The blaze of arc-welders and the harsh whine of pneumatic drills filled the ACTF’s construction bay as the contingent of Stryker AFV’s were outfitted with reactive armor. There were eight of them currently in the bay, more arriving sporadically as small percentages of the shipments ordered by the Army were "scrapped" for fabricated defects.

All of the ACTF staff found that pretty funny, and some of them had even started to refer to the various construction bays as "scrap-yards." The name had caught on quickly, even among the superiors. Everyone thought it was entertaining and at the same time appreciated the need for secrecy. If any one of Chronos’ agents found out what they were doing, the best that they could hope for was a quick death.

Being forcibly processed wasn’t something that any of them wanted to consider. To a man, they’d kill themselves first.

On the other side of the bay stood thirty motorcycles, fifteen Kawasaki Ninjas, and fifteen Suzuki Hayabusas being altered for combat purposes. The light Kevlar body armor had already been applied, and now the rear cannon was being added, intended as a deterrent to any of the faster Zoanoids that were now being employed now by Chronos—especially that greenish one with the sword-hands.

Most of the real body armor was being made for those of the newly formed ACTF Mobile Division, which was to be a counterpart to the Armored Division and still essentially in the planning stages. The powered armor was notoriously hard to manufacture, especially since the materials had to be tough enough to go head to head with a Zoanoid and yet light enough that the operators wouldn’t overheat while they were using them.

The vents helped some with that, though.

The blaring of the attack alarms served to remind the soldiers at work in the scrap-yard that they weren’t out of the war zone, they weren’t even that far away from it.

"We’re mobilizing," First Lieutenant Detrik Abernathy said, slightly out of breath from his run to get to Scrap-yard Three. "How many of those things are ready for trial by combat?"

"Five, sir."

"Good; get them out to the launch bay—we’ve got some riders outfitted for them. Are any of the Strykers good to go?"

"Three, but we’re working on the others as fast as we can, sir," Sergeant Karen Mayers said.

XxXxX

Panadyne, standing at the back of a large group of Standard Zoanoids, chuckled as the soon-to-be-dead military losers came charging out of their base towards him and his group.

"You guys can handle the little toy soldiers," Panadyne growled, grinning as much as he could. "I want the Guyver."

The Standards nodded, and as the mass of toy soldiers closed in on them, Panadyne noticed the huge armored truck that was coming along. He knew what the Strykers were for, though they looked a little different than the designs he’d been briefed on, but the truck… Then again, it was probably just carrying troops.

More feed for the meat-grinder.

"All right kids," Panadyne said, hefting one of his long, bony whips and twirling the spiked end a little. "Let’s show these toy soldiers what happens to anyone stupid enough to pick a fight with Chronos!"

The truck and the Strykers were closing in, and that was when Panadyne noticed the motorcycles. Actual fucking motorcycles. What the toy soldiers expected to do with those, aside from die horrible flaming deaths, Panadyne didn’t really know. Not like he cared or anything, though.

The first of the Strykers were in range, and a pack of Ramochis had broken off to deal with them. Looking back toward the main group, Panadyne finally saw the one person that he’d been waiting for. Guyver Four was riding into battle on top of the Stryker in the middle of the toy soldiers’ little brigade. In a hurry to die, you bio-boosted bastard? Well I can help you there!

Breaking away from the group of Standard Zoanoids, Panadyne made off at a dead run for the Guyver. Some of the toy soldiers were shooting at him and his fellow Zoanoids, but Panadyne knew that bullets were about as effective as toothpicks against their armored skins. And with his and the Gregoles’ soft-tissue under their skin, there was no need for any of them to worry about the little popguns those toy soldiers were hefting, which made it all the more surprising to see one of the Ramochis go down, a hole blown in its neck. The sight of a Gregole’s head being blown into messy chunks didn’t make him feel any better about his situation.

The swipe of a humming blade next to his left ear—close enough to almost take the tip off—reminded Panadyne just why it was a very bad idea to let one’s mind wander during open combat. Turning his attention to Guyver Four and ignoring the screams of the Standard Zoanoids as they got themselves shot, Panadyne ducked another swipe from Guyver Four’s left vibration-blade.

The Guyver fired the laser mounted on his forehead; Panadyne dodged. The Guyver slashed at him with the arm-mounted Vibration Blades; Panadyne ducked and slammed an uppercut into the Guyver’s midsection.

"What’s the matter? I thought your kind was supposed to be tough, Guyver!"

Partly curious and partly wanting to piss the Guyver off, Panadyne waited to hear the Guyver’s response, only occasionally dodging when the Fourth Guyver managed to get an actual shot at him.

"Why the hell won’t you die?!"

"I’ve been told that I’m particularly hard to kill," Panadyne laughed, enjoying the snarl of frustration and rage that was all the Fourth Guyver gave him in response.

"I’ve killed hundreds of Zoanoids before you!"

"Yeah, kid, I’ve heard about that," Panadyne said, not needing to work that hard to make himself sound slightly bored. "But there’s the problem with your reasoning: none of the ones you killed were Hyper Zoanoids."

"Hyper Zoanoids?"

"That’s right," Panadyne sang out, chuckling. "I’m a Hyper Zoanoid—Hyper Zoanoid Panadyne, to be precise."

"Panadyne? What kind of name is that?! How many Hyper Zoanoids are there?"

"More than you’ll ever get to meet, kid, considering the fact that you’re not going to make it out of this fight alive."

"We’ll just see about that!"

"Yeah, kid. We will."

Shrugging off the Guyver’s punches, Panadyne lashed out with his claws and managed to score several hits on the Guyver. The armor was just as tough as he’d been briefed on, but there was still something missing. Panadyne wondered why this Guyver wasn’t using any of the other weapons that his superiors had told him Guyvers tended to use. Maybe this one was stupid—or else he was too arrogant to see just how outmatched he was.

When a high-speed shell blew a neat hole in his left shoulder—just below and to the right of his nozzle—Panadyne turned to confront the annoying little toy soldier who’d just signed his own death certificate by shooting at a Hyper Zoanoid. What he saw when he turned, though, was a little amusing: it looked like the toy soldiers were trying to give themselves a better chance of taking on Chronos by making themselves into Megadeuses.

"Nice tinman costume; I hope you don’t mind too much if I scuff it up a little!"

Panadyne fired the chemical fluid from the launcher on his left shoulder, then, before the tin soldier could back off or try to do anything about the fluid splattered all over their front, fired again. The two liquids mixed, became explosive, and detonated—all in the space of two blinks. Before any of the other toy soldiers could move to help, Panadyne dashed forward.

Twirling the spiked end of his right tentacle like a rodeo lasso, he threw it hard, and the spike stuck firmly in the toy soldier’s throat. Panadyne had to jump out of the way of the Guyver’s punches, and he didn’t quite know how to respond to the stream of creative insults and threats that the Guyver was screaming at him. It wasn’t like the Guyver could hope to carry any of them out.

Still, some of them sounded extremely painful, as well as physically impossible.