Merry Christmas!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
…
"I'M GOING TO BE A FATHER!" Goro shouted as he abruptly barged into Kazuta's office.
Kazuta, seated behind his desk, raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant, protocol and manners dictate you're supposed to knock and wait for permission before entering my office. Also, you're already a father."
"I'm going to be a father again!" Goro shouted as he started pacing back and forth in front of the desk, running his hands excitedly through his hair. "Kari is pregnant! We're having kittens!"
Kazuta sat up straight at this, eyes wide. "She is? You are? Congratulations!"
Goro froze, eyes wide. "Oh God. I'm going to be a father."
"You already are a father-" Kazuta pointed out.
"I don't know how to be a father!" Goro cried, panicking as he abruptly plumped into the seat in front of Kazuta, again without permission, although the captain supposed he could forgive it in this instance.
"Goro, you've been parenting Mira for years-"
"Yes, but I came into her life rather late, and she's always been really mature for her age," Goro rambled. "Which is really pretty tragic when you think about it, considering the reason for that, but that means I have no idea how to do the really hard stuff like, like changing diapers or knowing the right brand of food to get them or who I need to threaten to help them get into the best preschools, you know how exclusive those places can be and the ridiculous wait lists and criteria, am I going to have to kill someone to create an opening?"
Kazuta blinked. "I… Don't think that's the proper course of action-"
"Exactly! I have no idea what I'm doing!" Goro wailed, face in his hands. "I don't know how to be a father! I killed a kid. Shot him in the face. I still see him in my dreams. He appeared to me last night and told me I had no place being a father, since I shot him in the face. Remember that, Captain? Remember when I shot a kid in the face? I killed a kid. Does that mean I'm going to kill my kids? I don't want to kill my kittens! They're going to be very small! If I shoot them in the face, there will be practically nothing left! Nothing to bury or cremate! Just empty caskets, lowered into the ground! Oh, and Kari would probably leave me if I killed our kittens. Which is only sensible of her, really. You shouldn't stay with a person who shoots kittens in the face! OH GOD, KARI IS GOING TO LEAVE ME!"
"Goro," Kazuta said gently, reaching out and placing his hand over Goro's. "You sound like you're completely insane. Stop it."
Goro immediately sat up straight. "Yes, sir."
"Let me remind you, again, that you already are a father," Kazuta said calmly. "You've done a wonderful job parenting Mira. She idolizes you, much like you idolize Godai."
Goro's face fell at that. "They're never going to meet their grandfather. He died when I was just a kid." His eyes widened in horror. "Wait. I could die while they're still kids! Then I could never be a grandfather! Or, you know, be around for all their formative years, like dad wasn't, which a part of me resents him for even though I know it's irrational to do so."
"That is a risk we all run, in this line of work," Kazuta admitted.
"Should I quit?" Goro wondered, very serious. "When my current term is up. Should I quit?" He frowned, puzzled. "Except I've no idea what I would do with myself afterwards. I'm an army man through and through. Not sure how well most of my skills would translate to civilian life without me getting a job that's just as potentially dangerous as what I do now. I mean, I guess I could be a stay-at-home dad, but then that would put the burden of being the breadwinner on Kari, and she has expressed zero interest in getting in the workforce-"
"Goro, you're getting ahead of yourself," Kazuta said soothingly. "Do you want to leave the Army?"
"No, but I want to be a father," Goro insisted. "I want to be there for my kids."
"And you can be," Kazuta assured him. "I'm not saying it won't be difficult, but it can be done. It'll just take work. Thankfully, you've never been one to shy away from something just because it's hard, and I know if anyone can pull it off, it's you."
Goro took a deep breath, some of the tension ebbing from him. "Thank you, Captain. This is why you're going to be the Godfather."
Kazuta froze. "… You want me to be the Godfather?"
"Of course," Goro said, as if it were obvious. "I can't think of anyone better for the job."
Kazuta stared at him, speechless. "I… Goro, I, I don't know to say."
"Yes?" Goro prompted.
"Yes! Yes, of course I'll do it!" Kazuta exclaimed enthusiastically.
Goro cracked into a smile. "Thank you, sir. I know you'll be great at it."
"As will you," Kazuta insisted. "It's understandable that you have doubts, but Goro, I promise you, you're going to make a spectacular father."
Goro glanced away, a shy smile on his face. "Yeah… Well…" He glanced back, meeting his commander in the eyes, warm affection beaming from his smile. "I had a good example."
…
Dr. X cackled as the castle vanished in a tremendous conflagration, turrets and pieces of masonry falling towards the distant ground, the windows on the upper floors of the tower shattering and steel beams and girders jutting out as the top of the skyscraper groaned and partially collapsed on itself. "It looks like I was the superior genius in the end, Nushi!" He cried triumphantly. "Now, all I have to do is retrieve what's left of Kazuta… Hell, while I'm at it, I might as well see if I find any remains of you or your friends while I'm at it, Foundation X would love to get a look at those Divine Insects!"
He grinned. "And if any of you are intact enough… Perhaps I can persuade my superiors to turn you into Necro-Overs as well? Wouldn't it be wonderful to work together again, like back in college? With you… Under me?"
"That… Will NEVER happen!"
X started. "What?!"
A pair of bright lights started shining from the depths of the great cloud of smoke and flame rising from what was left of the castle. There was a great metallic rumble, followed by a burst of wind which blasted the smoke away, extinguished the flames, and buffeted X's mecha back. Stunned, the mad scientist stared in disbelief at the thing now hovering over the tower. "That's… That's not possible!"
Not only were Nushi, Mibojin, Shin, Ariel, Fukiyami, Kamiya, Takeshi, and Hebishima all alive, but the eight of them were standing on the back of an immense crimson biomechanical rhinoceros beetle covered in the hexagons and inlaid circuitry characteristic of Hive technology with a very thick shell and legs, his elytra currently open to allow his immense wings to keep him suspended in the air, a great thrumming resonating from his stalwart form. He wore what looked like a cross between a high tech Kabuto helmet (pun intended) and a Kaiser helmet on his head, a giant Hive microprocessor set just above his eyes, one of which looked more like a giant monocle, and his mouth parts resembled a big, bushy metal mustache. His great horn was asymmetrical, twisted to the right with a large hexagonal lens held in the notch at the tip centered over the monocle.
"Gutentag, Doktor X!" The Great Divine Insect bellowed in a jovial tone with a thick Germanic accent. "I am Great Kabuto, a stalwart servant of the Hive and Kaiserin Apista, and I am most displeased that you tried to kill mein comrades!"
"Bro! You're finally up!" Great Kuwaga cheered over the Buzzing.
"Ja, and you should have woken me sooner! Certainly before you picked up that atrocious accent and fashion sense," Great Kabuto scoffed.
"Hey now, there ain't nothing wrong with mah Stetson! It's perfectly respectable!" Great Kuwaga protested defensively, tugging at the giant metal Stetson he'd insisted they build into him when upgrading him to contemporary standards.
"Yes, in America," Great Kabuto sneered, dripping with contempt.
"Y'all do realize that th' country you picked up your accent from is responsible for some of th' biggest atrocities of th' twentieth century?" Great Kuwaga shot back.
"Remind me, how are racial equality and politics doing in America these days-" Great Kabuto retorted.
"Both of you, enough!" Nushi snapped. "Have they always been like this?"
"Unfortunately," Great Coccinella replied wearily. "They love each other dearly, but… Well, they are brothers."
"Aren't you all siblings?" Mibojin asked.
"Yes, well, some of us are more siblings than others, if that makes any sense," Great Manti explained.
"How can this be?!" Dr. X demanded. "Where did you come from?!"
Great Kabuto gave a deep, booming laugh. "I was here the whole time!"
Ariel nodded. "You see, when the first OOO built his castle, he had no idea that it was right on top of the resting place of Great Kabuto! So, when Mr. Kougami decided to transport the castle and the bit of land it was on to Japan…"
"He took Great Kabuto with it," realized an amazed Fukiyami.
"How did he not notice?" An astounded Kamiya wondered.
"Oh, he did, he just didn't tell anyone," Shin explained.
The soldiers blinked at him. "Why not?" Hebishima asked.
Shin shrugged. "Nobody asked."
"Long have I slumbered," Great Kabuto rumbled. "But now, I am ready for battle once more! While you may not be the enemy I have dreamed of facing again, Herr Doktor, you shall suffice for a good warm-up!"
"And the rest of our Great Divine Insects are already on the way, so soon you're going to taste the might of Bug-Ohi!" Ariel cried.
Alarmed, the giant purple dinosaur mecha turned around to see that Great Coccinella, Great Formic, Great Manti, Great Caelifer, Great Lepidoptera, and Great Kuwaga were all flying (or scurrying, much to Great Formic's irritation. Why hadn't he asked for wings when he was getting his upgrades again?) towards them. The six insects launched into the air, ready to aid their partners…
And slammed into an invisible force field, doing a rather good imitation of bugs on a windshield.
"Ow," Great Caelifer muttered as they gradually slid down the barrier.
Dr. X burst into laughter at the startled expressions on the heroes' faces. (Well, he presumed they looked startled, they were all wearing helmets.) "You aren't the only ones who can create energy shields to contain your enemies! Nobody is getting into or out of the area without my say-so! You're trapped in here with me!"
"More like you're the ones trapped in here with us," Mibojin said calmly, flexing her blades.
"I mean, your shield can't exactly keep the ShinLiner out, so we could probably escape anytime we wanted to," Shin added. "Not that we're going to, but…"
"Don't worry!" Great Formic declared, starting to dig into the ground. "I'll just burrow under the force field so we can all get in!"
He vanished into a tunnel. Several moments passed.
"Wow, this thing goes pretty far down. This could take a while."
His siblings sweatdropped.
"Do not worry, comrades!" Great Kabuto declared. "I will not need your help to defeat this dummkopf! No offense intended."
"Quite a lot taken!" Great Kuwaga shouted back.
"We can help too," Fukiyami spoke up. "Without the captain, we can't form FX-Emperor, but-"
"Oh yes, where is Kazuta?" X inquired, suddenly noticing that neither he or Goro were anywhere to be seen. "Don't tell me I vaporized him! That armor he was wearing would've made a fascinating specimen!"
"He's alive," Hebishima said firmly. "Just… Preoccupied."
"You mean by the parasitic alien queen infesting his suit?" X sneered.
"By Goro, who's doing his best to get her out of there!" Nushi replied.
"So that's where he went to…" X murmured. "No matter, I'll deal with them once I'm through with you!"
Great Kabuto laughed. "Rather presumptuous to think you stand a chance against me, Herr Doktor!"
"You're a living fossil who's been sleeping for the last several billion years whose software and hardware are woefully outdated," X said dismissively, much to the beetle's ire. "While I am piloting the future!"
"Well! I never!" Great Kabuto roared, mustache bristling.
"Hey! Don't talk about mah brother like that!" Great Kuwaga yelled angrily. "Only ah can do that!"
"Would any of you like to help me dig? This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would," Great Formic yelled out of his hole.
"You're the only real digger among us," Great Manti pointed out.
"And my wings definitely don't belong underground," Great Lepidoptera added, flourishing her beautiful wings, much to Great Coccinella's arousal.
Great Formic groaned. "Could really use Great Scorpio's help right about now…"
"As I was trying to say," Fukiyami said pointedly. "Without the captain, we can't form FX-Emperor, but we can still use our Rider Beasts!"
Dr. X cackled. "As if I would let any of you use my inventions against me-"
"Aaaand just finished overriding his controls, you can summon your Rider Beasts now," Nushi reported, dismissing a hologram projected from Coccinella.
"DAMMIT."
The four military Riders struck a series of poses before pressing their X buckles with both hands. "Arise! Rider Beasts!"
The earth shook, and four portions of the Plaza surrounding King's Tower split open, revealing shafts going deep into the earth. Massive elevator platforms rose up from subterranean hangars, carrying with them four massive biomechanical creatures. There was a blue serpentine beast with tentacles and the head of a killer whale; a hulking white beast with the head of a rhino, body and forearms of a gorilla, and the hind legs and tusks of an elephant; a yellow feline with the mane of a lion but the stripes and spots of a tiger and cheetah; and a green insect with the head of a stag beetle, forelimbs and upper body of a mantis, and hind legs and thorax of a grasshopper which, in the right light, could almost be mistaken for a Great Divine Insect. All of them had numerous X -shaped power units and microprocessors on their bodies and FX-02-05 painted on their sides.
"… Should we be offended by the green one?" Great Manti wondered.
"I am," Great Caelifer volunteered.
"Ah'm weirdly turned on," Great Kuwaga confessed, causing everyone to give him strange looks.
Shin frowned, glancing at the Rider Beasts on the ground before looking back at X's. "You know… I'm starting to see a pattern here… And isn't Kazuta's mecha a red bird with hawk, peacock, and condor features?
"Look, before you accuse me of ripping off OOO, I didn't originally design the Rider Beasts to look like this!" X insisted defensively. "I used Cell Medals to build all these things, so some kind of resonance or echo from the Core Medals being created in this castle must've imprinted on the materials I used which caused the Beasts to take their current forms. I didn't plagiarize anyone!"
"This time," Nushi retorted, unamused.
"Oh, shut up," he snapped at her. "This is why liked it better when we were dating, you knew when to keep your mouth shut!"
Ariel trembled with rage. "I'm really looking forward to beating the shit out of this guy, lovebug."
"Get in line," Nushi growled.
"We have you outnumbered and overpowered," Mibojin warned the scientist. "I would recommend you surrender. I rather hope you don't, actually, but I believe I'm obligated to tell you to surrender all the same."
"I don't think I will, actually!" X snarled. "You may have five mecha to my one… But mine was designed for a sixth hero, which automatically makes it stronger than all of yours put together, especially when I change into its second form!"
"He has a point," Shin admitted grudgingly. "That is how this tends to work."
"Don't worry, we'll be there to help shortly – oh, crap! Literally! I just hit a sewage line!" Great Formic shouted from his hole. "Gah, it got in my mouth! Why were we designed to be able to taste things?!"
"Who did design us, anyway?" Great Caelifer wondered.
The other Great Divine Insects shrugged.
"Then I think it's time we got a sixth mecha of our own," Ariel cried, swishing her wand through the air. "Maagi Magi Magika!"
She leapt off of Great Kabuto's back, twirled through the air, and passed through a giant runic circle, changing into her Majin form, a magnificent five-tailed angelic fox, spiritual embers burning around her form. She elegantly landed on the ground at the foot of the tower and howled as the four Rider Beasts shrieked and bellowed and roared and chittered around her.
Katsutoshi Squad applauded as Nushi swooned. "I actually forgot she could do that," Mibojin admitted.
"Well, I didn't forget I can do this!" Shin declared. "Come, ShinLiner!"
With the roar of a train horn, the ShinLiner appeared from out of nowhere, on a collision course with X's mecha. It slammed into its side, knocking it out of the air and sending it hurtling, Dr. X screaming as he was bashed and battered about his cockpit, to the ground far below.
Shin laughed. "My train may not be a mecha… But it's still a Rider Machine!"
Shin and Mibojin leapt off of Great Kabuto and into the ShinLiner, while the members of Katsutoshi squad also jumped, aiming for the cockpits of their respective mecha. "I guess that leaves just you and me, big guy!" Nushi said, patting Great Kabuto's head.
"Ja! It is mein honor to fight at the side of one of mein sister Great Coccinella's chosen!" Great Kabuto declared, gliding down to join the others on the ground. "Let us punish this Schuft for everything he has done to you and these brave soldiers, ja, Fräulein!"
The members of Katsutoshi squad landed inside the cockpits of their Rider Beasts. "Ready to go, Orcteel?" Fukiyami asked affectionately.
Kamiya laughed boisterously. "Let's rumble, Gorhphant!"
"Time for some dinner, Ligerah," Takeshi crooned.
"Let's kick things into gear, Stanper!" Hebishima cheered.
All four Rider Beasts unleashed battle cries, eyes and X units glowing in the respective colors.
Dr. X growled furiously as he managed to bring his mecha to its feet, glaring defiantly at the seven powerful machines arrayed against him. "You all think you're so tough… You think I'm a laughingstock… But before this is over, Nushi, you will see which of us is the real genius! Tremble before the might of Ptryranno!"
The great purple dinosaur howled demonically.
"You're right, Shang, I will see which of us is the real genius… The same one it's always been!" Nushi shot back. "Bugrangers, Katsutoshi squad, let's take him down!"
"YEAH!" They all cheered.
"And Goro, Kazuta… Don't worry," she whispered into the Buzzing, knowing they were listening. "We'll be with you as soon as we can. Just hang on a little longer, okay?"
…
A few minutes ago, just after Dr. X blew up the castle…
Goro woke up to people screaming his name, both in his mind and in reality. "Unf… I'm… I'm up, I'm up," he groaned, feeling groggy. Why was his head ringing? And what was that whistling in his ears?
"Goro! Partner! DO SOMETHING!" Formic yelled from his wrist.
"Uh?"
Goro opened his eyes.
He saw the side of King's Tower passing by him, and the ground far, far below.
Oh. He was falling.
He blinked.
Wait.
He was falling!
"Do something!" Formic shouted. "I can't guarantee your suit will protect you from a fall this high!"
Goro quickly pulled out his gun…
"Wait, where's the captain?!"
He delved into the Buzzing, seeking out his newfound connection with his mentor.
He found Kazuta quickly enough, but when he looked through his former captain's eyes, he only saw… Darkness.
"Captain?!"
"Goro…" Kazuta weakly sent back, sheer agony throbbing through the Buzzing. "Help… Please…"
Goro's blood went cold. He had never heard Kazuta sounding so weak, so hurt, so broken before. "Where are you?!" He cried, frantically looking all around him as he continued to fall. "Why can't I see anything through your eyes?!"
Oh Gaim, had Parasitica blinded him-
"Suit's optics… Don't work anymore…" Kazuta managed to reply.
Oh. Of course. Parasitica had probably made sure Kazuta couldn't see anything so that nobody could take advantage of his newfound connection to the Buzzing. How disgustingly clever of her.
"CAPTAIN!" The rest of Katsutoshi Squad cried, overjoyed that both Goro and Kazuta were alive.
"Goro, you have to save him!" Fukiyami pleaded.
"I fully intend to!" Goro replied. Come on, come on, where was-
Ah.
Goro suddenly spotted a tumbling form several dozen meters below him which could only be the captain. "I have eyes on him!" He said unnecessarily, since everyone could see he had eyes on him, since his eyes were their eyes.
"I'll be right down-" Ariel started.
"No, focus on X, I've got this," Goro insisted, already up to date on what his teammates both past and present were up to even though he'd only been conscious for a few seconds.
"Goro, I understand you feel responsible for the captain because of your close connection to him, but this really isn't the time for you to be pulling the solo hero act-" Nushi started.
"This also isn't the time to divide your focus," Goro argued back. "This isn't some macho bullshit. At least, not entirely. I've got this."
"Well, okay…" Nushi muttered uneasily.
Goro was aware they weren't sure this was a good idea. Hell, he wasn't sure this was a good idea.
He was going to do it anyway.
He flipped over, HUD filling up with complicated calculations as his suit tried to determine the right course of action to take to make his plan work. Eventually, AR markers assembled to form a trajectory which he quickly aligned his gun arm with, his instincts confirming that what Formic's systems told him was the right angle.
Squeezing the trigger of his blaster to build up power, he unleashed a charged shot, the recoil blasting him backwards and speeding up his descent. He grunted as he smashed through several smaller chunks of falling debris, but ignored it, focusing on a countdown running in the corner of his vision.
The instant it hit zero, he flipped over and stretched out his free arm, grabbing Kazuta's body. "Got you!" He cried, holding his Captain close and pointing his gun upwards, preparing to use the grapnel-
"But who's got you?" Parasitica hissed in his ear.
Goro glanced down at the figure he was holding, and was dismayed to note it was looking right back at him.
Right. Because of course being blasted off a building wouldn't knock Parasitica out for long, if at all.
The evil queen thrust a clawed hand at his face. Goro immediately fired his gun in her face, blasting both of them away from each other. He flinched as he heard Kazuta crying out in pain over the Buzzing. "Sorry!"
"Don't… Worry about me… Get… Her…!"
Parasitica smashed into a large chunk of falling debris and rebounded off of it. Tentacles resembling centipedes burst out of her back, two latching onto the side of King's Tower, sparks flying as they dug their mandibles into the building structure to try to slow down her descent, while two more shot out, grabbed the piece of rubble, and hurled it right it Goro.
Goro obliterated it with a shot from his gun, only for Parasitica to launch herself at him through the expanding cloud of debris, tendrils tapering into sharp points as they shot towards him. He quickly destroyed the tips of the tentacles with a few quick bursts, but Parasitica still managed to slam into him, the two of them smashing into another piece of broken castle, the evil queen laughing madly as she pressed his helmet into the stonework, causing sparks to fly as gravity pulled them both down and ground his face against the hard masonry.
He was really glad his helmet was so sturdy right about then.
Just as they cleared the chunk of broken castle, Goro dug his fingers into the edge, causing shooting pain to surge through his entire arm as he managed to stop his tumble. Parasitica, surprised, accidentally let go of him and continued falling.
Acting quickly, Goro pointed his gun at her and fired. She reflexively dodged out of the way… Which is what he had intended, for the grappling hook zipped past her and dug into another piece of debris several meters below them. Goro immediately shot downwards as the cable reeled itself back in, delivering a powerful double kick to Parasitica's sternum and slamming her into the debris piece, smashing it.
Enraged, she lashed out with her tentacles, grabbing Goro and pulling him close, extending her arms wide in a deadly embrace.
She regretted this moments later when Goro thrust his gun forwards and fired several point blank rounds into her head.
Shrieking furiously, she violently hurled him away, where he happened to land on top of the ShinLiner, which swooped by.
"We got you, bud!" Shin cried.
"You're supposed to be fighting X!" Goro yelled, activating his magnetic boots to keep from falling off the top of the train.
"We are," Mibojin replied as Ptryranno swooped towards them, firing a blast of ice breath. The ShinLiner managed to curve around the frozen blast while continuing to unload its canons at the evil mecha. With a bellow of rage, Gorhphant leapt down from higher up on the tower, landing on Ptryranno's back and grabbing it in a headlock. As the mutant dinosaur screeched and tried to throw the mammalian hybrid off, Great Kabuto rammed horn-first into its chest with a jolly cry of "BLITZKRIEG!", monocle lighting up as he fired a laser beam through the lens on his horn, massively magnifying its power and frying Ptryranno's chest at point-blank range.
"Ah. Carry on," Goro said, firing a few shots at the mecha's eyes for good measure.
Heeding a sudden warning from Nushi, Goro whirled around and fired a shot at Parasitica, who had just landed behind him, causing her to hiss in frustration as she jerked back. "You know what," she growled as she stalked closer. "I don't know if it's just the lingering resentment of the man whose body I cannibalized to get here… but for some reason, I really, really want to kill you today."
Now that he had a moment to catch his breath and (relatively) even footing, Goro was able to get a good look at what Parasitica had done to Kazuta's suit.
It wasn't pretty.
The creature before him looked less like a loose homage to the first Heisei Rider and more a thing of nightmares. The black and gold metal seemed to have been transmuted into a jagged patchwork of chitin held together by mold with bits of broken Cell Medals jutting out here and there, with ridges formed from the edges of Medals growing out of portions of the chitin plates. The body was covered in angry glowing red Xs looking more like open wounds than anything else, with the red power cells replaced by compound eyes wriggling and looking all over the place. The limbs were uneven, the left leg multi-jointed and the right arm more like a ribbed tentacle that just happened to end in an appendage somewhat resembling a claw, the left arm a huge, thick spiky bludgeon with massive claws while the right leg was more like a hoof. A pair of vestigial limbs seemed to be trying to grow from the midsection, but they seemed to be having trouble fully manifesting, so just wiggled grotesquely like immense tumors. The JSDF badge and FX-1 on the armor had both been violently scratched out. A pair of slender, centipede-like tendrils grew from the back, hissing and snapping at the air. The helmet now had far more than five horns, almost like a crown, it had mouthparts similar to Another Agito, and the eyes…
Oh Gaim, the eyes. The left one looked like Minister Hino's face, screaming in agony, while the right looked like Parasitica, grinning in triumph.
"Do you like what you see?" Parasitica crooned, shaking her hips and showing off her limbs in a mocking display. "I'll admit, I had a little trouble shaping this body exactly to my specifications – I'm not entirely familiar with these Cell Medals – but I have to say I'm more or less satisfied with the finished product."
Goro shook with rage. "You… Bitch…"
"Your Captain is still in here, of course," Parasitica commented idly, examining her claws. "Which your fully aware of, of course. You're still linked to him through the Buzzing, yes? Which means you must feel how much pain he's in. Not just from all the hits you've landed on our shared body, but, well…"
She took a single step forward with her left leg.
Kazuta howled in agony, his leg broken in far too many places and most definitely not supposed to bend that way.
"I'll kill you," Goro said. There was no heat or anger in his voice, merely a statement of fact.
"Not today, I think," she replied, amused. "If anyone's going to die today, it's more likely to be my current host. His pathetic human body really doesn't seem to like the shapes I'm twisting it in," she remarked as she started wiggling her right arm like a noodle for no other reason than to break Kazuta's arm into even smaller pieces and make him scream.
Goro struggled not to put a hole through her head, especially since that would mean doing the same to Kazuta. "Once Ariel exorcises you, we'll get him treatment-"
"I think Ariel is a little busy right now," Parasitica said dismissively, nodding at the ground, where Ariel was currently engaged hurling spells at Ptryranno.
"Goro, don't listen to her, just get her closer and I can-" Ariel yelped as she narrowly dodged a missile strike. "Right, can't let myself get distracted right now, sorry!"
"I don't need Ariel's magic to get rid of you," Goro said calmly. "All I have to do is rip that armor off him with my bare hands."
"You don't need to," Fukiyami informed him. "There's an emergency release on the side of the X-Buckle. If you hit it, that should trigger a manual shut down and disengage the armor."
"Noted," Goro replied gratefully.
"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Parasitica sneered. "You think he's in pain now? Just imagine how bad it will be once he's free of this suit. Why, it wouldn't surprise me if he died in seconds once he's disconnected from the life-support. Wouldn't that be a shame?"
She tilted her head at an angle that it should not have been capable of, cracking Kazuta's neck and eliciting more whimpers of pain from him. "Is that truly something you're willing to risk, Goro? Are you so desperate to stop me that you'll even kill your beloved mentor?"
Goro hesitated.
Immediately, his mind was inundated by thousands of voices desperately pleading with him not to do it, that there had to be a better way.
Katsutoshi Squad was torn, desperately wanting Kazuta back, but wondering if that was even possible at this point.
Philia wailed that it would be too sad an ending for this story, and she hated sad endings.
Nushi quickly calculated the odds of Kazuta's survival if he were removed from his suit in his current condition. The numbers weren't as good as she might have liked, but on the other hand, the longer he was like this, the worse his chances would get.
Ariel was pleading with Goro to be patient, that she could totally fix this with her magic just as soon as that stupid flying dinosaur stopped trying to kill her.
Shin was swearing up a storm.
Mibojin, to absolutely nobody's surprise, told him to just do it and deal with the consequences.
Apista trusted him to make the right call, though she wished she knew what that was.
Formic promised that no matter what his decision, he'd support Goro 100%.
And the kids… The kids were begging him not to hurt Uncle Kazuta.
It was the last that nearly broke him, but, in the end, there was only one voice he needed to hear. "Captain?"
Despite being the weakest, somehow Kazuta's voice rang louder throughout the Buzzing than any of the other cries crowding his skull. "Goro… You already know what to do. Remember… What I taught you…"
And the answer came to Goro instantly.
Of course. There was only one choice he could make.
The same choice his father had made in the ceremonial chamber of the Gorgom remnant.
The same choice he had made when he and a freshly reborn Katsutoshi Squad had stormed a terrorist hideout.
The same choice he'd been forced to make over a dozen times on other missions throughout his career.
Goro stared at Parasitica, but didn't see the monster she'd turned the FX-1 suit into, but the man beneath it, tired, broken, but still strong, nodding at him, a look of acceptance in his eyes.
Goro sensed a presence – a whisper in his ear, a hand on his arm – and had the sudden feeling that if he looked over his shoulder, he would see Godai Aori, a sad look in his eyes as he gave his son a similar nod.
Goro took a deep breath.
"Captain," he said, both out loud and over the Buzzing. "One way or another… I will end your pain."
He raised his gun – at the emergent Creation King, at the hateful child holding the detonator, at the evil queen threatening the world, at the only man he loved as much as his father – and Goro…
Took the shot.