Chapter the second: Funny as Hell

Or the Ode to Max Payne

            Infinite darkness.  Nowhere to walk but a paper-thin path of blood.  Where was I?  No, that didn't matter.  I couldn't think of that now, there's somebody screaming.  Or crying?  I ran-- or is I'm running?  Am I still there now? — down the crimson trail, my movements sluggish.  It felt as if I was seeing it from afar, just a bystander.  I couldn't feel anything, but somehow I knew my feet were slipping.  I fell from my bloody trek.  I grasped madly for a ledge, but all there was was the skinny rouge rope.  My hands fell through it like I was trying to catch water.  I fell into the darkness until the end of time.  The only comfort was the surrounding shadow.

            Words long since lost came back to me from deep within an obscure part of my psyche.  "Maybe you're too deep into your animation."  The truth split my skull like an ice pick.  The vibrant, flat colors, shadows falling into perfect black lines, and the impossible situation of finding this creature that now resides in me.  Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of.  The constant terror I felt was all the time accented by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

            "Waky, waky, Guyver one."   My eyelids split open to the comforting picture of my own bedroom ceiling.  I jumped upright and spun around looking for the voice that had awoken me's owner. It took me only a moment more to realize that it was traveling up my own spine.

"A-Agito?  Is that you Agito?"

            "Zeus?  No, not Zeus."  A cold chill ran throughout my body.  Who could be able to talk to me through the Guyver?!  The voice was familiar but the metallic overtones sent there by the mechanism that allowed him to speak through my back kept me from recognizing it.  Whoever it was definitely had a Guyver, or at least some kind of replica.  The notion hit me like ten thousand tons of burning paranoia.

            "Hajime?"  I thought in less than a whisper.

            "Hajime.  Ha!  No, not that fool," he replied.  The laugh felt like a dozen ice cubes sliding down my throat.  I didn't know whether to be relieved, or even more frightened.  "No, I'm just . . . I hate to sound like a soap opera . . . Just a friend."

            "Can't belei--"

            "I don't care if you believe.  I've only to tell you to keep a close eye on your father and Mizuki.  Its not that I care if they die, but if they do it will make it much easier to get a hold of your control medal."

            "Wait, who are you!?"  The words almost burst from my mouth.  The answer I received was only silence.

            The next day the first thing to meet my ears was an announcement from the television down stairs.

            ". . . section that collapsed bars Shinlong High School's only entrance.  As a result it will be closed for at least the next two weeks," shot the reporter with the snake he used for a tongue.  It was all more propaganda from our good friends at the Chronos Corporation.  They would have told the student council members, even a secretary like me.  Besides, the school has four entrances.

            It was all right.  I'm glad they closed it.  I wouldn't know what to do if I had another encounter with Hajime.  I couldn't very well call my armor in the middle of the school.  Chronos would make sure anyone who saw it would end up deader than me.  I couldn't bear to have anymore innocent blood spilled on my account.

            I would have to call Mizuki and Tetsuro.  It would be easier to keep watch over them and my dad if they were in one spot.  I didn't know whom it was that called me, but I was still going to take his advice.  Not because he said he was my friend, but because he was, and more than that, because I am a Guyver.

A/N: Ack!  Too short!  Ah, I know I'll add some dramatic after math from the encounter with Hajime.  From his point of view!  Muahahahaahahahahahaha!!!

            His blood was still warm on my fist.  His friend's —Tetsuro I think it was—his was rolling steadily off the leather of my boot.  The smell . . . I had killed hundreds, maybe more, and yet the smell of blood still bothered me.  It somehow reminded me of the Zonoid development tubes.  My eventual fate.  Trained to be a hyper Zonoid by the age of seventeen.  I sicken myself.

            I'm sorry Fukamachi, but you're just another step.  I refuse to be just another Zonoid.  It's only my luck that Zeus has placed you so perfectly in his plans.  

            "I'm sorry," I said aloud "I'm sorry for what I've done and for what I will do."

            My thoughts turn from my horrible plans to my surroundings.  I was perched gargoyle-like on the very top of the school.  It took me three years to find a haven back in Colorado.  I could have never hoped to find this place if I hadn't jumped up here after my fight, make that massacre, with Fukamachi.  Beauty can be found even in the wake of hatred.

            A cloud is moving over the mountains.  A storm is coming.