The Roidmudes engaged by Mach and Drive were the same two that had escaped from the previous incident; their general build and structure matched, and even at a distance Chase could identify repair work corresponding to the damage he remembered being done in the first place. Drive had shifted out of his base form, but the speed of the smaller Roidmude was still giving him trouble. As Chase brought his bike to a halt, Drive failed to dodge and was knocked sprawling for his error.
Mach, when Chase glanced over, had just gotten his primary weapon back into his hands and was loading a Signal Bike into the Signal Landing Panel; he ducked under a clumsy strike without missing a beat, both his speed and fluidity a notch above what the Driver's standard specs should have given him. The wall Mach had just dodged away from had been crumpled, falling stone and damaged headstones behind it demonstrating the greater physical strength the Roidmude had gained between its appearances, and if it got its hands on Go again, it would kill him. Given how quickly Go was moving, Chase rated that probability as low at best but despite his assessment of the scene, he still had to fight down the urge to back up Mach instead of lending assistance to Drive.
"Stand still!" Chase heard Drive shout, and he finally identified the variation on Drive's base form; he'd switched into Type Speed Hunter, which made no sense when facing off against an opponent that Chase knew was faster than Drive's base type. Chase activated his own transformation and ran toward the smaller Roidmude, Shingou Ax in hand and Signal Chaser Bike already loaded into the Signal Landing Panel. He didn't want Shinnosuke dead, either, especially not from a preventable tactical error.
The telltale whine of Drive's Shift Brace activating brought Chase to a stumbling halt as he finally followed Shinnosuke's reasoning; Shinnosuke had summoned the Justice Cage, triggering its transformation into its Energy Prison shape, and he flung it toward the Roidmude. The motion was hidden by Drive's second tumble toward the ground as the Roidmude landed a second solid hit, and Chase could see the electric energy arcing towards the Roidmude. Incongruously, the Shingou Ax spit out its fully-charged notification while Chase stood frozen, and he barely registered the words Good to go!
He wants to catch it, Chase realized. If he could interrogate or at least examine the Roidmude, he might gain insight into what they were after this time around. Shinnosuke was persistent enough to find something useful, if he could get the Roidmude in one relatively undamaged piece and keep it contained. The Roidmude would figure out a way out of confinement, though, Chase was sure of it. He could see its fingers twitching even as the Energy Prison formed around it, and he swung the Shingou Ax at its unprotected spine in a desperate bid to save Shinnosuke from himself.
The edge of the Shingou Ax reacted poorly with the Energy Prison, the resulting shockwave knocking Chase flat. The rolling boom caught up with his ears a split second later, oddly doubled until Chase craned his head around to see Mach's opponent disappearing in a truly impressive fireball. Two down, he thought distantly, and then he caught a flutter of movement out of the corner of his eye.
The third Roidmude had somehow managed to use the explosion to fling itself clear of the field and vanished around a corner before Chase could react. He was fairly sure it was too battered to return immediately, and he took stock of his own body. He had sustained very little damage, and he climbed to his feet before releasing his transformation and turning to look for Drive.
Shinnosuke was already on his feet, armor gone. "What the hell?" he sputtered. Chase looked him over critically, but Shinnosuke didn't appear significantly hurt either.
"I did not foresee that particular effect," Chase said, once he was sure that his friend was no worse for the wear.
"I had him!" Shinnosuke said, throwing his hands in the air. "What were you doing?"
Chase hesitated. "I – was afraid that the Roidmude – that it –"
Shinnosuke deflated; that was the only word that came to mind. His shoulders slumped and he came within arm's reach of Chase. "You were worried he'd get out of the cage," he said, and Chase looked down instead of answering. Shinnosuke clapped him on the shoulder. "I had it under control," he said.
"The Roidmude escaped," Chase admitted.
Instead of annoyance, Shinnosuke's eyes lit up. "So we have another chance to catch it and see what's going on," he said, not quite rubbing his hands together. "Since I'm pretty sure Go blew up the other one, that's our shot at figuring out their master plan. If they have one. Hey, Go!"
No answer was forthcoming, and if Chase had had a stomach, he was fairly sure the bottom would have dropped out of it. He was running toward Mach's last noted location, suddenly terrified. There wasn't that much ground to cover, but it was torn to rubble by the fight, and Chase almost missed Go's prone form at first. Go was sprawled on his side behind a chunk of displaced pavement, and Chase dropped to his knees beside him.
"Go," he said, but the other man was breathing and there was no external sign of injury. "Go," Chase said again, and shook his shoulder. It took several long seconds for Go to blink his eyes open, and Chase had to pull him into a sitting position.
"Is it – is it gone?" Go asked, voice blurry.
"He okay?" Shinnosuke asked from behind Chase; Chase had almost forgotten that he was there.
"A-okay," Go muttered, but now he was leaning heavily against Chase. "Just need a minute." Chase could feel his breathing even out again, and concluded that Go was, annoyingly, asleep.
"Maybe," Chase said. Go shifted to curl into him, burying his face below Chase's collarbone.
"Didn't the Driver have this sort of effect before?" Shinnosuke crouched on Go's other side. "Go. Wake up. You can't sleep here."
In a slightly distorted mirror of the end of the previous fight, Chase ended up transforming both bikes into the Ride Crosser so as not to leave one of them behind while Shinnosuke shuffled Go into Tridoron's passenger seat.
"You sure he's okay?" Shinnosuke asked once they had reached the parking lot below Go's apartment and Chase had disconnected the Ride Crosser into its component bikes again. "What if there's something wrong that we can't see?"
Chase looked down. "The Mach Driver was never easy to use," he said, picking his words carefully. "It puts something of a strain on a human body." Shinnosuke did not look entirely convinced. Go, for his part, was no help at all. "I will monitor him," Chase said, and Shinnosuke's expression eased when Go woke up enough to climb the stairs up toward his door without help.
"Call me if there's, you know. Anything," he said.
"I will," Chase promised, and watched Shinnosuke drive away. Go was leaning on the wall outside his door, yawning, and Chase unlocked it.
"Make some coffee, will you?" Go said, rubbing his eyes. "I have to – there's something I have to finish." He left his shoes in a heap in the entrance, moving slowly down the hallway in his sock feet and taking several tries to successfully plug in the kotatsu. Despite his words, he was curled up on the floor asleep again when Chase peered through the door a scant few moments later, feet under the table.
That two of the three Roidmudes had been destroyed, despite their strength and speed, spoke to the continued strength of the Driver System; Chase was fairly sure that either Drive or Mach would manage to destroy the third Roidmude the next time they confronted it, unless it underwent significant upgrades in the meantime. Since the theoretical upgrade wasn't an issue Chase could address from inside Go's apartment, he set aside thoughts of it for the time being. He would see the third Roidmude again, and he knew what he would do when he did; until then, he had an entirely different quandary. He thought he knew what it meant, to initiate a physical relationship, but he wasn't human. The same rules might not apply, and the one person who could clarify was in no shape to hold a conversation.
"How do I know if this is real," he said softly, and brushed the hair out of Go's eyes. "All I know is that I feel better, when I'm with you." He paused, thinking about the words. They weren't quite right. "I feel, when I'm with you," he said. His throat felt thick, his voice softer than it should have been, for how hard it was to say anything at all. "I want – I want you to be happy when you see me," he continued, and it came out in a whisper. I'm sorry, he couldn't say out loud. I don't know what to do.
A sense of restlessness – Chase couldn't do nothing, but he couldn't leave Go alone without knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was all right, no matter what he'd said to Shinnosuke – drove him to purloin Go's laptop and continue the research he'd started after discovering he found an unexpected sense of satisfaction in working at the disaster relief site.
"I could start classes in April," he said to Go's oblivious form. "Technically I possess the prerequisite qualifications." He expected no answer, and he didn't get one. "I like helping people," Chase continued softly. "But I don't want to fight, not if I don't have to." Go slept through the entire time it took Chase to set the process of enrolling into a program for paramedics into motion. Chase didn't know if Go would understand the sentiment, the desire to avoid conflict when it had once been his sole purpose, but he knew what he did and didn't want now. I want to have a future with you, he thought. It rang inexplicably hollow.
The sky had lightened with false dawn by the time Chase closed the laptop; he hadn't had time to power down for self-repair and recharging, and he was starting to feel the edges of minor glitches. Go hadn't stirred, and Chase looked at him for a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder. I want to keep you safe echoed through his mind in waves, breaking and reforming against the rock of the third Roidmude, drowning out the rest of his thoughts and freezing him in place. The loop broke when Go shifted under Chase's hand, muttering something unintelligible ending with Chase's name. Chase shook his head, clearing it.
"Come on," he said quietly, and coaxed Go far enough into wakefulness to get him down the hall and onto the bed. Chase curled around him, pulling the blanket over them both, and ignored the insistent inner prompting driving him to take action regarding the still-functioning Roidmude. It could wait.
Note: this is exactly how not to handle a potential head injury with an altered level of consciousness, ok, if this happens to someone you know, you take that person to an ER immediately.