Once Imakarum found a clearing—one that was not liberally scattered with the remains of an insect-eaten tent—he stopped. For a moment, as he settled Kenji back on his feet, Imakarum wondered what had happened to his son’s books, then realized that if the heavy canvas of the tent had barely survived the elements intact, then there was no chance that any of Kenji’s books had done so.

Imakarum found that slightly depressing, but the simple fact was that books could be easily replaced. Kenji, however, was unique, and even more so now, considering all the things that had happened to him.

Imakarum, feeling Kenji’s warm breath on his cheek, turned his head to look at his son. Kenji’s eyes were closed and he was leaning against Imakarum’s chest. Imakarum gently patted Kenji’s head and let him rest against his body. Teleportation, especially the first time, could be rather disorienting.

-I suppose you’ll want to hide now, Kenji-chan.-

-Oh, right,- Kenji said, surprising Imakarum with the fact that his telepathic voice sounded exactly like the one that he’d had before he had emerged from the processing-tank.

But the more Imakarum thought about it, the more that it made sense that Kenji would use that voice. It was the one that he knew, the one that he expected from himself. It would most likely take a great deal of time before Kenji was used to hearing his new voice, and then his telepathic voice would most likely change to match that one. Though, truthfully, Imakarum hoped that that would not happen.

-Go and hide, Kenji. I’ll give you to the count of twenty, and then I’ll come and find you.-

-Okay, Dad,- Kenji said, kissing Imakarum on the cheek and then hurrying off, presumably to find a good hiding place.

Imakarum smiled, as he watched Kenji disappear into the forest. Turning around and leaning against the tree that he had ended up standing in front of, Imakarum closed his eyes and started to count.

XxXxX

Kenji moved through the forest almost silently, though to him it sounded like he was stomping over the ground and kicking up bucketfulls of leaves. He didn’t know just how much his own hearing had been enhanced, and so he wondered how he’d managed to mess up something his dad had taught him even though he remembered the lessons so well. It wasn’t like he’d been sleeping long enough to forget something like that. Wrinkling his nose in frustration, Kenji tried harder to make his footsteps light and soft the way that Dad had taught him to.

XxXxX

Aptom, figuring that he could take at least a few hours off from watching his prey’s friends and go hunt some tasty Hyper Zoanoids, moved through the forest around what used to be Mt. Minakami. He knew Chronos would probably be trying to conduct at least a few salvage operations, on the off chance that something had survived that little cataclysm. Though, granted, there weren’t many things that could have survived a volcanic eruption.

Still, with Chronos being as paranoid about security as they were, if they weren’t looking for things to salvage, they were probably looking for things to destroy. After all, they’d definitely want to make sure that no one would be able to connect anything that had happened in the area to them. They’d use strength-enhanced Zoanoids for the lifting and carting-away and Hypers for demolishing anything that either couldn’t be carted away or wasn’t worth the trouble but could still be connected to them. Aptom was counting on the Hyper Zoanoids still being there for him to munch on.

Suddenly, Aptom felt a powerful presence moving closer and closer to him. It felt like a Zoalord, so Aptom forgot about the itty-bitty Hyper Zoanoids and started tailing the Zoalord. He could always go back and snack on a few Hyper Zoanoids later, but the opportunity to eat a Zoalord wouldn’t come around all that often. Grinning hungrily, Aptom stalked after the Zoalord he was sensing.

Aptom found him moving softly through the forest, with the manner of someone who was looking for something. He felt about maybe half as strong as Gyou, but that only meant that it would be all the more simple to catch him and eat him. Stalking the little Zoalord proved to be a little bit more difficult than Aptom had originally thought it would be, since the Zoalord didn’t seem to have any real destination in mind.

Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t head the Zoalord off somewhere.

Scrabbling up a fairly tall tree, Aptom started leaping from one treetop to the next, pacing the Zoalord through the forest. Every time Aptom leaped, though, the Zoalord’s head would turn, and he would look around as if trying to pinpoint the source of the noises he was hearing. This was how Aptom found out that the guy he was stalking really was a Zoalord; a Zoanoid wouldn’t have been able to hear Aptom.

It was also how Aptom found out that the Zoalord had a nice face—the kind of face that people tended to trust, or at the very least not take any notice of. It was just too bad that he wouldn’t be able to use that particularly adorable face to charm any of the dumber Hyper Zoanoids into going along with him once he’d finished eating the Zoalord. But, then again, maybe after he’d eaten the Zoalord there wouldn’t be any ‘charm’ required.

Aptom grinned at the thought of forcing his meals to go wherever he wanted them to with sheer willpower. That would be fun.

Leaping out of the tree he was currently perched in, Aptom landed right in front of the Zoalord. The way the man yelped and jumped back in surprise made Aptom snicker, but then the Zoalord got a definite curious look on his face. Aptom didn’t know quite what to think of that response—it wasn’t one he’d ever gotten before.

"Hi. Um, who are you?" the Zoalord asked, peering more closely at Aptom than any of his meals ever had before.

Of course, most of his meals were scared out of their minds when he showed an interest in them, so certainly none of them had expressed any interest in him. Well, any beyond running for their lives of course, Aptom thought with a mental snicker. Then again, it might be fun to play with this meal a little before he ate it, because either this little Zoalord was really stupid, or he just hadn’t heard of Aptom before.

Either way, Aptom wasn’t one to pass up a chance to mess with his meal’s head before he ate him.

"Me? I’m just your friendly, neighborhood Aptom." He smirked at the little Zoalord.

"Aptom? That’s a funny name. What are you doing around here?"

"Oh, I just figured I’d visit some of my old buddies from Chronos. What are you doing all the way out here?"

"I’m playing hide-and-seek with my dad. Oh," he interrupted himself, seemingly remembering something, and meanwhile Aptom tried to subtly pick his jaw up out of the crater it had made when it’d hit the ground, dust it off, and stick it back onto his face. "I should really go hide now—Dad’s going to come and find me soon."