Zagart sat at his desk in his lab, typing away furiously at the keyboard of his laptop going over charts and data as if his life depended on it. He was growing annoyed that the numbers before him weren't matching up with what was in his head, what he thought were to be right and with a frustrated growl he slammed his fist onto the top of his desk and sat back in his chair away from his desk and the numbers that were getting to him.

"Bring me Granger!" He shouted out, and the two soldiers who were standing on either side of his lab door hurriedly rushed to the other room where they were keeping their prisoners.

It didn't take them long to pull the tall and burly man out from the cell room, pushing him towards the side of Zagart's desk. His face was covered in cuts and bruises, a long scar ran down the right side of his face and down his jawline almost into his neck, where a heavy metal collar was clasped tightly around it.

Zagart sneered, his nose turned up at the corner of his nostrils as he looked at the other man and huffed out angrily at him before he stood. Motioning for the two soldiers to put Tatsuya into his chair, they did as they were silently ordered to and shoved the man into the chair. Tatsuya's brown eyes scanned over the screen, a small smirk coming to his lips as he realized why he had been brought out of his cell.

"This giving you some trouble Zagart?" He asked, his voice hoarse from not having any water for the past few hours.

"Shut up, can you fix this?" Zagart asked, his heart racing in his chest.

Tatsuya looked at the screen again, and he shook his head. "What poor fool did you do this to?" He asked in a sigh, turning back to face the other man on his right.

Zagart's fists clenched at his side before he brought his right one across Tatsuya's face, causing the other man to almost fall out of the chair. "YOU SAID THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN!" Zagart yelled out furiously, his wrinkled face red in anger.

"That is not what I had said, I said that what you wanted to do was foolish, that the numbers and your calculations were beyond what you could imagine. If you did this, you were dooming whoever you put that beast inside of. There was a reason it was sealed in that slab, and to extract it was a mistake. You didn't listen to me, just like you've never listened to me!" Tatsuya shouted back, his lower lip split and dripping blood down his rugged chin.

Zagart growled in his throat again as his arm came back to his side, "Then we have to extract the beast."

"That could do more damage to the poor soul." Tatsuya sighed and shook his head, his brown eyes meeting Zagart's teal ones. "Who was it?" His voice sounded pained when he asked, his eyes almost just as sad.

"I will worry about who, you must find a way to extract that beast before it does it's damage!" Zagart yelled turning on his heels and storming out of his lab, slamming the door behind him.

Tatsuya breathed in heavily and looked back up at the laptop, the charts and numbers were all over the place and he felt his heart sink into his stomach. The probability of the one who they placed the beast into living much longer than a week was evident, and even though he was a prisoner in their clutches, he didn't want to see one innocent person suffer because of the Capitol's ambitions.

"Well, I need my hands for this." He said and shrugged his shoulders, getting the two soldiers attention.

They looked at each other briefly and moved to undo the cuffs around his wrist, the one holding the palm of his hand up where fire danced along his hand in a silent threat. Tatsuya barely looked at him and chuckled, shaking his head as he began to rework the numbers and charts to the best of his abilities; praying that he could find an answer.


Zagart threw open the door to Voltaire's office, startling the other older man at his own desk, where Boris was sitting in a leather chair facing the desk and had jumped from the sudden intrusion.

"Zagart, what is the meaning of this?!" Boris shouted, the two having never truly gotten along in all the years they had known each other.

"Where is Zeo?!" Zagart demanded, his face scrunched up in anger.

"He is gone, out on a mission." Voltaire answered calmly as he turned to face Zagart, his hands behind his back. "He left a few hours ago, he is on his way to the west where he has been charged with infiltrating the rebel forces as another spy."

Zagart's brow rose, his teeth clenching. "And you hadn't thought to have asked me about this?!"

"And why would I have done such a thing?" Voltaire asked, his eyes narrowed at Zagart across the room from him.

Zagart's teeth clenched tighter, "Because he is my son!" He shouted back.

Boris let out a laugh from where he stood and he cocked a dark-purple brow at Zagart. "Is that so?"

"Care to explain that farther?" Zagart sneered.

"You've done everything but act like that experiment of yours was a son, let alone like a human being. Why now, would you start acting like you actually care for that hunk of scrap metal?" Boris taunted, his voice cold.

"Everything I have done, not only for myself, but for the Capitol was to ensure that he was the most top fighter we had. To surpass the natural chosen and born fighters, to become the ultimate fighting machine. As his father it is my job to know where he is at all times." Zagart threw back, only causing Boris to shake his had at the man with another laugh passing his lips.

"Is that so? Well then, by all means, go after him if you wish and bring him back here."

Zagart's eyes widened at the idea and then he glanced towards Voltaire, as if asking for permission. Voltaire shook his head with a stern frown, his arms still behind his back.

"He is to stay where he is, I will not allow him to return just yet. He has been given strict orders, and if he is what you say he is, then he has a job and duty to fulfill."

"Yes, Lord Voltaire." Zagart said with a bow, his anger still present but at least now it had been slightly quenched. "While I am here then, would you like a status report on those two weapons?" He asked, and Voltaire nodded as he went and took a seat behind his desk, Boris smirking as he sat back down in the chair he had been in previously as Zagart came further into the room and stood beside Boris's chair.

"For the time being they are being held apart, as we had discussed before they arrived. Every time we take one of them out for testing, everything comes back negative. There are no traces of a Bit within them, nor have they shown any type of powers that we had suspected of them having."

"Are you saying we were tricked into thinking these were the weapons we had been looking for?" Boris asked from his chair, his attention on Zagart.

"It would appear so, they are not the two beings we have been searching for." Zagart answered, his attention on Voltaire as he spoke.

Voltaire put his elbows on his desk, leaning his chin into his hands that were folded together. "Then do what you want with them Zagart, if they are not the beings we had been hoping for, then they are of no use to us any longer. Do what you want with them, I do not care, but I want the real weapons found, at all costs. If the rebels find them before we do, it can shift this war in their favor and we can not allow that to happen. Not with how far we have already come, the fall would be too great for us." Voltaire said, his eyes narrowing again.

"Yes, Lord Voltaire." Zagart bowed his head to the older man and spun on his heel to take his leave.

"Zagart." Voltaire called out, stopping the man at the door with his hand on the doorknob. "Your failures are starting to add up, do not disappoint me again." He warned sternly, and Zagart nodded as he slipped out of the room closing the door behind him.

As he began to make his way to the elevator the doors slid open, revealing Hiro and Kai making their way out of it. As Hiro passed him, Zagart grabbed hold of his wrist, Kai not batting an eye as he continued on to his grandfather's office and slipping through the door quietly.

Zagart released Hiro's wrist the second they were alone. "I have something I need you to do for me." He said in a whisper and Hiro's light-blue eyebrows arched in question over the rim of his red sunglasses.

"I need you too keep an eye on that Hiwatari brat, the serum we used to awaken Black Dranzer within him may not be as strong as we had hoped it to be."

Hiro's brows arched higher, "Are you saying that it maybe wearing off, after all this time?"

"If the data is correct, it could be any day now that it will wear off completely. The resulting affects could go two ways, one Black will fully overtake him, or he breaks free of Black's hold and we lose him."

"So, make another serum." Hiro said as if it was the simplest of things.

"Don't patronize me boy, what do you think I do all day with my time?" Zagart scorned, "We are working on another serum now as we speak, but it may not be ready in time, and the affects of injecting him a second time is still yet to be discussed. It could kill him in the process, or it could cause him to lose all sense of any humanity he may have left. Lord Voltaire is still wanting him to take the Presidents place, we can't very well have a mindless zombie as our President, now can we?" Zagart sneered and Hiro nodded like he understood.

"Then what do you want me to do, aside from watching over him like some child?" Hiro asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Zagart pulled out a small vile of purple liquid from within his coat pocket and handed it to Hiro. "If, and only IF, he begins to lose control over Black you inject this in him. It will temporarily paralyze him long enough to bring him back here so we can do some more tests on him, and while he is out we can discuss what our next move with him is." Zagart explained as he put his hands in his coat pockets once Hiro had a good hold on the vile he had given him.

"Am I to assume Lord Voltaire does not know of this?" Hiro asked, pocketing the vile.

Zagart nodded, "It seems that a lot of my data and calculations are off on a lot of things these days." Zagart growled in frustration.

"My lips are sealed then." Hiro said and began to walk away from him, when Zagart grabbed hold of his arm and stopped him once more.

"I need you for something else, when you are done in there, so come to my lab once your meeting is over." Zagart said and released Hiro's arm as he went to the elevator and pushed the button hard, Hiro only nodding as he made his way to Voltaire's office.


As Zagart stepped back into his lab Tatsuya was still at his desk, typing away at his laptop, his face full of concentration that he hadn't noticed Zagart step back into the room.

"Don't bother any longer Granger." Zagart said, and with a flick of his wrist the two soldiers that had been standing on either side of Tatsuya grabbed hold of his arms and quickly put him back in his cuffs.

"Are you crazy!?" Tatsuya yelled as he was roughly pulled to his feet, the chair he had been sitting in getting knocked back onto the ground behind him and he tried to pull out of the two soldier's holds on his arms. "If we don't figure this out, that person will die!"

Zagart sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, his eyes holding a sadness in them Tatsuya had never seen before. "I know…"

"Then let me help you Zagart!" Tatsuya tried again, only to get jerked back by his arms from the two holding him and struggling to put him back in his cell.

"And what good would that do us when he isn't here?!" Zagart yelled back, frustrated once more that he was stuck between wanting to help his son and not being able to go around Voltaire's wishes of keeping Zeo out in the field.

"You saw the numbers, you know he doesn't have long to live. Even if we got the formula right this time, that we were able to fix this mess, he isn't here to put that into action!"

Tatsuya's brown eyes widened, his struggling against the two stopping as he met Zagart's teal eyes once more. "Who was it?" He asked, almost in a whisper. He knew, that Zagart was a hardened man, and now he looked almost broken to point of no return.

Zagart didn't answer him, just turned his head away from him and Tatsuya's heart sank down to his toes.

"You didn't…" Tatsuya gaped, and he felt another fight within him spring forth as he tried to pull away from the two holding him again. "How could you do that?! To your own son!" He shouted.

"He is NOT my SON!" Zagart shouted back angrily, but Tatsuya didn't miss the waver in his tone. "My son is long gone, before any of this ever happened. That… THING is not my boy!" Zagart yelled, though there were tears at the corner of his eye as he spoke. "Now get out of my sight!" He commanded, and the two soldiers pulled with everything they had to get Tatsuya out of Zagart's way.

As the door closed behind them Zagart went back to his desk and stood over his laptop, where he pushed a few buttons, deleting everything bit of research he had on the subject. Tears rolling down his face, that he wiped away with the back of his white coat sleeve.


Tatsuya was thrown back into his cell, that looked the exact same as the cells that held the man and woman they had brought in only a month ago in. The man and woman had been standing by their glass walls, watching everything though they didn't speak at all until the two soldier's left the cell room. The man turning to Tatsuya's cell where he sat, rubbing his reddened wrists that were throbbing in pain.

"Are you alright?" The male with blue hair asked, and Tatsuya nodded being quite accustomed to their voices in his head since they brought him in.

The two rarely talked much, but when they did he never understood a word they said, the only time he could understand them was whenever they talked to him telepathically.

"I'm fine, nothing new." Tatsuya said as he pushed himself to stand in the middle of his cell, leaning against the glass wall that looked out to the small walkway of the cell room.

"They're not happy." The woman said to him with a frown, and he nodded.

"Zagart did something to a poor boy, he wouldn't let me finish in helping him and has doomed the boy's life." He responded and the two beings looked at each other with a frown.

"Where is he?" She asked and Tatsuya shrugged his shoulders, because he truly didn't know.

"Zagart didn't say, but he's not here now and so Zagart has given up on helping him… The fool…" He cursed and slammed his fist against the glass wall, the heavy metal collar around his neck made a beeping noise and his body convulsed as it was shocked and he fell to the ground. "Dammit…" He seethed through his clenched teeth as he rubbed under the collar before standing back up.

"You should learn your lesson by now." The male said with a cheeky grin on his lips that never moved.

"You'd think I would have by now." Tatsuya sighed out as he took back up the position he had against the glass wall.

"Do you know what this boy looks like?" The girl asked, she too leaning with her back against the glass wall of her own cell next to Tatsuya's.

The sound of tongues clicking and rumbles filled the space of the cell room, which Tatsuya had come to recognize as the two of them talking to one another, though there was something in the way they were making those noises that he faintly could distinguish as arguing; something he hadn't ever heard them do before. As quickly as the noises had come they died away, and there was silence once more before the familiar buzz in his head came back.

"We're leaving, tonight. Are you safe to travel?" The woman asked him.

"Leaving?" Tatsuya asked back, his eyes wide as he tried to press himself against the glass in order to look at the woman in the cell beside him.

"Yes, before that poor boy dies because of these foolish people." She answered calmly, and Tatsuya's eyes widened.

"But how?" He asked and almost jumped out of his skin when a hand came down on his shoulder, turning around to find the two of them standing behind him, the males hand on his shoulder in a gentle hold. "The hell? Have you two been able to do that this whole time?!" He near enough screamed and the two just smiled at him.

"Don't move." The woman said gently as she reached out her hand that slowly became transparent and went through the collar around Tatsuya's neck and it broke in half between her fist, falling to the ground with a loud clank and thud against the concrete floor.

Tatsuya rubbed his neck again and watched in awe as the woman's hand became skin and flesh once more as she put it back to her side. "Thanks…" He said a bit sheepishly, rubbing his neck again where a bright red ring had been left on his skin.

"Are you safe to travel?" The male asked again and Tatsuya nodded once more. "Then hold on, and don't let go." The male said and quickly grabbed hold of Tatsuya's right arm, the woman grabbing his left.

Before he had time to blink or think, the two before him started to become a blur in his vision, and his body felt like it was floating in mid-air before he felt nothing and everything around him went black with sparks of bright colors flashed past his eyes. The moment his body felt like it had come back to him, he took in a deep breath in and out and the strong smell of the ocean brought him back to his senses and he looked to his left where there sat the ocean, it's waves rolling onto the shore in gentle intervals and the sounds of it were calming even if his mind was in a frenzy going a mile a minute about what had just happened.

"Where are we?" He asked, looking around but only saw an endless ocean and beach, the sun starting to set over the horizon.

"We're just outside, we don't know either." The woman answered him and looked to the blue haired male. "I guess we should explain now, shouldn't we?" She asked in a slight chuckle, the male smirking back to her.


"Ray! Ray open your eyes!" Bryan shouted, his soaked clothes sticking to his body as he shook Ray who was laying on the sandy ground, his eyes closed as he writhed in pain with his mouth open in a silent scream.

His body felt as if it were on fire, and it was nothing like the kind of fire he felt whenever it was Dranzer's power coming forth. This fire hurt, and it sent all kinds of pain coursing through his body that he couldn't stop or control. Dranzer and Driger were both screaming along with him in his mind, their voices loud and clear and that didn't help him in anyway. The pain was getting stronger, causing his legs and arms to almost go numb as he began to see visions of what Kai was doing, who he was with and the reason he was in pain right now.

"Your tie isn't as severed as you think it is either." Brooklyn's words coming to his mind in-between the visions and pain, though he cast them away as he tried to focus on his breathing; praying that Kai would stop or that it would be quick and over with so the pain would stop.

Suddenly it felt like he was there, standing over the two of them on the floor in what looked like a bedroom. His heart sinking into his stomach as he watched Kai quickly disrobing Wyatt on top of him, the way Kai's pale fingers dug into Wyatt's hair and skin made him want to throw up as it felt like he got punched in the gut. The pain didn't stop, as he continued to watch, even with his eyes shut tightly he still saw it in his mind. The feral part of him wanted to lash out and stop them, but he wasn't there to stop them. To them he was not there, he was somewhere far away lying on a beach in shear and utter pain; being forced to watch this all because of the mark he had given to Kai two years ago.

"S… Stop… Stop… STOP!" He shouted out as he writhed on the ground, his eyes screwed up tight and the second his last 'stop' passed his lips he saw Kai push Wyatt away from him, and the connection they had broke and Ray was back within his own body as he slowly was coming to.

"Ray?!" Bryan yelled out in panic as he watched Ray's eyes blink away the pain, his body becoming less tense on the ground in front of him.

Ray took in a few shaky breaths as the fire along his skin died away along with the pain, the numbness he felt in his arms and legs was going away and he slowly sat himself up in the sand as he put the palms of his hands to his eyes and pressed hard into them.

"What happened?" Bryan asked with a sigh of relief, though the concern in his voice was evident as his gray eyes scanned over Ray's body.

"Why… Why didn't you tell me he was with Wyatt?!" Ray asked in a high pitch yell, his golden eyes wavering as tears were fighting to spring forth as his pupils had yet to dilate.

Bryan's face fell as he gave Ray a questioning look, and then cursed before he sat himself back into the sand. "What are you talking about?"

"Kai! Why didn't anyone tell me he was with Wyatt?!" Ray bit out angrily as tears began to roll down his face, "No one told me they were together! I should have been told, I can die again!"

Bryan shook his head and ran a hand through his lavender bangs, "We didn't tell you because we didn't think it would have mattered, we didn't know your tie to Kai was still intact… Not after what he did to you." Bryan answered and threw his fist into the sand beside him. "Dammit, I'm so sorry Ray."

It was Ray's turn to shake his head at him as he wiped the tears from his cheeks, the sand that clung to his wet skin being transferred to his face. "I didn't know it was either… It's fine…" He sighed as he breathed in heavier to try and still his nerves.

"That bastard… He knew… He must have known…" Ray breathed out in a shaky breath and Bryan's eyes widened.

"How would he have known?"

"When we kissed… It probably hurt him, and so he tried to hurt me by kissing Wyatt and…" He trailed off, the visions of the two of them on top of each other clear as day just as they had been moments ago.

"What does this mean then? If Kai were to die, or you to die in a battle?" Bryan asked, not even liking the idea of it happening.

"It'll hurt… Over and over again because we can't really die… Not as long as we both have a phoenix within us." Ray sighed and clenched his shirt in his fists. "The asshole made sure I couldn't die as long as I have Dranzer within me…"

"That's been something I wanted to ask you for a while now… Why did he give her to you?" Bryan asked, eyeing Ray carefully, afraid that at any moment he would wind up on the ground in pain again.

"Brooklyn said he gave her to me because he knew the battle two years ago was inevitable, like he knew what was going to happen before it even did…"

"So he tried to protect you, till the very end?" Bryan mused.

"It would seem that way… But he was the one that struck me down, you were there you should have seen what he did!" Ray yelled out in frustration and Bryan shook his head at him.

"When I made it through the portal you were already on the ground, when I saw that I went after Kai who changed back into Black Dranzer and we fought. That's when he torn my wings apart and severed my connection to Falborg, but I was still able to get to you and get out."

"Why didn't he kill you?" Ray asked and Bryan shrugged.

"It wasn't like he didn't try, but I think he wanted to get out of Brooklyn's portal before it closed on him for good. I didn't see it when he left though, because when I carried you out he wasn't even there."

"When we went to the Capitol, before that battle… I had taken you with me, but I don't remember our time there… It's still such a blur, someone has locked my memories away and Brooklyn unlocked what he could… Do you know who might have done this to me and why?" Ray asked, his eyes meeting Bryan's who looked away from him and shifted where he sat.

"I don't know… I didn't even know that had happened since I barely saw you there… You were always with Kai when we were at the Capitol, I had tried to get you away from him once, but you sided with him." Bryan said with a shrug and Ray nodded like he knew what he was talking about.

"You told him he was going to kill me." Ray said through a breath and Bryan's head shot up to him, his brow quirked upwards.

Ray shrugged his shoulders as he brought his knees to his chest, keeping his arms wrapped around them tightly. "I had a dream our first night after the bunker collapsed, it was such a blur and the voices were distorted some, but the longer the dream went on I could make out Kai's voice… And yours… He had said you were only thinking of yourself, and you said he'd kill me… Kai argued back that he was trying to protect me… And then you had said that he had never been able to protect anyone, that he only destroyed the people around him. You were the one trying to protect me and keep me safe, and Kai said he will, but then you came over to stand by me and said that he had already killed me. I thought it was just a dream, but now it feels more like a memory…" Ray said as he shrugged his shoulders, not truly believing his own self now a days.

"That did happen… But I didn't say he had already killed you… I said that he was going to. You weren't there though when that happened, you were somewhere else." Bryan said and Ray shook his head, nothing made sense anymore to him and it was starting to get on his nerves.

"I fucking hate this! Who would lock my memories away! Whatever did I do to deserve any of this?!" He shouted, throwing his arms down at his sides, the sand around him kicking up as his fists hit the ground.

"Do you still love him?" Bryan asked as he eyed Ray carefully.

Ray paused, his heart racing in his chest. "I… I don't know…" He admitted truthfully, and then reached out and grabbed hold of Bryan's hand beside his. "I'm sorry…"

Bryan took up Ray's hand in his and kissed the top of it, causing Ray's heart to sink into his stomach. "Don't be. We'll figure this out."

Ray gave him a weakened half smile and squeezed his hand back, drowning out Dranzer and Driger's yells of disapproval once again as they began to shout and yell at him that they were not meant to be together.

"Should get back to the others…" Ray said after a moment of silence passed over them, and Bryan nodded as he stood up, pulling Ray to his feet and kissed him on the cheek.

"Call your wings back in, don't want Tala to have a shit fit that we were out here training." Bryan said with a slight smirk as he began to walk past him, his own wings having already been called back into him.

Ray did as he was told, his blood-red wings rustling and shrinking until they were no longer outside of his back before he ran to catch up with Bryan, taking his hand in his once more.