Disclaimer: Guyver and the canon characters created therein do not belong to me; the only ones that do are Ryan Crouger, his family, and the assorted soldiers of the ACTF. All except for Atkins, who showed up in the second live-action movie.

The Stranglehold Protocol

Back in his room at Cloud Gate, Imakarum brooded. Kenji was hurt, unconscious, possibly dying; and where was he? He was in the Japan Section, instead of by his son's side where he belonged. True, he was to be Lord Alkanphel's eyes and ears among the Council, but he still couldn't help but feel that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Even after he had rested his body, Imakarum found that his mind was still troubled.

It was not that he had any genuine desire to betray his Lord, Imakarum was simply worried for Kenji's sake.

Perhaps he worried too much, however. There was really no place that Kenji would be safer than in the hands of Lord Alkanphel; and so there was no reason for him to worry so much. Aside from that, the Council would be convened soon.

It was truly best that he begin preparing for that inevitable meeting. Such preparations would of course entail organizing his thoughts, and for that he would need to relax. Perhaps a shower and a quick nap would be able to help him accomplish such a task; Kenji's equilibrium seemed to be restored quite well by those very things. And, at the very least they were sure to help him wake up, and Imakarum knew that he would need to be fully awake to perform his duty as a member of the Council and as Lord Alkanphel's go-between with them.

Making his way to the shower room attached to his quarters, Imakarum heard the door slide shut behind him as he began preparing for his shower.

XxXxX

The warehouse was the perfect place to conceal the new base that they were going to build. The ACTF needed a forward base, a place that Chronos wouldn't be able to connect to the Alpha Site but also somewhere that was as well concealed as their base there. That was why he and a certain little wiseass were down here in the tunnels playing mole.

"You know, all this boring is getting incredibly boring."

"Real cute, kid," he deadpanned.

The little wiseass had been tormenting him with bad puns almost since he'd been let out; it was enough to make him want to envelop the kid just to shut him up, but the few times he'd tried he'd ended up getting blown up from the inside. Needless to say, that wasn't the kind of thing he went out of his way to invite.

Carrying another armful of rocks over to where one of the others was working, wearing a body that combined Darzerb's napalm-breath and extreme heat resistance with the more flexible hands and marginally more flexible body of a Galmaru, he set the new rockpile down just beside the severely diminished pile that all that remained of the batch he'd brought over about half an hour or so ago. It made it really easy to get rid of most of the rock; they just melted it down into the structure of the new base.

That was part of the reason that Atkins didn't want them moving any weapons in here yet: live ammo and high heat really didn't mix well.

It was one of the kid's more demented ideas that had both given him a way to get rid of the dirt without anyone looking twice at him, and a very good excuse for needing building materials. Turning the warehouse above them into what amounted to a giant, indoor garden also gave him some very good reasons for interacting with the people in this little middle-of-nowhere town. They all seemed to like the fruits and vegetables that came out of what the kid had taken to calling his "lush gardens". The name had stuck, especially since he hadn't really cared enough about what had pretty much amounted to a really good cover story to name it anything himself.

Speaking of cover stories, he'd managed to build himself a reputation as a real physically affectionate guy – always shaking hands or patting backs or some such stuff – he'd even hugged a few of the female Zoanoids who'd come his way. He personally thought it was funny as all hell: here he was, able to infect those idiots with a single touch, and they were all lining up like good little lemmings. One of the girls had even kissed him; sure, it had just been on the cheek, but that didn't really mean so much in the long run.

The fact that this little nowhere town was filled with nothing but Zoanoids meant that there was good eating all around, and it also meant that there would be a fair bit less hassle when they finally started moving the soldiers in. All in all, this new base – Ryan had said that Sean had told him it was going to be called the Beta Site – was coming along well. Kansas, center of absolutely nothing, had definitely been the best place to really start their campaign to kick Chronos' sorry ass from.

He and the kid both agreed on that.

XxXxX

As he pulled yet another batch of rocks free, carrying them over to where Aptom and his merry band of minions were waiting for his contributions, Ryan reflected that if he never had to see another rock for as long as he lived, he could die a happy man. He and Elegen had pretty much agreed that that wasn't going to happen any time soon, and when he'd made the comment that he was so sick of rocks that he could just puke, that had segued into a discussion of whether or not Guyvers could puke.

They still hadn't managed to reach a consensus on that, but by now they were more into arguing just for the sake of argument; that, and not being bored out of their respective skulls. Of course, mentally griping about their current situation – and occasionally sleeping – wouldn't get their work done any faster.

Well, the sleeping might make it seem that way, but only because someone else was doing the work.

He'd been doing without sleep for most of the time he'd been down in this hole – however long that was – mostly because, while he was in the Guyver, little things like being tired and hungry just didn't seem to matter anymore. It was only those few times that Ryan remembered that he was supposed to be tired that he ended up actually being tired, so he figured that the tiredness was more of a psychosomatic thing than anything real. Needless to say, hunger and thirst weren't particularly big issues.

Carrying over his fifty-millionth rockpile – or however many batches of those things he'd actually manhandled by now – Ryan paused to look up at the ceiling. This place, no matter how big it was in terms of actual space, was starting to feel distinctly cramped again. He knew what that meant: it meant he'd better go topside and get some actual air, before he went stir-crazy and did something weird again. Something like streaking through the gardens while Aptom and his merry band of minions were moving in the new dirt.

Of course, they'd all had a pretty good laugh after that, but it really wasn't a good idea to have something like that happening too often; Chronos still thought they were all dead, sure, but it really only took one clear sighting to open up a manhunt.

That was why he wasn't going to go any farther than the tool shed/base entrance when he made it up top. The place had enough ventilation for him to breathe some fresh air, but no windows so that he didn't risk violating their all-important secrecy before they were ready to come out kicking ass. This was a good thing, he knew.

Shedding his Guyver as he made his way up the ladder, Ryan reached the top and checked the trapdoor to make sure there wasn't anyone standing on it. He didn't have to worry about concealment inside the shed itself, only Aptom and his merry minions were allowed in there, anyway. It made dealing with the issues of secrecy a lot easier than it would have been otherwise, and he was sure that Aptom liked having less hassle in his life.

God knew he did.

Sitting down carefully on top of a stack of dirtbags – actual bags of dirt, one of the few things actually stored in this building that purported to be a storage shed – Ryan waved a silent hello to the Aptom moving some crushed rock out of the place. The Aptom waved back, and that was pretty much the extent of his interaction for the time being.

They'd stopped hitting dirt – at least for the most part – a few something or others ago. He couldn't really count it in days or nights since he didn't keep anything even resembling a normal schedule anymore, but he'd slept once since they'd started hitting more rock than dirt. Ryan could remember the last time he'd slept particularly vividly, since he'd done it curled up on top of a pair of Aptom's minions who'd turned themselves into Alvix for just that occasion.

Their fur had been softer than he'd expected, but maybe that was just because those particular minions had known that he'd be using them as a short-order bedroll. It'd been a better sleep than he ever would have had staying on the dirt, and for that he was grateful. Of course, trying to get a good sleep on dirt inevitably brought up thoughts of worms, and thinking about worms wasn't in any way conductive to getting a good night's – or day's, or whatever's – sleep.

But he wasn't feeling tired at the moment, really he was more hungry than anything, so he tapped the nearest minion – one wearing a Galmaru – on the arm, raised an eyebrow and mouthed "food".

Said minion patted him on the head in that way that let Ryan know that he'd have chuckled if the shed hadn't been declared a strict no-talking zone. Then, of course, he left for the outside. Ryan himself was starting to crave that outside, but he knew damn well that he had to stay down in the proto-Beta Site until Aptom and the minions had either eaten all of the Zoanoids in this little middle-of-nowhere town, or else had turned them into yet more minions just like the one who'd gone out to fetch him some food.

Said minion came back inside with his arms full of apples, and Ryan ate them happily while at the same time wishing that he could get more meat in his diet. It might not have mattered so much when he was transformed, since the Guyver itself supplied him with enough energy to keep digging for as long as he had – or, more importantly, wanted – to, but that didn't mean that he wasn't missing the taste of the foods he could no longer get his hands on. Aptom and the minions had managed to find some candy stores and a few doughnut shops, and Ryan could still remember – very fondly and particularly vividly – the last time that Aptom had brought him a tall stack of pancakes.

He'd even brought butter and syrup; Ryan had ended up having to eat them down in the not-quite-Beta-Site, since he hadn't been at all sure that he could control himself considering the near-orgasmic thrill of being able to eat warm, syrupy pancakes after having been deprived of such for so very, very long. As it had turned out, he'd been right to take precautions: he'd ended up making a bunch of noises that Aptom and the minions had said sounded like he was having the best sex of his life.

He'd said that it was better than sex; not that he'd had a basis for comparison.

But it'd been funny and they'd all had a good laugh, so things were all good on his end. Now if only there was a way for him to get his hands on some pizza…

+Ryan, how are you holding up?+

+I'm all right. Getting kinda bored with the rocks and dirt and minions, though.+

+I guess that's understandable. How's work on the new base going?+

+I'd say the space down here is about twice the size of my house by now.+

+Do you think we'll be able to start moving our soldiers in soon?+

+I doubt it. Not unless they like the idea of having to work around me and the minions while we're trying to enlarge the place.+

+All right, I'll pass that along to Atkins. You know he still might want to send some people out to you, right?+

+Yeah, I know,+ he said, nodding in spite of the fact that he knew Sean couldn't see it. +I don't think we'd be able to accommodate too many of them, though.+

+I'll pass that along, too. Have you been doing anything interesting lately?+

+Just eating apples, and wishing I had some mushroom pizza instead.+

He heard Sean chuckle over the link. +I know the feeling.+

XxXxX

There were twenty-two paces needed to get from one end of the kidlet's spacious office to the other; he'd walked every one of them. Several times, by now. Ingriam Mirabilis, his commanding Zoalord and the Overlord of the Africa Section, had been missing for nearly three days by now. He'd been worried ever since the end of the first day, and that was actually the first time he'd stayed in the kidlet's office for the entire day.

It hadn't been the last, of course.

Zektor was at the point where he was seriously ready to march into Cloud Gate – likely as not where the kidlet was actually staying – and demand to know where his Overlord was. He just had to wait for the rest of Team Five to confirm that they had everything that needed looking after well in hand. He knew that the best place to look for their little Overlord was in the Japan Section – since that was where his dear old dad worked – and, no matter how much of a deadbeat that guy might have been, or how personally annoying Zektor himself might have found His Excellency Imakarum Mirabilis, it was patently obvious that their little Overlord would always love him.

Those two were family, all things considered, so he guessed it fit.

"Hey, I thought I'd find you back in here. Worrying again, huh?"

Of all the members of Team Five that could have come, he was particularly glad to see that it was Elegen. One of the added benefits of their relationship was that they understood each other without the need for too many words.

"Are things all ready? Can I leave now?"

"Yeah, we've got it all under control, boss." Elegen wasn't offended for a second; Zektor allowed himself a small smile. "You just go and find the boss, and tell him we all miss him. Make sure you ask him about when he thinks he'll get back, too."

"I will," he said, nodding as he turned to go.

He was leaving without a goodbye kiss, true, but at the moment he was a lot more interested in finding out where their little Overlord was and how he was doing than in giving his boyfriend a proper farewell. Elegen would understand, since they all liked the kidlet just as much as anyone who had ever known him. He and the rest of Team Five had certainly taken better care of the kidlet than that idiot father of his had ever bothered to.

When he'd made it to the roof, Zektor found that there were only two transport 'copters stored in the covered section of the heliport. That was about what he'd been expecting, and he didn't particularly want to use the kidlet's private helicopter just on the off chance that he would be bringing him back home. The pilots weren't likely to be too amicable to the idea of a "mere" Hyper Zoanoid – even one who was the trusted advisor and confidant of his commanding Overlord the way he and the rest of Team Five were – using a Zoalord's own private 'copter. So he'd take the other one and make his way to Cloud Gate.

He'd head to the Japan Section and tell the kidlet that he was missed.