It has been many years since X day was initiated and Chronos took over, and many people have died in the years that followed their take over. Decades later and the inhabitants of Earth have come to accept life under the rule of Chronos as normal, and nearly every human being is now processed into zoanoids as soon as they can be as per the laws that Chronos have set down. Despite this, no one can complain, for the world has been unified and wars between nations are now a thing of the past.
To this day however, one still opposes them.
Out powered.
Out numbered.
As Guyver 1, Sho Fukamachi fights alone, Guyver 3 having disappeared years earlier with the gigantic armor. Griselda is dead. Zeus Thunderbolts has been disbanded and Aptom destroyed by none other then Alkanphel himself. With no one to fight beside him, Sho carries the burden of a one man war that he seems to have no chance of winning by himself. What's more, he is considered an enemy to the people, a demon who threatens their way of life……….
A Chronos hover transport cruised through the city, the pilot was trying to ignore her noisy passengers as they passed drinks around to each other and celebrated their promotions. The pilot was tired and longed for the softness of the bed that was awaiting her at home, where she should have been hours ago, but then she had been called in to transport soldiers to be reprocessed into hyper zoanoids to a processing facility.
Suddenly one of the men climbed into the empty co-pilot chair in the cock pit with bottles of booze in his hands.
"Why dun yah join us?" the man asked with a slurred tone, his breath reeking of the smell of alcohol and his eyes unable to focus properly.
"I'll pass, thank you. Someone needs to fly this transport" she replied dismissively, though she couldn't contain the disgust in her tone. She expected better from Chronos troops, none that she had transported before had been this bad.
"Dun be like that babe, come on, have some fun!" the man said and lurched forward, bumping into the controls and nearly sending the transport out of control. She pulled it back on to course and back handed the solider back into his seat.
"YOU STUPID IDIOT! ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!!" she screeched at him, half tempted to transform and rip him to shreds.
Taking the hint, the man returned to the cargo bay with a sour expression, and the pilot turned her attention back to flying the transport. No sooner had she looked back out the windshield, did she see the shadowy figure racing towards her. She screamed in alarm and the object smashed through the glass and rolled into the cargo bay without stopping. Within seconds their was blood curdling screams coming from the soldiers and blood exploded into the cockpit, splattering the windshield in thick clumps.
Everything was silent all of a sudden, and trembling and pale, the pilot turned around in her seat and looked into the transport bay. Blood covered the floor, the walls and the ceiling from which big globs of blood dripped down from and formed large puddles. The men were in pieces, laying everywhere, never even having the chance to transform. Her eyes settled on the creature standing in a dark corner, its eyes glowing, and the orb on its waist and forehead flashed in synchronization.
Realization dawned on her as she realized what she was staring at, and screamed in terror, as the guyver fired a pressure cannon straight into the cockpit……..
Retribution Denied
By
Riven K. Daniel
Some days had passed since the mysterious explosion of the Chronos transport vessel, the deaths of the twenty soldiers and the female pilot had rocked Edge City, and immediately the corporation had linked the explosion to the Guyver 1 and placed the blame on his shoulders. Sho didn't care though, he could accept responsibility for this one, unlike some of the mysterious mishaps that he had been blamed for in the past.
As he walked down the busy street, he wondered why he still continued to fight for his species when they considered him to be some kind of demon, or the devil himself It had troubled him at first, but in the years since Chronos took full, he had learnt to live with it, making the goal of freeing the human race from the corporations control his top priority..
He didn't care about the advancements that Chronos had made since X day. He didn't care that they had helped the human race colonize the moon, and he didn't even care that they had effectively cleaned the earth of all the pollution that human's had infected it with. These were the last things he cared about. Nothing that Chronos had done now, made what they did in the past right and he was going to make sure they got what they deserved for all the countless people they killed in their ambition for world domination.
As he usually did, he started to wonder what had happened to Agito. Or more importantly, what had happened to the gigantic armor. Both had disappeared without a trace so many years ago, he knew Agito had to be alive as he hadn't felt the death cry of a guyver. If he was still alive though, it scared Sho to think about the kind of will power Agito had gained to have kept control of the gigantic armor for nearly seventy three years, and god knows, he had tried to summon in numerous times. Sho shook his head with a weary sigh, wondering why he had never learnt to become a better fighter when it had counted, or why he never learnt to focus like Makashima had.
It was too late now to start beating himself up for it, he realized, the only thing he could do now was focus on what was most important.
It was late afternoon when he walked in the front door of the small apartment. He removed his jacket and hung it on the wall beside the door, and started for the kitchen, as always he couldn't help but feel a small loathing for the lonely apartment. The walls were cracked and bared, the wiring was shoddy at best never knowing when it would finally give out on him. He had been living in the apartment for nearly twenty years, alone.
After making a sandwich and pouring himself a drink he walked out onto the rickety old balcony outside the lounge room window and stared out at the expanse of the city, silently eating his sandwich as he tried to quell the endless mass of thoughts, but nothing he did gave him any peace.
Memories came unbidden to his mind, memories of the sounds of explosions, shouts and screams of horror and anguish.
The battle had been long and hard. Sho and Aptom had ambushed one of Chronos' major processing facilities, but Tetsuro, and Mizuki had followed, thinking they could help their friend and zoanoid ally. Sho had wanted to retreat, to get them as far from the processing facility as possible, but there was simply too many zoanoids forcing them to fight, they couldn't retreat, not without being killed.
Sho spun to avoid the bladed arm of a Thancrus, and slashed his own blades across the back of its knee's before finishing it off with his laser. He cupped his hands and summoned a pressure cannon into existence, and fired it into a crowd of on coming zoanoids. However it seemed that for every one zoanoid killed, a dozen more took its place and kept on coming. The thought of using his mega smasher's crossed his mind, but he knew that it would take too much energy out of him, and he wouldn't be able to kill enough of them.
And then, all at once the zoanoids stopped, seemingly frozen in place. Sho's head sensors twitched as new arrivals appeared on the battle ground, and slowly he turned to see the beings floating in the air above the facility, the sky becoming a sea of golden light which emanated from the being that floated in the middle of the rest. Under the armor, Sho narrowed his eyes at the zoalord of zoalords, Alkanphel, Lord of Chronos.
"Why do you fight us, Sho Fukamachi?!" Alkanphel demanded, his voice booming for miles around.
"Because I must! Because Chronos has given me no other path to follow! I will not stand back and watch as you destroy the human race for whatever selfish reason you have!" Sho shouted back angrily.
"You are only a boy, you know nothing of what I am trying to do. So do not presume to think you have the right to claim that my reasons are selfish, especially when you know nothing of what those reasons are!" the golden zoalord hissed.
"It doesn't matter what your reasons are when you would kill countless lives to see your reasons realized. You're nothing but a cold hearted murderer!" Sho retorted.
"Silence!" Alkanphel ordered.
With a wave of his hand, a golden wave of energy exploded forth towards the ground at which Sho stood, ripping a great scar into the earth and blasting Sho backwards through the air before crashing back into the ground again. He sprang to his feet as quickly as he hit the ground and fired a pressure cannon at the Zoalord in a display of defiance. Alkanphel waved his hand and the ball of compressed gravitational energy wrapped around him and dissipated into nothing, as if it had never been.
Around the zoalord, a mass of energy appeared in the shape of a circle, charging ominously with power. Suddenly the circle shot from the air around the zoalord and raced towards Sho, transforming into a small ball as it sailed through the air. Sho stood there and watched it come at him, when, without warning, Aptom slid in front of him and took the full blast of the attack in the stomach. Under his armor, Sho's eye flew open in shook and staggered backward as Aptom stood there, shaking and struggling to stand, a ball of energy still burning brightly embedded in his body.
"Aptom!" Sho gasped.
"I've said before……… Fukamachi…….. that it will be me……… that kills you!" Aptom snarled in a strained voice full of pain.
As he fell to one knee, the golden ball of energy embedded in his body exploded outwards in a spiral pattern of force and form a huge globe of energy that blasted Sho backwards once again, melting his armor and destroying the mega smasher cells until the unit could regenerate the powerful weapon. Sho struggled to his feet as the energy disappeared, and gasped at what he saw. Where Aptom once stood, there was nothing but large crater. Aptom was gone, completely destroyed by the might that was Alkanphel. Sho was on his knee's, he slammed his fists into the ground in frustration and anger.
"If you surrender now Fukamachi, you will no longer have to suffer the pain that you have brought upon yourself" Alkanphel said convincingly, and honestly. "You must know that you can never beat us, not by yourself. You are strong, but you aren't that strong. Please, end this senseless fighting and stand by my side."
Sho clenched his fist and his face contorted with all the anguish and hopelessness he was feeling. All at once those feelings transformed into a rage that was unfamiliar to him, something that was alien to him. Under the armor, his face showed defiance, and he only wished Alkanphel could see it as he snapped his head up to look at him.
"I'll never join you! I'll never stand at the side of a monster like you!!" Sho declared.
"Then you will die" Alkanphel announced, his hand pointed at the Guyver as it charged up a ball of energy, and then he pointed his hand where Mizuki and Tetsuro were. "But first you will watch those you care for perish for you foolishness!"
"NO!!" Sho screamed.
Alkanphel fired the energy, the ball spiraling wildly through the air towards it targets. Sho started running as fast as he could, closing the distance between them quickly, but the deadly attack was moving faster then he, but still he saw Tetsuro grab his sister and push them down the slope in front of them, seconds before the ball of energy slammed into the ground at his feet. Sho heard his life long friend scream out in pain as he was swallowed by the immense and powerful energy, his shadowy figure within the energy warping and then disintegrating before his eyes, until he was gone for good.
In mid run, Sho's legs buckled beneath him and he fell to his knee's. Mizuki's wails of anguish cutting through him. Tears fell from his eyes and were absorbed by the armor. First Aptom, now Tetsuro. He wasn't going to let anyone else die, not unless it was him.
"You son of a bitch! If you're going to fight anyone, fight me!!" Sho shouted.
With a snarl of rage, he climbed to his feet and blasted into the sky with the aid of his gravity orb. His fist was drawn back as he sped towards his target. Alkanphel didn't flinch and the other zoalords showed no signs of fear as Sho got closer and closer. Sho screamed out all his rage as he rushed towards the Lord of Chronos, but when he was within a meter of the zoalord, he stopped and ripped open his Mega Smashers, the damaged healed enough so that he could use them. They had charged on his way up and when he ripped the chest plates open, they were ready to fire. Sho smiled at the look of shock that appeared on Alkanphel's face seconds before he was engulfed by the brilliant white energy.
All the other Zoalord's gasped in shock, truly expecting their leader to have been defeated by the point blank mega smasher attack. Then the energy dissipated and before Sho could react, Alkanphel had reached out and grabbed him by the throat and pulled him close, a dangerous growl escaping his lips.
"Your existence, is becoming most taxing" the zoalords voice was cold and ominous as he started to crush his opponents neck under the force of his powerful grip. "I'll give you credit though, I wasn't expecting that, I almost didn't erect my shield in time. Now you'll die!"
Alkanphel spun around, Sho still caught in his grip, and then he let go, throwing the guyver straight down at the ground below, smashing him against the earth with shattering force. Even with his armor on, Sho felt like every bone in his body had been broken by the impact, he could barely move without invoking a fiery pain that shot through his body. Mizuki came running over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to move him, but he was far too heavy for her to even budge.
"Sho get up, you have to get up!" Mizuki cried, tears streaming from her face and splashing against his armor…………
Sho jerked out of his thoughts suddenly as he felt something wet splash against his hand. Gingerly he brought his other hand to his face and felt tears rolling down his cheek. He closed his eyes and force the tears away. That day had been painful for him, and for Mizuki. They both, would have perished had it not been for Agito showing up at the last minute and teleporting them to safety. Although it would only be a couple of weeks later that Agito would disappear.
His ears twitched and he turned around as he heard the phone ringing. Sighing he turned and walked back inside and went to the phone, wondering who could possibly be that was calling him..
"Who is this?" he asked tiredly as he picked up the phone.
"Hello, we're calling from Edge City Care Institute" replied a pleasant sounding woman on the other end.
Sho's heart seemed to stop for a minute or two in mid beat as his blood felt like ice had been poured straight into his veins. He took a large swallow and forced his heart to start beating again. Before replying.
"Yes?" he asked slowly.
"We're calling about your grandmother………"
His threw open the doors to the institute and rushed into the lobby with the haste of a man on a mission and stopped only as long as he had too at the front desk to log in his name and grab his name tag, and then he was off again. He didn't worry about the elevators, instead he took the stairs, climbing them two and three at a time as fast as he could before arriving at the floor he wanted and racing down a long corridor. He stopped at the room numbered six hundred and ninety eight, and hesitated as his hand was about to touch the door handle, before taking a deep breath and walking into the room.
The sight before him ripped his heart into a million pieces.
His 'grandmother' of course was not his grandmother. No, it was Mizuki Segawa, whom to this day he still loved unconditionally. Even at the age of ninety nine years old he loved her, she had been with him every step of the way, but then the day had come that he had feared. The day that she had become too sick for him to care for alone, but it had been Mizuki who made Sho put her in this place. He hadn't wanted to, and had refused to for many weeks, stubbornly caring for her as best he could, but eventually, she had won and reluctantly, Sho had placed her in the Edge City Care Institute, with him posing as her grandson to divert suspicion, and had come to visit daily ever since.
Though she was nearly a hundred years old, when Sho looked at her, he saw only the sixteen year old schoolgirl that had once been full of life. Still, he was aware that she did not look well, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. She laid there, hooked up to dozen's of bio tubes that kept her alive as best they could. They could have kept her alive another fifty or sixty years if she had got processed into a zoanoid, but of course she would have none of it, and Sho, despite the urging's of the nursing staff to have it done to her, he would not have such a thing done against her will. Now he feared, it was too late anyway.
As he approached her, he heard how labored her breathing was, even with the help of the respirator. Silently he took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. She looked up at him with her brown eyes, which he thought had never aged a year since he knew her. She smiled warmly, but sadly at the same time.
Sho looked over at the nurse that was in the room.
"Could we be alone please?" he asked her.
She looked at the two of them, and gave a sad smile before nodding and then leaving them alone. For a while, only the sound of the machinery could be heard above Mizuki's breathing. Mizuki then motioned for him to remove the breathing mask from her mouth so she could speak properly.
"I haven't got much time left I'm afraid Sho" Mizuki told him calmly. "I'll be joining my brother Tetsuro soon……."
"You don't know that Mizuki" he replied, not ready to accept the reality of what was facing him.
"We've both known this day was coming for a long time Sho" she said again, pausing as she started to cough badly.
"Mizuki you should be resting, don't strain yourself" he said as he went to get a cup of water for her, but she squeezed his hand tightly, causing him to stop.
"No. Sho, you have to listen to me" she said, coughing a little. "You knew this day was unavoidable. I've tried to prepare you best as I could, but you've refused to accept it, and now your going to have to. So please, listen to what I have to say, while I still can, please."
He stood there silent for what felt like forever, fighting a battle inside of himself as the pain of what was happening started to become more and more real with each passing second. He turned and looked at her, and reluctantly, he nodded.
"We've been together for a long time Sho. I've seen you suffer so much, and I know you still blame yourself for Tetsuro and Aptom's deaths. But they weren't your fault, Aptom knew the reality of his situation, that one day he would be killed by someone more powerful then him, and Tetsuro knew the risks of following you into battle. Neither of them died blaming you for what happened. So please, let go of that pain you've been holding on to for so long now, it wont do you any good" she explained gently, he simply looked away, blinking back tears, nothing she could say could stop him from feeling responsible for that day. She knew this though but said nothing, instead she hoped that one day he would realize it himself. So she continued. "And now, this is the most important of what I have to say Sho, and you have to promise me that you'll listen to what I have to say. Promise me."
"………….I promise" he said after a long time.
"Sho, you know better then I do, that the world loves Chronos. They have given the world peace, even if it was by force, it doesn't matter to the people. I'm not asking you to forgive them and join them like they've wanted you to in the past, but I am asking you to stop fighting them. Please don't say anything yet Sho…….. I say this because, you don't have the power to fight and beat them, and even if you do, you'll be doing the world more harm then good, it will be as it was before. Countries fighting each other, and countless innocents being killed in the crossfire. Chronos, for all their faults, prevent that from happening, and you don't have the right to take that away from the people of the world, and if you did, you'd be hated forever by everyo….. " she stopped as another coughing fit took hold.
"I'm sorry Mizuki, but that is something I cannot do. Chronos are evil and they have to be stopped before its too late. They are taking away everyone's humanity. They don't care about us, they just want to rule the world. I don't care if everyone hates me, I don't, I'm gonna do what I have to" he told her quietly.
"Please Sho!" she pleaded.
"No!" he snapped, suddenly angry, shocking both of them. He had never snapped her once in his whole life. He looked away from her. "Don't ask this of me. Especially when you know what they have done to us. Done to our friends and family. Remember what they did to my father? No, I will never stop fighting them!"
Mizuki was silent, her expression sad as a tear escaped either eye. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Then you are not my Sho" she replied, her voice strained with sadness.
Sho squeezed his eyes shut, hurting as those words cut through him and tore his heart to shreds. Then he heard a long continuous noise that he had only ever heard in the movies, his eyes went wide, knowing what it was. He spun around and saw on her heart monitor the red line.
"No! No! Mizuki NO!!!" he cried, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to wake her. "No, not like this! Don't you dare leave like this!! MIZUKI!!!"
The city was cold and dark, more so then usual as Sho sat in a back alley with rain pelting down from the black clouds above. His blank and nearly lifeless eyes staring off into nothingness. He couldn't believe what had happened. It was not how he had wanted it to end. He had wanted her to die happy, and now it was too late, he had screwed it up and the one he loved had died disappointed in him. No, he thought darkly, it wasn't his fault, it was Chronos, they had driven them to this point, it was them that was to blame, not him, he reasoned. They had ruined both their lives, forced them to live in secret, always on the run.
He slammed one of his clenched fist into the ground and howled in anger and frustration. This was not how things were meant to be.
Slowly and awkwardly he got up and left the alley way, looking some what like a zombie walking the street. He brooded inwardly as thoughts assaulted his mind. The streets were crowded and he bumped into more then he could count, the only thing drawing him out of his thoughts, was an advertisement on the giant tv's on the buildings, one showing some of the projects Chronos had going and ending with a happy little message on the end.
Sho's eyes hardened, a snarl rolling slowly out of his mouth as something deep inside that had been held in check for countless years, suddenly broke free….
Alkanphel sat comfortably in his command chair on the bridge, silently observing the multiple monitors before him that showed the goings on of his great vessel. The Ark was always buzzing with activity these days, since they had ensured the total support of all the world's governments and now control it. They had done away with all the unnecessary politics that had governed the efficiency of how the world ran. No longer did one country prosper more then another, everyone was equal now. They were the children of Chronos now, united under the rule of one man. Alkanphel.
It had taken millions of years to plan, and hundreds of years to successfully carry out. When he looked back on how long it took to carry out the plan, he suppose they could have just as easily taken over the world when there would have been less resistance to the their take over, but in the end things had worked out with the losses on both side. Suddenly one of the monitors flicked to the image of a young woman, drawing the Lord of Chronos from his thoughts.
"My Lord, the sensors picked up something unusual when a transport pod just docked in the docking bay" reported the woman.
"Unusual?" he raised a platinum eye brow.
"The sensors picked up a strange bio reading that doesn't match any of the transport pod's signatures, nor those of any Zoa forms……"
"CLEAR THE DOCKING BAY!!" Alkanphel suddenly roared as his eyes widened in realization.
Even as the last word left his mouth, the bulkhead doors leading to the docking bay blasted open with a tremendous explosion. Fire rolling outward and washing over stunned and horrified zoanoids, incinerating them in seconds, not even giving them enough time to scream before they were turn to ash. Zoanoids ran to the destructive scene to help the injured and to see what had happened, but before they could so much as blink, Guyver 1 emerged from the flames and attacked. His blades were at their full length and cleaved through the first zoaform closest to him, and then he was on another, faster then he had ever moved before. His fingers dug into the throat of a Ramotith with ease and tore out the monster's windpipe.
A Vamore and Delcasse fired their bio blasters at the bio armored human, but he launched himself from the dying Ramotith and somersaulted through the air. He landed feet first on the Vamore's head, shattering its weaker skull, driving it to the ground with enough force to smash the bio blaster type's head apart, splattering the ground with blood and grey matter. A gravity sphere appeared in his hand and before the Delcasse could spin around, he slammed the pressure cannon into its back, blasting it apart and covering his entire form with zoa blood. He was like a crazed animal, nothing could stop him.
He strafed across the wide opened area of the check in station, leaving a trail of laser damage in his wake as he cut down the zoanoids that were too stupid to get out of the way. A Thancrus slid in front of him with its blades poised to attack, but Sho went into a baseball slide, ducking under the first attack and then launched himself forward with all his strength as he slammed his balled fist into the hyper zoanoid's chest with enough force to shatter its sternum and collar bones and quickly delivered the killed blow as he cut open its vulnerable throat.
By now, people were running in all directions as the guyver killed anything that moved. When Alkanphel appeared in the check in station, he couldn't believe the sight before him. In an instant memories of the devastation Guyver 0 had wreaked upon the Creators, humans and zoanoids alike. He could see the burning jungles and open plains so clearly that it was almost like he could reach out and touch them. Only the sound of his screaming and dying followers brought him out of his memories.
"Enough Fukamachi!!" roared the Lord of Chronos.
Guyver 1 was in the middle of crushing a Broiz's skull when his life long enemy voice bellowed through the ship. He stop for a brief second as he turned to assess the powerful being, and then without so much as a second thought he crushed the zoanoids head between his hands and let the lifeless body fall to the ground. Alkanphel was as shocked as anyone by the viciousness of the guyver's attack. Never in all the years since the boy had become Guyver 1 had he ever seen him act like this.
"Alkanphel" Sho's voice was low and unnervingly cold.
"Fukamachi" Alkanphel's eyes narrowed.
Without a further exchange of words between them, Guyver 1 flew across the space between them at an unbelievable amount of speed, Alkanphel barely had time to move before the armored human flew past him and sank his fist into the ship's wall. Barely stopping for even a second, the guyver had freed his hand and attacked again, the zoalord parrying his fist with one hand delivering a back handed punch with the other. Guyver 1 shot across the are like a missile and slammed into a wall. Sho fell to the ground as he bounced off the wall, and much to Alkanphel's surprise, he was back on his feet again within seconds.
"What do you think you're going to accomplish Fukamachi?" the zoalord asked, collected and calm, determined to expend as little energy as possible in this battle. He slowly made his way closer to the guyver. "Did you think you would infiltrate my ship and kill me?"
Guyver 1 just looked zoalord and when he was within only a couple of feet, he replied. "Yes."
Without warning, he ripped opened his chest plates and before Alkanphel could blink, energy exploded forth from the mega smasher cells and blasted the zoalord at point blank range. The energy engulfed Alkanphel and tore through the walls behind him with explosive results. Those that were still standing around watching gasped in shock and horror as the energy rippled and fluctuated wildly, and then where Alkanphel had stood, a bubble expanded outward and cut the blast off from the rest of the ship as it assaulted the shield. The leader of Chronos stood there in his full battle form, and he didn't look at all happy. With a vicious snarl, he fired a psionic pulse through the energy back through the mega smasher at Guyver 1, just as the time limit on the powerful guyver weapon ran out. Immediately Sho launched himself in the air and cleanly avoided the attack. He quickly descended and swung one of his blades forward with all his strength. Alkanphel saw the attack coming and caught the blade in his hand, closing his fist around it to prevent his would be killer from escaping.
"I've had a full body shield enclosed around me the whole time Fukamachi, I'm not an idiot" he hissed dangerously.
"Go to hell" Sho retorted, swinging his other fist around.
Alkanphel caught the feeble attack and lashed out with a kick to the guyver's mid section, smashing back into the wall. The zoalord glared daggers at the guyver, but he wasn't so much as angry with his enemy as he was with himself for falling for such an obvious trick.
"You stupid fool Fukamachi" Alkanphel growled. "Was this what you wanted? Was it?! Nearly ninety years of constant fighting and death?! Countless lives lost and for what?! Your own selfish desires for revenge!!?"
"NO!! It was never about revenge!! It was about doing what was right!!" shouted Sho. "You had no right to do what you've done to this world! You took away everyone's humanity! You made it personal when you made me kill my father, and when you killed Tetsuro!! You're the one that's responsible for all the lives lost in the war between us and now that Mizuki is gone, I have nothing left to lose!!"
Guyver 1 lunged at the yellow zoalord and slammed his fist into his stomach. Alkanphel clenched his teeth against the mild, but unexpected pain that shot through his mid section. He took a swing at his armored foe, but much to his surprise, Sho blocked the attack with remarkable ease, and pushed the zoalord's arm back with some effort, but still against Alkanphel's superior strength. Alkanphel looked at him in shock, trying to figure out how Fukamachi had increased in strength so much, and then it hit him.
"You fool! You released your power limiter!!" the leader of Chronos accused him.
"I told you, I have nothing left to lose!" Guyver 1 snarled.
"Without the power limiter, your unit will destroy you!" Alkanphel warned him.
"Not before I destroy you!" promised Sho.
Sho kicked Alkanphel in the knee's suddenly with enough force to make the zoalord cry out in pain from the attack. The guyver was already moving, slamming his into Alkanphel's face, but with little affect, the zoalord was ready for his physical attacks now and could shield against them as easily as he had the mega smasher. An invisible bubble exploded between the two and threw Sho backwards. He flipped skillfully through the air, firing off a dual pressure cannon and volley of laser blasts, and as they were about to hit, they suddenly curved around the zoalord's body and exploded harmlessly against the ground around Alkanphel. Gravitation forces flowed fluidly around the golden being as he summoned phenomenal powers he hadn't used in millions of years. In the back of his mind he could feel the strain starting to grip at his body, weakening him from extended use.
Guyver 1 landed in a crouch, breathing hard. Alkanphel wasn't the only one that was starting to feel the strain. Alkanphel could see that the unit was starting to take its toll on its host, and with out the power limiter, the unit would continue to feed off every bit of bio energy Sho had left in him, until his body could take no more and unit turned to the only thing it had left to feed on. The host itself. Sho had come here knowing he was going to die, one way or another.
"This ends now, Alkanphel" Guyver 1 rasped.
Alkanphel's eyes narrowed as Sho cupped his hands in front of him. Immediately the gravity orb embedded in his waist started to glow brightly and transparent ribbons of gravitational energy started to fly around the guyver, flowing into the center between his hands and quickly expanded into a ball of energy that grew bigger and bigger with each passing second. Sho's control medal flashed rapidly and stale air blasted from the vents in his mouth with flecks of red material. Blood Alkanphel realized. Soon the energy had grown so large that Sho's arms were wide spread an he appeared as only a silhouette behind the energy.
The ground around the two of them started to crack and break apart as bits of bio material was lifted into the air by the immense gravity filling the area. Alkanphel watched in fascination as the guyver charged the pressure cannon far beyond what a normal guyver should have been capable of, but then again he had never seen a guyver go complete out of control such as this. The Creators would have made sure this entire world had been destroyed if Guyver 0 had gone this far Alkanphel thought, but that guyver had been primitive and ruled by a violent nature. Guyver 1 was different, he wasn't violent by nature, he was tired, desperate and had nothing left to keep him balanced. All ill feelings Alkanphel had towards this human, for all the interference and acts he had caused to prevent Alkanphel from accomplishing his goals left him, and he suddenly found himself filled with an overwhelming amount of pity for the him…….
The pieces of bio material that had been ripped from the floor, flew around the giant pressure cannon now, its expansion finally coming to a halt as it reached its maximum size. Alkanphel could feel the power emanating from it and clenched his teeth. He couldn't let it go off inside the Ark, it would be ripped in two from the explosion alone.
"Your reign ends here Alkanphel!!!" Sho screamed.
Without even a word Alkanphel fired a small bolt of black energy straight at the pressure cannon, ignoring Sho's words. The bolt passed through the surface of the gravity weapon and disappeared without causing even a ripple in it. With one final scream of determination Sho propelled the giant pressure cannon forward, the tremendous gravitational forces ripping apart trench in its wake it rolled towards Alkanphel, but the zoalord just watched emotionlessly. Before the pressure cannon was even five feet from Sho, it started to ripple and fluctuate uncontrollably. Sho watched in fury and frustration as the pressure cannon started to shrink, and a black disk began to emerge from the center of it, making it look like some warped version of Saturn. It was a black hole and the gravity weapons mass was being sucked into it.
"What have you done!?" Guyver 1 demanded.
"I'm ending this now" Alkanphel replied calmly.
Without warning, the remainder of the pressure cannon – now more then half its original size – exploded. Sho took the blunt of the attack, his arms and left being ripped from his body and vaporized by the destructive energy. His chest caved in, his gravity and sensory orbs exploded and blood shot from his mouth vents in thick streams, pooling on the ground beneath him as he was slammed violently against a wall of the ship, his back snapping in two. Sho let out a howl of agony as pain filled his entire body, blood spurting from his ruined arms and leg. He fought the darkness trying to over take his mind as the unit tried to take over, and stared through the white hot agony fogging his mind. He clenched his teeth and hissed as he saw Alkanphel walking slowly towards him, one outstretched as familiar device suddenly appeared around his arm. Sho remembered the device well, Guyot had tried to use it on Agito when they had destroyed Relic's Point.
It was the Unit Remover.
"I truly wish this could have ended another way Fukamachi" Alkanphel sighed.
"I don't want your pity" Sho snarled.
"I pity no one" Alkanphel replied calmly. "I do however, respect you."
"I don't want your respect either" the guyver retorted angrily.
"You have it nevertheless, and now, I will grant you what you desire more then even my death" Alkanphel explained, leveling the tip of the unit remover at Sho's unit. "I will reunite you with your friends and loved ones. I hope you find peace in your next life. You have earned it."
The Unit Remover came to life with a hum, opening up like a strange flower and revealing the Control medal like orb at its center. Sho stared beyond the unit and straight into Alkanphel's eyes with deep loathing and hatred. He wanted to kill the monster that had ruined his life and turned him into the demon that people feared across the world. He wanted to destroy him entirely, but he now knew that was impossible, he screamed inwardly at himself. With what little strength he had left he threw himself awkwardly at the zoalord with a howl of rage. The last thing Sho Fukamachi saw was a blinding light exploding from the Unit Remover. Excruciating pain shot through his mind and with no more energy left to fight, the armor peeled away from his body, leaving the wrecked and ruined human slumped against the wall, darkness over took him quickly and his eyes slid shut, as he expelled his last breath.
Alkanphel stood over the body of his fallen foe with the guyver unit clasped tightly by the Unit Remover.
He sighed sadly. "Rest in piece, Sho Fukamachi."
Sho Fukamachi………
The Guyver 1………
The Demon………
He had been known by all these names for the many decades he had fought Chronos in the name of humanity, even when the people of earth no longer wanted him he continued to fight, harder and harder each day. There were some that celebrated his death in the days that followed the battle on the Ark, others accepted it with quiet resolve, not knowing how to really feel, and there was those that were old enough to remember him before he became the demon feared by all and silently mourned his lost.
It was much to everyone's surprise however, that under the command of Lord Alkanphel himself that Sho Fukamachi would be buried with the same honors as one of his own. He was buried as a hero. A monument was erected of the Guyver 1 and to this day and can still be found at the check in station of the Ark for all comers and goers to see, with a single message scribed into the plaque on its base.
"He Fought For This World."
And so it was, that Sho Fukamachi was remembered. By some as a demon, but by the rest of humanity, he was remembered and honored as a man who defied the power of Chronos to fight for what he had believed in.
In time humanity would forget him, but there was one who would never forget him.
Alkanphel would never forget.
Deep within the bowels of the Ark, Valcus worked away tirelessly in his private lab, hunched over a microscope. He didn't even look up when Alkanphel walked up beside him. The had been friends for a long time and had surpassed the need for formalities that Alkanphel demanded from most of his Zoalords. Valcus and Imakarum at least wouldn't betray him. The Lord of Chronos stared straight a head at the bio tube silently. Valcus had noticed a significant change in his Lord since the death of Sho Fukamachi, it only been a few months since and he had expected Alkanphel to go back to the way he had been before, but he always seemed to be constantly contemplating something that Valcus could never understand.
Though he was worried about the leader of Chronos, Valcus couldn't be happier. They had finally managed to regain possession of the guyver unit they had lost so long ago to the human teenager, and it was now there's to experiment on all they wanted. They could finally figure out how it worked and if it was even possible for them to create their own units. That was Valcus' ultimate goal.
"How is the process progressing?" Alkanphel asked quietly, breaking the silence.
Valcus looked up. "Damage was extensive but the re-growth rate is up to about seventy five percent. I give it another week before we can get down to the serious work, until then though we just have to wait, after that though it shouldn't take us long to finish the processing."
"Very good" Alkanphel smiled slightly.
Both of them looked at the bio tube silently. Inside it a young man floated motionlessly with his knee's drawn up to his chest and a mass of wavy brown hair flowing in front of his closed eyes. Tubes were attached to his back, running down his spine in a single profile column, and more stuck out of his arms and legs and his chest. The translucent green liquid he was submerged in gave him an ominous look.
"Soon……….. " Alkanphel whispered. "……. Sho Fukamachi………… "
THE END