Chapter X

Brothers of metal

Time to die, brother. Activating his thrusters, the being that had taken over Severs body raced towards Blade. Blade hardly had any time to pull his swords from their cases and form his lance when he attacked. The blow was brutal; so much strength was behind it that it pushed blade nearly a half a mile away. Recoiling from the blow Blade flew back towards him. With all his strength Blade kicked him in the chest, only to feel all of the force being shot back into his leg. He screamed as he felt the shock wave shoot though his bone and shatter it in several places.

Kicking off with the other leg Blade managed to get some distance for about a total of five seconds before a strong hand griped his neck. His eyes followed the arm back to the owner. "How long has it been Nick? Fifteen years? And you are still the same weak fool that you were back then." the being smirked. "Cain?" Blade choked out, the hand's grip was tightening with each passing second. "Ahh I see that you have managed to recover your memory brother, to bad that it doesn't matter anymore!" With that Saber threw his brother back down to the space ring where his other victims laid.

Crashing into a wall of the space ring Blade tried to come to his senses. Looking up towards his brother his eyes widened. A blue streak of energy was flying towards him and the ring. Pulling himself out of the wall Blade flew towards the beam.

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The crew onboard the Blue earth watched in horror as they saw that there hero race to his death as a beam of Voltekka came flying towards him head on. Only one person on the ship were unaffected by what they were witnessing. Yumi smiled.

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The beam came flying towards him at horrifying speeds and strength. Stopping a good distance in front of the beam Blade began to concentrate. Suddenly the beam washed over him relentlessly. Taking in all his strength Blade began to collect the deadly energy around him. As the beam completely enveloped him all the energy layered itself onto his being. With the last bit of the beam entering the collection on his body Blade began to feel the burn of the energy, like acid on his body. Like casting a spell from his hand Blade expelled the energy though his left arm back towards Saber.

Veering to his left Saber was caught by only a small amount as the returning beam grazed his arm. Screaming out in agony he gripped his burnt arm. "You're not the insect that you were all those years ago, brother" Saber whispered to himself. "No he's not," a voice said from behind him, turning around to face the speaker his head was met with the blunt end of a lance. Just before everything went black, Saber saw the face of his new enemy. He saw past the faceplate towards the face of the being encased in her protective armor. Aki.... Then everything went dark.

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"Very good Jericho, a few more weeks of practice you will be just as good as you brothers." All those years ago back on the Argos, Jericho was in one of his sessions practicing his martial arts with the family karate instructor, Goddard. It had been two weeks sense the incident and his body was now just like that of a fifteen-year-old. Thanks to the knowledge from the 'donators', Jericho was able to advance quickly than anyone else. "Lets see how good he is now." Cain said walking into the dojo room in his practice clothing. Smiling Jericho said with a hint of over confidence in his voice "that a challenge?" Jericho said as he took up his position in front of his opponent. "Sure, if that's what you want to call it that." Cain said.

With lighting speed both began their fight. To Cain it was like fighting both himself and his brother Nick. His new brother Jericho easily blocked each move he made. Jericho however was rather bored with this fight. Maybe if I ask Master Goddard if I could be attacked by more than one person it would be more of a challenge. As they continued their fight Jericho accidentally opened himself up to his adversary. With a strong kick, Cain sent Jericho flying towards the wall.

Instinctively Jericho's body reacted aligning his body so that he could kick off from the wall. When he made contact with easy he kicked off, did a twist in the air and landed on the floor with hardly a sound. When he had finished his landing he came up to Cain with lighting speed. With the same attack that Cain had used on him Jericho kicked him square in the chest and sent him flying. All this happened in the space of just a few seconds. As Cain stood up from the crater left in the wall, Jericho collapsed.

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Back in the Space Knight command center under heavy guard, rested a lone figure, restrained to a bed. Diagnostic devices scattered all over his body. The man known as Jericho laid there in silence in the medical wing of the complex.

"What triggered this doctor?" D-boy asked, a hint of ice in his voice. "If you had asked that when you were on that bed I would have to say I have no clue. But we know more about tekkamen now. From what we have gathered is this." the doctor activated a screen that displayed some data and a cut section of a brain, Jericho's Aki assumed as she stood next to D-boy. "From what we know about how Jericho was "born" his mind is the combination of four personalities and wills." The doctor explained. "But what triggered it." Aki cut in, annoyed at the doctor.

"His tekka system." the doctor said in a flat tone. " Similar to what happened to D-boy when he would pass his old thirty minute time limit. His tekka system manifests his error by allowing a dormant personality to take over." "Would that explain his armor reformatting into Sabers?" D-boy asked.

"Most likely it does but there is something else. The only way that this could have happened is if the other personality was complete. From what we are looking at, this personality is complete but the slight scaring along his brain indicates that some sort of link was implanted onto his brain. That doesn't happen during the tekka transformation." The doctor explained.

"You said that it was similar to my old time limit, explain." D-boy asked like a machine requesting more input from its user. "Okay, unlike yours where once you exited your tekka form that your time limit was reset, Jericho's is determined by how long he remains out of his tekka form. Basically for every six minutes he remains out of his tekka form he can spend one minute in his tekka form. If he uses up all this time his system allows the other personality to take over. Where thinking once he gets out of his tekka form that he must spend an equal amount in his human from before he returns to normal." the doctor said, his voice was dry now from trying to explain what was happening.

"How long was the other personality in control." Aki asked, a hint of curiosity in her voice. "About a half hour, he's been out of his tekka form for about twenty minutes now, that's all we know right now." the doctor finished up. "Inform us when he returns to normal, we will be in the command room." Aki said as they began to walk out. "There is one other thing commanders, the way that you can easily tell who is in control of Jericho's body is with his eyes." the doctor said as they were half way out the door. Turning to face the doctor d-boy asked how. The doctors reply, " his eyes turn a metallic red, they should return to black when Jericho regains control of his body."

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"So Sever, you still refuse to allow the mind parasite to enter your mind." Darkon said with a darkness that would make anything shiver from hearing his voice. Awaking from his sleep, Jericho turned to see his former brother, Conrad. "Ah look who it is, if it isn't the man who can't do anything right." Jericho smirked. Suddenly pain shot though his body as Darkon mental commanded the pod for a moment to torment its prisoner.

"I wish that it didn't need to come this brother, but you have left use with no choice. Perhaps after this is done, you will be more willing to help us." Darkon said as he stepped aside. On the back of a small spider crab was the machine, the same machine that had combined the minds of the brothers and their father into one man.

"I have come to realize that you might need a bit more of your brother's, influence in you." With a signal from his hand, the crab walked over towards the pod. Out of the shadows came Saber, in his human form. "For good measure, we will link you two together from now on, his memories will also be your memories as well." Darkon said as he walked out of the room to allow Saber to do his work. As he left he began to hear screams from within the pod.

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Looking at their monitors the doctors continued to analyze every bit of data that came from the machines hooked up to their subject. On one bank of monitors were various displays of hormonal levels as well as mental waves. The doctors were taking no chances; they wanted to make sure they would see what was affected by the change.

As the clock began to count down the final seconds all hell broke loose.

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The clash of two weapons roared though the hanger. A sharp looking sword and a menacing looking scythe were to blame. The scythe had a pair of blades on either end, the blades were pitch black and the handle was of a twisted design yet the handler wielded it with no problem. As the tekkamen continued to fight as others were gathered around another Tekkaman. This one had fallen and was holding on for dear life. The one that held the scythe hit the others head with the blunt of the weapons twin blades.

The attack sent the enemy flying across the room. Walking slowly to her Hayato looked down at his former love. She was dead to him now, all that remained was an alien that had taken her body. Yumi looked up at him with hatred in her eyes.

Hayato woke up in a cold sweat. He knew what this meant. If his dream was what he thought it was then it only meant one thing. His last vision would come to pass all too soon.

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"He's going into arrest!" the nurse shouted. The doctors were right about the time that it would take for Jericho to regain control over his body, but they didn't expect anything like this to happen to the man.

Jericho's body was shaking violently and without any sign of relenting. Instinctively one of the nurses called the command room for help. Naturally D-boy and Aki heard the request and were on their way to the medical wing.

As the doctors continued to race time to find what was happening to Jericho, his condition continued to worsen. Frantically they injected him with all forms of medication; all had the same result, nothing. As D-boy and Aki ran into the room Jericho's body began to subside. All began to relax only to be thrown back into the maelstrom again.

Jericho's body was shutting down. All of his brain functions were stopping one by one. His heart beat had already stopped and if that was not enough, his bodies advanced immune system had released tentacles from his body that were preventing the doctors from getting to him. As his body finished shutting down his eyes opened. His eyes glowed a solid metallic red as his last breath left his body.

With his last breath the tentacles returned to his body. As D-boy and Aki approached his body, D-boy couldn't help but feel anger build up in his mind. They have taken all my blood family. Father, Cain, Conrad, Shara, and now Jericho.

As the doctors began to pull a sheet across his body his eyes shifted color. The red began to become dirty with black spots that slowly began to take over the surface of his eyes. Jericho gasped in air as his body returned to life. Looking wildly around he noticed the sheet that was chest high over his body. In Conrad's signature sarcastic "God Nick, don't you check for a dam pulse?!"

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"I know why it happened Nick." Jericho said, leaning against a wall in D-boys office. After the entire incident, in the medical wing, everyone and his brother in the complex now knew Jericho. Mostly in ways that distanced most of them from him. D-boy had "invited" him to his office to "talk" about what had caused his change.

D-boy was sitting at his desk pretending to be going though some papers and didn't really pay any attention to his brother. All right then, maybe this will grab your attention. Focusing on his Radom abilities, Jericho held out the palm of his hand towards the paper that D-boy had in his hand. With a flick of his wrist a small tendril shot out from the middle of his hand, shot threw the paper in D-boys hand and promptly returned to its master with the paper in tow. Jericho studied the paper for a moment before crumbling and throwing it aside.

If it weren't for his sunglasses shielding his eyes and years of forming a face of pure ice, D-boy would have dropped his jaw. Forming his hand in a fist and looking at it Jericho couldn't help but stare at it, he couldn't believe it either. "I've been working on it, testing my limits, seeing as I'm, well, different then the rest." Jericho said. "You said that you knew why it happened. Knew how what happened?"

Letting his hand fall to his side Jericho walked to one of the displays on the wall. " I think it was about a year or so into the first attack. Darkon had gotten tired of my, resistance, and decided to take some action." looking over to his brother "he reconnected me to that dam machine, the one that made me." walking over to the desk he slammed his fists down. "The bastard linked me back to Saber, for an entire week his memory was downloaded into me. Then it started. It was like watching two channels at once, both showing different things." Jericho leaned against the desk as he continued to tell his account of what had happened to him. "I remember every thing that he did, I remember every thing he saw, I saw who he killed, and yes, I saw you in his last minutes of life."

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In the wreckage of the dead forms of the Radom ships, cloaked to the naked eye, and intact floated the Radom command ship. Its possession given away now and then as a hull of a dead ship collided with that of ifs own. Jessica looked out the window towards the rock that she had once called her home. It hadn't changed much, then again, she hadn't been gone long enough for any visible changes to take place.

She still loved him, even if her master had ordered his death or conversion. She preferred the second option but enjoyed toying with Fire. She liked to push his buttons, see what he would do next. Then again that's what she loved about him, the way she was able to figure him out so quickly.

As she continued to view the planet below her, the room became dark and a ghost of a tekka form took shape. Floating to her side its gaze followed hers to the planet below. "There is a change of plans lady Jessica." the voice was dark and deep, it held the power to command millions of beings in its tone. "Our spies on the planet below have found that the traitor Blade has grown, comfortable around his followers to the point that he treats them like family. Seek out one of the females and, convince her to join us." the request sent a spark of pleasure up her spine.

"What of my brother and husband" Jessica inquired, hoping for the chance of having more of her fun with them.

"It is of no concern to me, just bring one of the females to our cause. Though her, Blade will be forced into a host of complications and pain." with that, the shape burred and vanished into the air. A faint smile graced Jessica's lips as she began to form her plan.