He didn't know just how far they'd come on their little underground walkabout, but he'd been starting to sense a subtle difference in the rocky crust ahead of them. It was way off in the distance, almost out of even the Guyver's sensor range, but the feeling had only gotten stronger over the time he'd been watching the minions at work; so Ryan knew he hadn't been imagining things. That was good; he really hoped that it was actually their objective that he'd been sensing, since Ryan wanted more than almost anything to be able to get the hell out of these damned tunnels before extreme boredom and the urge to do something drastic overcame his better judgment.

He'd already told Aptom about what he'd been picking up lately, since he knew that the Zoanoid-eater was about as on-edge as he was. Even the fact that Aptom had however many minions out there already, enjoying the sunlight and such, didn't mean that the Zoanoid-eater hated getting those kind of sensations secondhand any less.

He'd been working the minions like a slave driver ever since he'd heard about what Ryan's hyper-sensors were picking up, but no one really blamed him for it. The minions were all him anyway, and Ryan knew everyone was getting more than a little stir-crazy down here. So they all just went along with the program.

There were very few times that he could forget the fact that he was the only other person in these tunnels, the only one who wasn't one of Aptom's minions, and this definitely hadn't been one of them. All of the minions were tearing ruthlessly into the wall in front of them, but the Enzyme II whose back he was riding on hadn't taken a single step. Frankly, it was starting to freak him out a bit.

XxXxX

He'd been in commune for some time now, trying to find out if it was really Indianapolis they were getting close to, but all he had managed to figure out was that – unlike a Zoalord – he couldn't sense the locations of the others. He could see through their eyes well enough to navigate by landmarks if he concentrated, but that that was when he was aboveground. Being confined to these lightless, monotonous tunnels was showing him just how much his form of communication was lacking when compared to that possessed by any of Chronos' damned Council. There were times he truly hated that.

Still, it was at least good to know what his limits were, just so he knew what kind of tasty Zoanoid morsels he should focus on hunting down. The best of those would have probably been that little Zoabrat, but he'd lost just a few too many of his own to still consider that feasible. And he wasn't nearly stupid enough to think any of his could get close enough to one of the other Zoalords to get a taste of them.

So Zoalords were out; he'd made sure that all of the others in this area knew that, and that every other Prime knew to pass the message on. He wasn't going to lose any more of the others for this stubborn pride of his.

"Hey, kid," he said, nudging the Guyver a few times with one of his pinchers, just to make sure that he really had the kid's attention. "What're your sensors picking up now?"

"Well, I definitely have to say there's a big, empty space up ahead of us. I couldn't really tell you how close we are to making it inside, though. Sorry."

"S'okay, I know you don't get accurate readings about distance. It is still directly in front of us, right?"

"Yeah, we're right on track as far as that's concerned."

He'd have grinned, if he'd had the face for it. "I knew you were still useful for something."

"You know, you can feel free to shut up anytime."

They all had a good laugh after that, of course. All of them had learned not to take things so goddamned seriously down here; all of them – or both, depending on how you looked at things – had learned that they needed to blow off steam down here in these stinking tunnels. This was just the most entertaining way they'd found.

"Anyway, I really hope this is the Indianapolis base I'm scanning up ahead. I'm really starting to hate it down here."

"Yeah," he said, chuckling softly even though the kid really hadn't said anything funny. "That makes two of us."

"Don't forget me!" one of the others, this one wearing an Enzyme III, called from off to his right.

"And me," one of the ones who'd worn a II, like him, groused as he continued to pick away at the wall with his acid-oozing pinchers. "You guys aren't the only ones sick of things down here."

"I just got a crowd response from one guy," Ryan chuckled, sounding more rueful than amused if Aptom was any judge. "And yet somehow, that doesn't even surprise me anymore. I guess its official."

"What's official?" he asked idly.

"I've just gone careening over the edge," Ryan chuckled again, more rueful and less amused.

"I think we've pretty much all gone over, by now," he said, chuckling softly himself.

In the end, there wasn't really anything more to say.