Chapter the Fifth: Exit Wounds
"Where are we?" said Mr. Fukamachi.
"A Chronos holding cell." I replied solemnly.
"Tetsuro?! You're in this goddammed hell hole too?"
"Not the first time either. Yeah, I've been here for about an hour. Where the hell were you?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"We were kidnapped a while ago, but those goons only just brought you in. Where were you?" I said all of this as calm as I could muster but I couldn't hold in my anxiety anymore. "Did you see Mizuki?!"
"N-no, I don't think so . . . I . . . I don't remember." Dear god, what did they do to him? They couldn't have . . . No. Not possible.
"Don't worry Mr. Fukamachi. The best thing to do is try and get some sleep. Sho or Agito will be along to save us any minute now." I settled myself down onto the steel-hard bed so that I faced the wall.
"Agito? Makashima? That nice boy from Sho's student council? What the in the name of hell is going on?!" I sat up again, though I didn't turn to face him.
"All right. I suppose it's time to tell you everything.
A/N: If it helps your imagery, if this oncoming fight sequence was ever animated it would probably look a lot like the Wing Zero/Nataku fight from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz.
"True colors, Guyver Four?!" I called to the menacing knight. He responded by firing two more shots from his headbeam. I leaped from their way, but only fast enough to feel the hot slivers of light sear my shoulder the slightest bit.
I couldn't allow him to have an advantage. I may not have wings, but that doesn't mean I can't fly. Even as I thought I could feel the area behind my belt line tighten and the gravity around me becoming less and less. My body rose slowly into the air until it was level with his. I couldn't see Guyver IV's face, but somehow I knew he was pleased to see me do this. He suddenly rotated in air the so that he was nearly parallel to me and lunged toward me, feet first. His spike tipped foot caught me sharply across the chin. He quickly leveled out, but I already had started to swing my fist at him.
My strike hit him squarely in the center of his chest. He began to fly backwards but he almost automatically thrust his wings to their full span and the wind resistance quickly stopped him. What surprised me most was how much my hand was hurting.
"Ha! Nice try Guyver One, but I went for the premium package, complete with extra thick heart casing!" Damn him.
He flew at me again, this time with his forearm raised. I knew what was coming. The blade that protruded upward from near my elbow suddenly grew from a mere seven inches to about two feet, and began to vibrate steadily. His did likewise. The sound of the blades colliding was almost vomit inducing. The pitch of it was so horrible my sight seemed to smear.
One of his monstrous bat wings flickered past my face as he swerved around me to strike again. I tried to face him but too late. I felt his sword plant itself deep into the flesh of my back. I fell through the air for several feet before I managed to catch myself. I rounded to face him. He was already lowering himself to my height. A bore a scarlet streak across his breastplate where my blood had sprayed him.
Okay, time for a new strategy. I can't use a melee attack on him because those wings give him better maneuverability up here. I've got to clip those damned wings.
I cupped my hands as if gripping around an invisible basketball. A sphere of purest pressure, like a tiny black hole grew in the space between them. I flung my arms at him and sent the gravity orb flying at him. It stopped no more than a foot from his face and burst into a hundred smaller spheres, each traveling in a unique direction. What the hell was going on?! There! A flicker of light was coming from the silver orb at his waist. Tha' bastard made some kind of barrier!
"You're a weakling Guyver One! Let me show you how it's done!" He raised one hand to the sky spread fingered. A pressure bomb grew from his palm. And continued to grow . . . Soon it was more than three meters in diameter! He launched toward me.
"AAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHGG!" It had missed me by four or five feet, but the gravity around it was so great that it still tore my arm clean off. "YOU BASTARD! You just wait until it grows back!" It was an empty threat, more to console myself than to frighten him. I looked at my stump, gushing blood. I cauterized it quickly with my headbeam, but I was startled away from it less than a second later. The ball had continued along its path straight to the Earth. I watched in horror as a huge section of forest fell in upon it self while simultaneously being torn apart.
I don't know how he had gotten so powerful, but one thing was for sure. He had left me one option. I reached to my chest and ripped open my breastplate, flicks of mucus that had held it closed flicking up into my face. Particles of energy from the air drew themselves to the membrane that was my ultimate weapon. The Mega Smasher.
"No barrier will save you from this!" He replied by plunging his fingers in-between the plates of his own chest. The sight that met my eyes nearly sent me tumbling from the air.
He was housing four, not two Mega Smasher receptacles! And they appeared to already be completely charged!
"What do you do, Fukamachi?" he replied calmly, "You fire, I fire. The Mega Smasher is just a miniature Big Bang, so if they collided it may very well be enough to destroy this little planet you seem to love so much. Stale mate. Hmm heh heh." His cold laughter split the air. Where had I heard it before?
Suddenly a thin streak crossed near Guyver Four's face and his right wing tore from his back in a shower of blood.
"ARHG! WHA—" he screamed as he fell from the air. I searched for the source of the shot. There in the middle of a very nearby clearing, a pistol was smoking from the rolled down window of a cherry red Jaguar.
A/N: YAY! Here he comes! The entrance of everybody's favorite gun toting, badass freelance journalist! We finally get the coolest character in the show!
I had spent one second to long staring at this mystery ride. A beam burned directly into my eye. God, nothing hurts like having your eyeball being seared out by a beam of white-hot light. It sent me careening from the sky.
I landed on my neck in the middle of the crater from the pressure cannon, right near Guyver Four's feet.
"I'm sorry Fukamachi, but I can't allow you to get to your father just yet. Even If that means I have to kill you." He reached for his chest again, but just then the same car from before burst from the surrounding trees and ran directly into Guyver Four sending him flying. A man stepped out. He was tall, wearing a white suit with rolled up sleeves, a pair of bottle green sunglasses and curly shoulder length black hair. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a huge silver pistol.
"NO! It's you!" said Guyver Four, landing on his feet. He charged at the man, who simply looked at him. Guyver Four stopped dead in his tracks. Was a Guyver actually scared of some guy with a gun?!
He aimed carefully at Guyver Four's leg. What did he hope to accomplish?! He fired a single shot. Not only did the bullet easily pierce the Bio-Booster Armor, but it actually ripped apart where it had hit, and completely severed his leg from the thigh down.
"Sho! Get in!" he said in his musky voice. I wasn't about to disobey a man with a gun like that. I just hoped his knowing my name was a good thing.
He hopped into the driver's seat through the open window and immediately put his foot down, and sped us off into the forest.
"You can retract your armor. I'm not going to try to kill you." He took one hand off of the wheel and flicked open his gun, and removed the two used shells from two of the three chambers. He somehow managed to flick two of the loose shells rolling around on the passenger seat into the empty chambers using only his forefinger.
"The last person to say they were my friend shot my eye out. Besides I can't retract Guyver until everything's healed. I wouldn't want to permanently lose this arm. Can I ask you something?"
"Fine."
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU???!!!"
"Me? I'm called Masaki Murakami," he said grinning. "Don't worry. I'm a journalist."
