Author's Notes: Hey, look at me go! I promised this early in June and for once I've actually managed to finish it in my set time frame.
There is battles coming, I swear... if I can just get everyone to stop talking and start beating each other up...
Thanks as always for reading and especially to those of you that keep reviewing! )
Summary: Somehow everyone gets pointed in the same direction.
Chapter 8 – The Beginning of the End
Masaki glared at his reflection in the fogged mirror in disgust. Aspirin, a shower and more coffee later he felt at least mostly human (and wasn't that an irony?), though his eyes still looked dark and bloodshot. He wondered in annoyance if it would be weird to wear his sunglasses inside. The brat that was presumably still occupying his couch might take it as a sign of weakness though.
Disgusted with himself and his predicament he ran a hand through his drying hair and decided it didn't matter at that point anyway. He'd been caught off guard. He'd just have to make the best of the situation.
He could hear the television on as he left the bathroom. Some chipper-voiced woman was talking about the weather for the upcoming weekend. He tried not to grouse over that and schooled his features into what he hoped was a neutral expression.
His self control lasted just long enough for him to step into the room and find the weird kid cleaning his gun.
His Gun.
He could feel a nervous twitch starting around his left eye.
"Feel better?" The boy grinned up at him as he reassembled the last of the massive sidearm with a resounding click and Masaki could only glower down at him in disgust. Obliviously, the kid turned his attention back to the gun, lifting it to sight down the barrel at the TV announcer.
"That's not a toy." He informed the brat. At his side he could feel his hand twitching possessively.
"I was always kind of fond of this thing." The boy observed, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever because the gun had been custom-made for Masaki by a man that had probably been dead since before the kid was out of grade school. The boy gave the weapon a final swipe with a polishing cloth before flipping it around and offering him the grip. "You should take better care of it, I found it wedged under the passenger seat."
Masaki just managed not to rip a few of the kid's finger's away with the weapon. Fingering the smooth metal reassuringly he tried not to think too hard about how much the thing weighed and what it said about the kid that he'd passed it over so easily.
"I assume you have questions." The boy was wiping grease from his hands and watching the pretty newswoman rather intently, but the fact that there were only two of them in the apartment made it abundantly clear he was talking to Masaki.
Feeling stubborn, he refused to answer. Leaning back against the wall he instead took the opportunity t o look the kid over curiously. He hadn't really been able to spare the mental effort earlier to analyze the brat, but since the boy was very studiously not looking his way just then he was going to try to rectify that.
He was a rather average looking kid, Masaki decided after a moment. A little on the pretty side maybe, but not outstandingly so. Maybe a bit short for his age... that or even younger than Masaki's initial estimation. Probably mid teens though he might just barely be passable as nineteen or so. Messy hair that fell carelessly into his face and neat but unremarkable clothing, a dark gray sweater and jeans. Sneakers that had seen better days... something tied around his neck and tucked into the front of his top that was hard to make out. It didn't look like a necklace, but he wasn't sure what else it might be.
There was also a worn rucksack he hadn't made note of earlier that was leaned against the couch beside the boy, dark blue canvas with a worn label that identified it as being made by a company that was moderately popular with youth just then. The entire effect of the kid was so unreasonably generic it was kind of freaky.
"Who are you?" He wasn't sure he really intended to ask aloud, but it was as good a question as any to start with. The boy looked thoughtful.
"I've been called a lot of things," He began slowly, his gaze unfocussing as he spoke. "but I suppose you can call me Sho."
"You implied to me that you were a guyver." Masaki pressed.
"Well, I am that." 'Sho' grinned a bit. "Or at least, I was the thing in the blue armor that blew a nice crater through that school. Something oddly satisfying about blowing up a school, you know? Not that I'd want to hurt anyone or anything... but school – not my best of times."
"Lets try focusing here." Masaki interrupted, "Yes or no answers. You activated one of the Unit-Gs?"
"Yes." The boy looked entirely amused at his obvious annoyance.
"You seem to know a lot about Chronos." He wondered, trying to guess how some random average kid would have stumbled upon the organization. The obvious answer was that random average kids didn't stumble onto Chronos and so whatever appearances to the contrary this person in front of him was something unusual.
"Yes." Sho agreed.
"Such as?" Masaki pressed. There was of course the possibility that the boy was bluffing about what and how much he knew, but if that was the case it was one of the better lies he'd encountered.
"Yes?" The kid was smiling cheekily now and Masaki could feel that eye twitch of his wanting to come back.
"Don't get smart." He warned, hand tightening on the grip of the Zoaniod Buster.
"You did say yes or no answers." Sho pointed out. "But in the interest of good relations I suppose I can let that slide. And I know rather more about Chronos than most of the people that work there right now. For instance, I know that there is an alien ship buried under Mt. Minakami around which is constructed one of the largest Chronos bases in the world."
Masaki felt his eyes narrow at the statement. Most of Chronos didn't know about that ship, an outsider should have never even chanced on a mention of it. Just who the fuck was this kid?
"And would you mind telling me exactly how you came by this information?" He pressed.
"That is... complicated I'm afraid." Sho looked sincerely apologetic, which somehow just made Masaki all the more sceptical. "My sources would not appreciate being revealed, but I can safely say they're quite trustworthy."
"You're not doing a whole hell of a lot to convince me that you're trustworthy, to hell with any anonymous sources." He pointed out. Sho sighed in response, a small bit of something that might have been remorse or might have been annoyance flickering on his face.
"Fair enough, short of revealing them, what could I do to change that for you?" The boy offered.
Masaki considered him for a moment, trying to decide what to ask. The kid hadn't done anything like attack him yet and his experiences with Chronos suggested that most of their operatives would not be as subtle as this. Chronos would have killed him in his incapacitated state hours ago.
He considered the possibility that the kid was trying to earn his trust so he would lead him to Odagiri... except it sounded as if this Sho already knew of him and again, Chronos had killed its own scientists before for less than a mild suspicion of mutiny.
"Tell me why you're here. Why did you look for me specifically?" He wondered finally.
"I'm here because I want what you want." Sho turned to face him, brown eyes hardening. "To destroy Chronos. And as for why you? Because I think I can trust where you stand on the matter. Chronos has done something unforgivable to you, Masaki Murikami, and I trust you not to forgive them for it."
"And you think its going to be easy? To take on a multi-national corporation of that size?" Masaki pushed, fishing for holes. Sho's responding smile was dark.
"I expect it to be nearly impossible." The boy told him. "But impossible is hardly a good reason to just give up. Don't you agree?"
And the thing was, Masaki did. Because Chronos had to be stopped somehow, and even with as slim a chance as he had of doing any kind of real damage to them he kept going. Because failure wasn't an option and impossible wasn't an excuse.
"So what is it, exactly, you want from me?" Masaki wondered curiously. He was a long way to trusting the kid, but if Sho was really a guyver he couldn't afford to ignore the offered help.
"What I want from you?" The boy wondered aloud. Leaning back in his seat, he let his head fall onto the back of the cushions as he stared up at the ceiling. "What I want from you – is a way into that mountain."
Aptom had only been to the Chronos Japan Branch once previously and he found the building had changed very little in the intervening years. It was still an unremarkable concrete tower, hardly unique in the mess of multi-floored offices that flanked it on three sides.
The lost number allowed himself a few minutes to survey the premises before entering. There was a small section near the base that was covered in scaffolding at the moment. The building had suffered minor damage several weeks ago due, according to the reports he'd read before leaving Relic's Point, to one inspector Oswald Risker while testing the so called "Guyver" armor and who was currently listed as being AWOL.
The outer courtyard was quiet, perhaps overly so. There was a notable lack of guards, discounting the one man he could see at the entrance, and a surprising lack of "businessmen" entering or exiting the building... which considering the size of the installation was fairly strange all by itself.
Unsure what to make of the lack of on-site personnel, he headed slowly up to the main entrance. The guard frowned at him, but didn't stop his entry.
The lobby was equally devoid of people and he paused inside the door, staring about at the empty corridors speculatively. If the rest of the building was similarly occupied, it didn't bode well for the state of the commander's search for the missing Unit-Gs. Nor did the nearsightedness of sending out all the available troops do anything to raise Aptom's opinion of the man.
At the far end of the lobby was a lone receptionist. She looked at once bored and stressed and he offered her a dark smile as he approached. She shifted nervously, her eyes unconsciously flickering towards the guard near the door.
"May I help you sir?" Her voice was steady and well trained and despite her obvious discomfort she still managed a polite smile.
He retrieved his letter from the doctor and presented it calmly alongside his ID badge, silently musing how strange it was to require such a thing. There was not a soul in Relic's Point, after all, that would fail to know a lost number on sight.
"I'm here to see the Commander." He informed her and if she was surprised by this she did an admirable job hiding it.
Reichman Guyot was not a happy man.
Not only had the idiots in the Japan branch managed to loose all three of the Unit-Gs in transit, they had managed to loose all three of the active Guyver units as well – two of which they knew the host identities of!
Worse yet, there was not a single Zoaniod in the entire facility he would have considered a suitable opponent to send after the missing guyvers even if he somehow managed to locate one. What he needed were Hypers, and the only one he had available to him at that moment was Panadyne.
He eyed the bodyguard out of the corner of his eye as he considered the problem again. The man might have qualified as a hyper-zoaniod, but his abilities would be no match for what he had seen from the units so far. And that was assuming he was willing to throw away one of his better agents to the possibility.
However frustrated he was with the situation, he was not yet at the point of such desperation.
"Sir, there's a transmission for you from one of the field operatives." The communication's panel on his desk flickered to life and he stared down at the anonymous masked face of one of Chronos' soldiers.
"Put it through." He ordered, hoping that somehow one of the Japan branch's incompetent minions had managed to uncover something. The odds so far were against it, but Reichman liked to think he could be an optimist when necessary.
"Sir?" He lifted a disdainful eyebrow as one anonymous masked face was replaced with another.
"You have some new information I presume." It was hard to tell for sure over the grainy feed, but he thought he saw the man wince at his condescending tone.
"Possibly, sir. We've located a reference in Agito Makishima's files referencing a cabin in the woods near Mount Minakami. There's not much to suggest its exact location, but we think it might be a likely choice of hideout."
Reichman sat back in his chair, considering the prospect. Agito Makishima appeared to him to be no fool, for the boy to have left a reference to some kind of hideaway was uncharacteristically sloppy. Still, he was young and he had been forced to make a very fast getaway. It wasn't outside the realms of possibility for him to have left a few such references about in his haste.
"Very good. I'll see to it a team is sent to search the area. If you find anything else, contact me immediately."
"Yes, sir." The soldier nodded and the feed cut abruptly.
Reichman considered his options for a moment. The Japan Branch's resources were already at their limits, and sending operatives as far away as Mount Minakami on an unconfirmed search would have given him pause even if that weren't the case. Relic's Point was nearby and should have an overflow of available foot soldiers, but contacting them might tip his hand. He would have preferred to involve Barcus in his manhunt only as a last resort.
Still...
The console flashed to life once more and he glared down at the lobby receptionist. She did an admirable job of not showing her discomfort at his glower.
"Commander Guyot, sir, there is a man here to see you." His frown deepened at that. He was not expecting anyone.
"Who?"
"His references are from Relic's Point, sir. And the orders check out as being from Doctor Barcus." She informed him, skirting the most obvious answer. He wondered why, and just who would be visiting him from Relic's point.
"Very well, send him up." He cut the feed before she could respond. Involving the Doctor might have just become a moot point after all, he mused.
It did not take long for the man in question to make his way up to the tower office, and when he stepped out of the elevator into the room Reichman paused mentally, reconsidering just how much must be known about his current activities.
"Well, this is unusual." He offered by way of greeting. The man only strode forward silently to present him with a sheet of letterhead belonging to Barcus that politely requested his presence at Relic's Point. "Hmm, I believe I have heard of you before, Aptom isn't it?" He questioned, glancing over the paper without moving to take it. "Strange that the Doctor would send you on such a menial errand."
"I'm sure he has his reasons." Aptom returned diplomatically, bowing politely but not as submissively as Reichman might have liked. The lost number did not look at all phased by being addressed directly by a member of the council and the commander wondered how to take that.
"Yes, I'm sure he does." He agreed. "That said, why precisely are you here? Surely this summons did not require hand delivery?"
"I'm here to escort you back to Relic's Point, sir." Aptom returned calmly, and Reichman stifled annoyance at the lack of any hint of the zoaniod's true motivations. Lost Numbers were such a complete nightmare to read.
"Of course, I understand. But you must see I have pressing business to finish here. I am quite sure that if the good doctor were here he would be understanding of the situation." He gestured to the various reports strewn across his desk, pushing a bit of telepathic force behind the statement.
Aptom glanced over the mess of files rather unsympathetically.
"Unfortunately, Dr. Barcus is not here, sir. But he did give me express orders to see you back to Relic's Point expediently." The zoaniod persisted.
"And I shall make my way back as expediently as possible." He agreed, a touch of a growl making it way into his voice. "But you must understand that there are things that require my attention here and now."
"As you say, sir." Aptom agreed slowly. "But my understanding of the Doctor's orders is that the situation he is recalling you for takes precedence over what you are doing here."
For a moment Reichman considered ordering Panadyne to dispose of the man. There was no telling what, exactly, the lost number's abilities were though and as with his choice not to send the bodyguard after the guyvers he knew that potentially throwing away the hyper zoaniod was unwise.
For now at least.
"Surely you can give me long enough to get a few final things in order before I leave?" He argued again, trying to keep the animosity out of his tone.
"Of course, that's not an unreasonable request." Aptom agreed, and for a moment he thought he had managed to cow the lost number at last. "Its early yet today, I'm sure Doctor Barcus would not hold it against us to leave in the morning, rather than immediately."
The commander was unable to completely stifle his anger, and it came out in a sort of twitching grimace.
"Tomorrow, of course." He agreed through gritted teeth.
"Tomorrow then." Aptom bowed again, seemingly unperturbed, before turning back to the private elevator.
Reichman snarled as the doors closed behind the man. Damnable things, Lost Numbers, and worthless disgusting mutations all of them. If he had his way they'd never be allowed out of the tanks and to hell with how interesting the doctor found them.
Forcing himself to calm he reached over to pound his call button a bit more forcefully than necessary. The generic soldier who's face came on screen looked startled, but recovered quickly.
"Sir? Something I can do for you?"
"Yes, patch me through to Relic's Point. I have something I need to have arranged from there."
Sho stared down at the streets below as he waited for Murikami to join him. The world around him moved steadily, cars flowed past on over-packed city streets, people rushed along the sidewalks. There a group of students in uniforms wandered across the street, passing the other way a businessman jogged by... late for something perhaps. Hundreds of faces belonging to hundreds of people.
And none of them knew... could even begin to realize how fragile it all was; these lives they had built.
"I wonder... is it better to know your world is about to end and be able to do nothing, or not to know and live normally until one day it all comes crashing down?" He mused absently, leaning on the railing.
:can only live as they live: The unit offered.
"I suppose..." He glanced off into the fading sunset, feeling tired suddenly.
Time marched forward around him and despite his bravado he wasn't sure at all he'd be able to prevent the future he knew from coming to be all over again.
Closing his eyes he concentrated on syncing with the guyver that was in the subspace around him. If he concentrated he could reach out with it telepathically... reach out around them. Distantly he could sense Makishima, his own unit dormant.
The other boy had always been something of an enigma and even future knowledge hadn't completely eliminated that. Agito Makishima was many things after all; ruthless, brilliant... a fighter to the core, and yet there were pieces of him that Sho had only glimpsed, old wounds and weaknesses that he kept hidden at times even from himself. The boy he was now was oddly fragile compared to the man that Sho had so often clashed with and though he didn't precisely pity him Sho did feel a certain responsibility for his life.
After all, if he somehow failed...
The unit reached out through them and connected with the other guyver unit and for a moment Sho could only cling precariously to the railing as his vision doubled and expanded.
:interesting...:
They were tapped into Makishima's guyver armor, scanning outward and seeing with its sensor array. He could sense Shizu in the next room as readily as he could sense Murikami packing the last of his things in the apartment. Tentatively grasping his bearings he focused on the other unit. The armor was silent, felt hollowed out by comparison to his own... still connecting to it he could maneuver the sensors and...
And something was wrong. The guyver could scan close to a mile square if one strained and he knew from the location of the cabin that there should be no more than two humanoids besides Makishima in such a close proximity.
Which boded very badly for the ten he could sense just at the edge of the guyver's scanner range, approaching with a slow deliberation he didn't like at all.
"You sick kid?" Murikami's voice snapped him back into himself, the fragile telepathic link with the other unit snapping abruptly. For a moment he swayed, struggling to regain his bearings.
"Ugh... not exactly." Sho pried his hands from the railing. Where he had clung the metal was warped slightly, bent against the force of his grip. He stared at the damaged steel blindly for a moment. It was a side effect of his strange bonding he wasn't prepared to look at too closely just then.
"Shall we move on then?" Murikami urged, clearly studying the rail with him. The man didn't ask though, and that was a small favor in itself.
"Yeah," Sho turned away from the scene, turning to meet the steady gaze of the protolord. "We're going to need to make a quick stop on the way though."
Author's End Note: Hmm, I suppose that qualifies as a new guyver ability? I've been thinking a lot of how to power up Sho without well... overpowering Sho. Because the world does not need any more super-guyvers. Still, I've written his story in a way that there's got to be something. I think I've finally sorted it out, though you'll all have to wait a few chapters to find out what it is.
Next Time: Blood and guts. Made extra spicy and topped with peanut sauce!
