-transformed Proto-Zoalord, Gregole carried him over to the holding tank. The tank itself was filled with something that looked a lot like processing fluid. The guy named Alkanphel had said it was stasis fluid, and Gregole figured that he probably knew what he was talking about. Alkanphel had been the one who’d told them where to find the transport container, after all.

Setting the Proto-Zoalord down inside the tank-full of stasis fluid, Gregole was helped by a pair of Ramochis to close the container and lock it up tight. Without a word exchanged, six of the seven Zoanoids took hold of the handles on both sides of the transport container, and Gregole led them out of the collapsing remains of the laboratory.

XxXxX

The battle was over, with no losses suffered by any of his children. The Guyver-child had somehow managed to engage the Relic’s hyperspace capability even as the Relic had disintegrated with him inside it, removing the black Guyver from battle and teleporting him somewhere. Alkanphel was not entirely certain just how the boy had managed it, but such things were not his main concern at the moment. He was pleased, however, that the boy Kenji Murakami had been recovered.

It would have been irritating on a somewhat personal level to have the child die merely because the Mt. Minakami facility was collapsing. Striding calmly over to the dead Proto-Zoalord, Alkanphel swept up Reholt’s Control Zoacrystal as he passed it. He had dropped it sometime during the battle. Reholt himself was gone, most likely dead after having fallen into the magma chamber that had been opened by one of Tuarhan’s attacks.