ThunderCats
Bio-Booster Armor Guyver
Eye of the Storm
Episode 18
The smell of unwashed bodies was something Sho was trying to will himself to ignore. It hung in the closed space in a miasma of pure funk, shattered hopes, and despair of a people who had come together only to be destroyed once again. The chamber in which they sat was deep in the catacombs, lit by small oil lamps which threw wildly dancing shadows about the walls.
Tygra, missing eye and all, looked like hell. His clothes were torn and filthy, what wasn't concealed by the dull brown cloak. His once-powerful frame showed the toll of hard years and scarce food. But the intellect behind his one remaining eye was as sharp as ever.
Myrlha, too, wore the look of many ardurous years. There was grey in her waist-length hair, lines about her mouth and eyes, but she still looked lovely to him. The surreal environment he'd awakened in still beat at the walls of his resolve, but seeing her alive bolstered his defenses tremendously.
"I can't believe it's been twenty years," she said, her voice still choked with unshed tears. "I never stopped believing you'd come back." She carressed his cheek, and his placed his hand on hers.
"So, for the obvious question, where did I go?"
"In a sense, nowhere," Tygra replied. "After you vanished, I discovered something I'd always thought to be impossible." Sho shifted his eyes to Tygra, keeping Myrlha's in his and twining their fingers together. "A temporal anomaly, right in what was once Cat's Lair."
"Just outside our quarters," Myrlha added.
"I blacked out, and woke up... what... in the future?"
"Twenty years into the future, to be exact," Tygra said soberly.
"That thing about finally catching up to me..."
"Try to bear with me, Sho. Temporal displacement can get rather complicated."
"As if it's not complicated enough already."
"I spent months studying the anomaly," he began, "and once I determined just what it was, I was certain there was no way to retrieve you. Sho, that anomaly cast you forward in time. For you, it was only an instant. For the rest of us, it was two decades."
"The worst two of our lives, not to mention this planet's," Myrlha said. "I guess you don't need me to tell you that everything's gone to hell in a handbasket."
"Are you the only ThunderCats left?"
"We are," Tygra said, "not that it matters. Sho, first and foremost, don't go blaming yourself for this. None of what happened is your fault. Even if you'd been there, I doubt there was anything you could have done."
"All I know is that Grune's involved."
"Ah, yes," he said, leaning back into his cobbled-together chair and wincing at an ache somewhere. "That one."
"How'd he do all this?"
"Eighteen years ago, we completed a transmitter that would beam a message to other Thunderians scattered in the cosmos to come here. We were concerned, of course, that it might fall into Plun-Darr's hands but as far away as that planet is from this one, we felt it remote at best."
"Let's just say, we were wrong," Myrlha said.
"Over the years, Plun-Darr had managed to create a rudimentary FTL drive. Faster than light, Sho," Tygra said at his confused expression. "They'd been working on it for years, but we'd always thought their chances of success to be non-existent. They came. Thousands of them. But, that wasn't what spelled our downfall."
"Wait," Sho said, raising his free hand. "How could Grune take control of ANOTHER mutant force? Who was backing him this time? Mumm-Ra again?"
"Not who, Sho, but what," Myrlha said. Tygra nodded gravely.
"I don't know how, Sho, but Grune laid hands on bio-booster armor."
"What... the... fuck...?" Sho managed in three gulps of air. "HOW?!"
"I don't know."
Grune. As a Guyver. Grune. As a GUYVER?!
"Only three units existed on this planet. All three were activated."
"Either he found another, or found a way to take one. It doesn't matter. Our people and this planet got raped regardless." The fatalism in Myrlha's words chilled him even further. "It spelled our doom in any event."
"That's why I said what I did. As a Guvyer, Grune is extremely powerful. Even Lisker can barely fight him to a standstill."
Bio-booster armor in the hands of a Thunderian. Of Grune. Sho felt sick to his stomach.
"As I said, Sho, even if you'd been here, you could have done little, if anything."
"I refuse to believe I was sent here just to fail," Sho said, anger burning away the fog in his mind. "All of this must be for a reason."
"What reason? You couldn't have done anything about it then."
"But, maybe he can do something about it now," Myrlha said.
"What?" Tygra shouted. "What can be done now?! This planet is ruined, its eco system is shattered!" Tygra rose from his seat and began to pace back and forth. "No usable farmland! Our hydroponics gardens barely keep us fed!"
"We have the info on Mutant FTL drives, their technology." She was building to something, yet Tygra seemed deaf to it. "The anomaly, Tygra," she explained. "You said it yourself, it's like a tunnel through time, whose ends move through linear time and space the same as we do!"
Sho was at a loss, but Tygra stopped his furious pacing and regarded them both curiously. Slowly, he said, "Myrlha, are you saying what I THINK you're saying?"
"Remember the old saying? 'If I knew then what I know now?' Here's our chance to put that to the test!" Tygra paused, looking back and forth between them.
"You're planning to send me back," Sho said. "If so, it had better be with more than a story to tell."
"I... need some time to think this through."
"Tygra," Myrlha said sharply, "time's the one thing we don't have a lot of right now."
"But," he began, "if this can truly be done, we might have all the time we need." Tygra nodded once. "Myrlha, I think it would be best if you told Sho about all that's happened. I need to think this through. If we're going to attempt this, we have to do it right. We'll only get one shot."
The resivoir stank. A massive lake in a cavern deep below the surface, it rested in a circular basin and reflected the glow of the luminous moss which coated the walls surrounding the rim. Sho had no idea how far down they were, but the ruination of the planet had reached even down here. Sho had acclimated himself to the presence of foul odors in the past hour, but eagerly looked forward to a shower once he returned to his own time. If he could. Myrlha sat next to him, her chin on her knees and arms about her legs as she recounted the tale of the past twenty years.
"Tygra told us it would be impossible to retrieve you," she began, "or tell how far forward in time you'd been thrown. Only that, one day, we'd catch up." She stared out over the flat surface of the resivoir. "Every day, Sho. Every day, I slept in our bed, thinking of you beside me. Missing your warmth. But, I never gave up hope. Even after our downfall." Myrlha sighed heavily.
"The first wave came a year after we sent the signal, after about a thousand of us landed on Third Earth. Grune led them, and he slaughtered our guard force wholesale. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, could hurt him. I was in the Royal Hall when he smashed his way in. The sword..." At this, she broke down into sobs, "it couldn't protect Lion-O. He fell just as he rose to meet Grune. All of them did. Oh, Sho.." Myrlha's sobs began in earnest and he draped his arms abotu her.
"All we'd built. All we'd done, gone in a single night."
"Myrlha..." it was all he could say. His voice was paralyzed by horror and shame at his own absence.
"I don't know how I survived. I woke up, and all of them were dead. The colony was a wreck when I left Cat's Lair. Tygra brought the survivors together, led us into hiding. For all the good it did."
"I still don't get how Grune got a bio-booster unit."
"We don't, either. That's one of the few secrets he bothers to keep." Myrlha's hand fell atop his, and he grasped it. Older or not, she was still his love. "Weapons, propulsion, none of it matters to him. We went after that hoping to find a way to escape this hell. We found it, but we couldn't use it."
"Why not?"
"Sho, he WANTS us to suffer. This became our home planet. What better revenge than to destroy it and watch US slowly die with it? Even I had no idea how sadistic that bastard could be until all this. DAMN HIM!" Her sudden outburst startled him, the fury in her eyes molten. "That's the reason we're all still alive now. Grune just doesn't care."
"I found this place with no trouble. No doubt he knows it as well."
"Exactly. He wants to prolong our suffering as much as he can. Slowly poisoning the planet, leaving us be, it's all an act of torture. Grune wants to see us beg for death before he grants it."
"No way. I'm here, now. I won't let him.." Myrlha grasped his face and forced his eyes to hers.
"Do you think that matters?! LISKER can't defeat him! Human Guyvers aren't a match for Thunderian Guyvers!"
"What about him?" Sho asked, alarmed at the near-hysterical tone of her voice. "What's he doing?" Myrlha's face fell at that.
"Lisker's been around, causing trouble for Grune where he can. Ever since he lost Maria, he's dedicated his life to hassling Grune and the Mutants as much as he can. I don't think he even knows why he's doing it any more. He just keeps on."
Sho leaned back onto his hands at that. "Damn..." It wasn't enough, not nearly, and he knew it. He looked up at the domed roof of the resivoir, the lights reflecting off the water reaching the smooth stone.
"It's still a while until sunrise, such as it is anymore," she said. "I don't think you really want to see more of this shanty town we've been reduced to."
"The Wollos. The Bolkins. Humans. All of the races. Dead." Or close enough to it, he thought bitterly. One man, no matter how powerful, could never turn away an attack on his entire world. Kronos had beaten that lesson into him. Regardless, it made the current situation no easier to accept.
"You still have us. You still have me." He looked at her, seeing the woman he knew in the eyes of the older woman before him.
"I know. Listen, if what Tygra cooks up works, then none of this..." He stopped when her fingertips pressed lightly against his lips.
"That's the idea, baka." She smiled at him, and her face lit up as it had when... Sho chose not to think about the whims of time on this one. "Twenty years. I never forgot you, and I never stopped waiting. Even after all this."
"I..." Sho's throat threatened to seize up on him. What the hell could he say to that? Sorry I wasn't around? Gee, too bad that our world got destroyed and you went two decades without the man you loved who; just MAYBE, could have helped prevent it all? She smiled at him in that patient way she had, the way she always did when trying to stop him from waging war on himself.
"Don't talk. Not now." She removed her fingertips and replaced them with her lips. Sho responded, partly from practice and mostly from love. They parted, and he was surprised to find that he was able to beat the despair back a tiny bit. "You're here now. Maybe you can't do anything in the here and now, but if this works..." She let that trail off as she ran her hands up his arms. "It it works then..." Their lips met before she could finish.
Sho awoke and, on having done so, realized that he was ravenous as well as chilly. He opened his eyes, curious if it was day yet or not. The events of the previous night and the light in the resivoir cavern having changed not a whit had spun his sense of time into a new and unpleasant angle. Myrlha purred against him, and he was suddenly reminded of why he was so chilly.
"Hey," he said, "I think we ougtta get dressed." Their lovemaking had been passionate to the point of being frenzied, at least on Myrlha's part. Sho had fought just to keep up with her.
"I don't wanna let you go," she replied, her eyes begging for a way for this one moment after so much heartbreak and pain to last just a little while longer. Even so, her arms slowly relaxed and they disentangled themselves. Sho let his eyes roam about her naked form as they both donned pants. Just barely, he could see the faint outline of her ribs and the ridge of her spine. Before, those hadn't been even remotely visible.
My people dead, my home destroyed, my lover forced to spend twenty years in hell wondering where I am, he thought. If this doesn't work, then I'll do whatever it takes to kill Grune.
Whatever it takes.
It began as a prickle deep in his subconscious, so far down that he wasn't even aware of its existence. As they dressed, it grew and when they were as presentable as anyone in this ruined future could be, Sho was beginning to form a subliminal awareness of it. Approaching footsteps drew his attention before his conscious mind could make any connection.
"Ah, here you are," Fahd said in his ever-patient tone, though it was more ragged than Sho remembered. "Tygra sent me to fetch you."
"I'll go ahead," Myrlha said. "Fahd can guide you. Sho," she added, taking his hands in hers, "it IS good to see you again. I can't speak for everyone, but I believe in you." With that, she jogged toward the entrance to the resivoir as Fahd stepped beside him.
"So do I," Fahd said as they began their own walk. Sho remained silent as they moved along rough-hewn corridors. People in rags sat or lay wherever they could, some eating, most not. Their gazes were filled with hope, some with hostility, others with pure rage. He couldn't even tell them that it wasn't his fault. For damn sure he couldn't say that he'd fix it. Sho felt he just didn't have the right. "I know you didn't abandon us, and I know that you could have done nothing if you'd been here."
"Fahd..."
"If Try was still alive, he'd be glad to see you again also." Sho found himself doubting that, byt Tryphon was... HAD BEEN... Fahd's lover. Fahd would know better than him. The rest of their trip through the foul-smelling shanty of the catacombs passed in silence. Sho tried not to look at the jackstraw jumbles which were what passed for homes. Mis-matched pieces of stone, corrugated metal, and vaguely opaque plastic which served as doors on those which actually had such ammenities. The children in particular broke his heart. Their eyes were hollow and dead, having known nothing but hunger and deprivation for their short lives. The others he saw lying still with what he surmised to be parents sobbing softly over their unmoving bodies. Sho forced himself to look at them, to let the sight stoke the fires of rage in his heart though he couldn't comfort the ones who wailed over their corpses. All he could do was set this right. One way or the other.
"Tell me you have a plan," Sho said once the door to Tygra's enclosure shut. The man himself sat behind his patchwork desk with scores of datapads littering the surface. Even in these dismal settings, Tygra's personal space was as neat and tidy as Sho had always seen before. The mess on his desk showed that he hand't slept a wink.
"I have a broken people, a ruined planet, an undefeatable enemy, and one hell of a headache," he replied, "but, yes, I also have a plan. I think."
"Don't keep us in suspense," Myrlha said from his right. Tygra consulted a datapad from the pile on his desk.
"Keep in mind, I had to dredge most of my data on the anomaly up from memory." It wasn't necessary to add just how old those memories were. "Ordinarily, I'd never condone something this risky, but at this point what do we have to lose?"
"I prefer to think what this world has to gain," Sho said, and the steel in his voice felt only somewhat strange. Tygra nodded before continuing.
"The anomaly that caused all of this still exists," he began, "but re-opening it might be a problem. The end of it in our own past closed soon after you were pulled through."
"But, it's still there?"
"Hypothetically, yes. My observations show that the ends of this time tunnel move through linear time, but I'm not at all certain of the mechanics of it. Sho, you've been here almost a day, but that is NO guarantee that, if we can somehow re-open the anomaly and send you back, that you'd end up equidistant from the time you left."
"So, even if I CAN go back, it might not be close to the time I left?"
"Sadly, yes. Even if we can re-open it, I have no way of knowing if it will put you far enough back to prevent the transmitter from becoming operational. Even that it won't put you out before you even left is a theory. I'm sorry, but there's no way to really know."
"But, we have to risk it," Myrlha said. "What choice do we have?"
"None," Sho answered in Tygra's stead. "So, how do we re-open the anomaly?"
"That's where everything gets dangerous. Sho, re-opening it will require an enormous amount of energy concentrated on its estimated coordinates. Before you ask," he said with an upraised palm, "The anomaly itself doesn't exist in real space, but rather in imaginary space."
"This isn't my imagination..."
"It's a very vague term. The anomaly exists in our time, but not our space. According to my calculations, a large enough output of energy COULD re-open it, but its actual location will vary. IF the output is large enough, it will draw our end of the anomaly to us. We only have to get it close enough."
"Then I hop through and stop that transmitter."
"Essentially, yes," Tygra allowed, "but I'm afraid I don't know enough to give any guarantees."
"You're willing to try it," Myrlha said. "From our end, time isn't our ally."
"Sounds good so far. So, any ideas on how we make it happen?" Tygra tossed him another datapad, this one showing on its screen a schematic for a warship.
"On that datapad, is all the information we've gathered on Mutant technology of this time. Take it back with you, Sho, give us an option."
"You got it," he said, tucking it at the small of his back.
"This image," he began, and the stained screen at his back showed a diagram of a towering spire, "represents an energy node. The Mutants use these to channel power to their war machines. They've gotten past fuel cells."
"So, why does it look so..."
"It's also Grune's main headquarters," Myrlha said, "though we don't know if he's there."
"Lisker has told us that Grune can completely hide his telepathic signal. On the upside, he can't track Likser, or you, that way when he does. The downside is that no one has seen him in nearly eight years, so there's no telling where he might be."
"Maybe you could get in touch with Lisker?" Myrlha asked. Her eyes were bright with hope that Sho, on a deep level, felt he didn't deserve. He squashed that feeling immediately.
"We have to move fast on this," Sho replied. "The faster we hit, the best chance we have of getting in under Grune's nose and... Tygra, I think this is where you tell me what this plan actually is."
"Agreed," he said with a nod. "Sho, did any Mutants see you when you arrived?"
"None that are in any real shape to tell about it."
"I see." Tygra's eye held a hard look of approval. The display at the rear of the room shifted to reveal the structure in the center of a mass of conduits. The image focued on one, dimmer than the rest. "The best way to approach is through this tunnel. The node relies more on geothermal energy than anything else."
"Like he wants to suck every last drop of life from Third Earth," Sho snarled.
"The geothermal conduit extends from the bottom of the structure," Tygra said, ignoring Sho's statement. "While this conduit channels little power, it is still enough to be lethal should we make a mistake. We'll enter here." At that, the display zoomed in on what appeared to be an access shaft into the main channel. "From there, it's a two kilometer hike to the secondary reactor." The display changed again, to a sub-chamber of Grune's fortress. "Form there, it's a climb up to the control chamber in the upper spire. There SHOULD be enough energy stored to begin the reaction. If not, I think I can siphon enough from the other nodes to force the anomaly to open."
"What about..."
"If it's Mutants you're worried about, don't," Myrlha said. "Grune sent most of them off-world, thinking that the rest of us couldn't be a threat to him. The patrol you wiped out was among the remaining Mutants left to harrass us if we're caught outside these caves."
"We get in, get to the control room, then I go back. So, our only obstacle is Grune. If he's there, I'll buy you time."
"No, if he's there we abort."
"And do what, Tygra?!" Sho shouted. "Hit another one? Think he won't know where we could go?"
"It's this or nothing. We don't have the Eye to protect us now. We can't afford to be too cautious." Myrlha rose from her seat, her hands slamming on his desk. Tygra fixed Sho with his good eye, the look in them grave.
"You have no idea how strong Grune is now," he said in a monotone. "He could kill you." Sho felt the strange presence at the back of his mind peak a little, growing a bit more insistent.
"We don't have a choice. If I have to face him, I will. If I don't, then so much the better. Either way, we have to move now." Tygra stared at him long and hard before his features returned to their withered state.
"Then, we move tonight. May Jaga be with us."
Sho beheld Third Earth as the last rays of the sun fled. The planet now NEEDED the night to cover the hideous blight which covered it. The sun had not once been plainly visible, its light filtered through greenish-purple clouds of pollution in the upper atmosphere. The blight he had seen through the eyes of the Guyver seemed even more stark when unenhanced. The soil was bleached white from countless acid rains, loose and nearly dust. Their footsteps kicked up clouds of dead earth with each step toward the access tunnel. Even so, it was still an easier sight to take than the caverns in which the Thunderian people now barely lived.
The spent the remainder of the foul-smelling day in the shade of a stone outcropping, breathing through their shirts as much as they could while waiting away the heat which the densely damaged atmospere would not allow to escape. The entrance to the conduit remained unguarded, though Sho kept his senses alert for any Mutants who came nearby. None did.
"I WILL set this right," he said when Myrlha knelt by his side.
"You should be sleeping."
"So should you."
"I don't think any of us will for awhile."
"I know. I still love you."
"I know, Sho. I love you, too."
"To do something like this," he said as the faint light of the sun set. "How can anyone hate so much?"
"That doesn't matter now."
Darkness descended quickly, mercifully hiding the wasteland Third Earth had become. The trek through the wasteland that had once been the Plains of Fertility passed silently, all three darting between sparse cover toward the deep trench carved into the ground. Loose dirt slid around their feet as they slid toward the bottom and off of the horizon which Mutant scouts would hunt for any Thunderians out and about.
"Darin's such a hardhead," Myrlha whispered, her voice the only sound aside from shifting dirt and raining pebbles. "I told him about his parents as he grew up, and it's so hard to keep him out of the ruins sometimes."
"You and Tygra raised him?"
"Among others." Myrlha didn't offer to elaborate and Sho didn't press her. The bottom of the trench announced its arrival with solid earth suddenly meeting their feet. Walls stretched up into the inky darkness, as perfect as any abyss. At the fore, Tygra engaged a small flashlight with which he illuminated the protruding end of a tunnel.
"Maintenance access," he whispered, immediately dousing the light. "It hasn't been used in years."
"Why leave it unguarded?"
"Why would Grune care?" Tygra said. "It's not like any of us could challenge him. It's just another way of rubbing our noses in how far we've fallen." They made the entrance just before the scouring rains began again and Sho was grateful not to have experienced it with bare skin. Tygra shone his light freely, exposing lengths of thick cable fastened to the walls with various junction boxes scattered almost haphazardly about.
"There's no chance of Mutants finding us down here," Myrlha said. "They never enter these tunnels. Damn supersitious lot." Other than their echoing voices and footsteps, the silence was nearly absolute.
"Just how much trouble is Lisker causing him, anyway?" Sho asked once the silence grew nearly overbearing.
"We have no idea anymore," Myrlha answered. "We do know that the Mutants won't challenge him. They're not THAT stupid."
"Unfortunately," Tygra added, "we also have no idea where he is. Like you said, Sho, we have to move swiftly, so we can't afford to wait for him." The tone of his voice made it clear. This plan Must Not Fail. The hike fell into silence once more, filled with tension and fear. The maintenance access led to an even wider tunnel intersecting its path with a massive conduit suspended in the center of the cylindrical space by a spaced series or brackets which stretched from the conduit to the outer walls. They moved lightly between them, careful not to touch either the conduit or the thin poles holding it in place. As they marced, Sho became gradually aware of the presence in his subconscious. A nagging, tickling feeling that he ignored and wrote off to nerves as they neared their destination. Tygra called a halt, shining his light on a series of dull metal rungs speared into a curved recess in the wall.
"We're here, huh?"
"This ladder will lead us into the ground level of Grune's Spire," Myrlha said.
"Right into Grune's Throne Room," Tygra spat. "I have to warn you, Sho, you won't like what you're about to see."
"Hell, I haven't liked anything I've seen so far in this future. What's one more?"
"There's that," Tygra agreed before starting up the rungs. Sho followed with Myrlha just behind. The climb toward the surface seemed to last forever, his muscles beginning to burn from the effort combined with little food and the poor air quality. He heard the grating sound of something being moved aside overhead then light bathed the upper part of the narrow shaft.
Sho wanted to vomit at the sight.
The space took up what seemed to be the entire ground floor. Said floor having been tiled in gleaming gold. A myriad of pillars stretched from floor to high domed ceiling yet a series of much shorter statues lined up on each side of a stretch of wine-colored carpet drew his gaze. The ThunderCats, or their stone likenesses, each kneeling in supplication toward a throne whose jewel-encrusted surface went far past ostentatious. Grune, however, was nowhere in sight.
"So far so good," Myrlha whispered just as Sho tensed. Hurriedly, he removed the data pad from the waist of his pants and shoved it into her hands.
"Get going!" he hissed just as a familiar voice rang out.
"Well, well, well," Grune said as he stepped into view from behind his throne. The arm which Lisker had severed at the Battle of Fortress Plun-Darr was in place as though it had never left him along with another sabre tooth in his mouth. Grune smiled at them from across the expanse of the chamber, as if he were welcoming old friends. "Tygra. Lord of the ThunderCats." Every word dripped with condescencion and disdain. "And Myrlha, too! Forgive me for saying so, but the years haven't been kind to you."
"Tygra, Mylrha, GO!" Sho shouted. Rage exploded in his heart at the sight of one who, by all rights, should have died with the original Mutant Army. Neither Thunderian argued as they dashed off to where they needed to be. "It's you and me, Grune!"
"No, it's just me," he said with a soft chuckle. "The legendary Guyver One. Sho Fukamachi his own self. It's an honor to meet you again." The presence of Grune's mind vanished from his own, and Sho gave no outward sign of relief.
"How did you do it?" They remained in place, staring each other down from opposite ends of the red carpet. Sho could feel no trace of Grune, but that mattered little.
"Sorry. State secret."
"My ASS!"
"It's gonna be your ass, rest assured on that." Grune stretched languidly, yet their eyes never left one another. "Where DID you run off to? I steamrolled your entire colony, slaughtered hundreds of the people you adopted as your own, and yet you were nowhere to be seen."
"I'm here now."
"Oh, yes. Yes, you are. I only hope you can provide me with some amusement. It's been rather lacking around here of late."
"Cocky bastard!"
"I'm not cocky, boy, I'm convinced." Grune took a step forward, then another, each slow and measured. "So, why come here?"
"Go fuck yourself!"
"I fucked Lion-O's bride to be. She wasn't at all willing, but it was all the better because of it."
Sho bristeled, yet kept his composure. Whatever Grune was aiming for, he would make sure the Thunderian tyrant missed.
"Really? Nothing to that? I must admit, Panthro trained you well."
"You're about to find out how well!" Grune's laugher echoed in the space of his throne room.
"Oh, yes, I expect I am! So, let's dispense with the pleasantries. BIO-BOOST!" The air shattered as the forcefield appeared about him. Grune smiled as the armor merged with him to finish with a final flare. His form was enormous, black armor over red tentacular organics. The gravity orb was on his waist, paired on each side by a sphere of jade and the same mineral appearing atop his knuckeles. The traditional fin arced from his head, with two more on each side just above the sensor medals. The blades on his arms pointed forward rather than backward. The rest of the Guyver's weaqpns appeared intact, aside from spikes extending from the armor's own sabre teeth to end in vents which expulsed the pullotion in the air. Grune's overall form seemed maddeningly familiar, and the presence began to call to his subcoscious again. Sho pushed it away.
"GUYVER!" His own armor merged with him with the rush of power it always brought. They glared at each other, each standing in the craters their transformations had created in the gleaming floor. Grune stood relaxed and confident, while Sho fought down a wave of nervousness.
"Well, come at me, boy!"
Sho eagerly obliged. The distance between them vanished in an instant and a short jab landed on Grune's jaw as the pressure cannon reached peak charge. He rammed the orb upward into Grune's stomach and the detonation launched him upward with a stunned grunt. Sho's anxiety evaporated as he followed Grune upward and rained a hail of punches and kicks down on his opponent's vulnerable body. A final burst from the pressure cannon smashed into Grune's torso and sent him streaking to the floor...
When Grune's fall halted.
The Thunderian Guyver floated a meter above his throne, chuckling at the effort Sho had spent in pounding him.
"Yes," he said, "Panthro DID teach you well. And your rage lends you strength. Those blows ALMOST hurt!"
"Oh God..." He hadn't held anything back, and Grune had taken all that punishment without batting an eye. Sho hovered in place, his mind reeling as he sought other options.
"I haven't had such fun in so long," Grune said. "Lisker's been such a bore lately. Why don't we keep up the game, hmm? I'll even give you another free shot!"
The gravity controller snatched him down at an angle, leg extended and aimed at Grune's head. Quicker than Sho could follow, Grune's right hand caught his foot just short of impact.
"FAIL!"
Sho ignored him as he fired the head beam into the domed ceiling, drilling the concentrated heat into the stone and the steel piping above. In a shower of dust, sparks, and brief flames enormous chunks of masonry and debris came raining down as Sho wrenched his foot free of the crushing grip and sailed clear of the impact zone.
Grune's arms were little more than blurs as the sonic swords on his forearms neatly sliced each piece of falling rubble. The floor shook from the impacts, cracks appearing on its once immaculate surface, and not one piece landed on the intended target.
Tygra staggered as the floor shook once again and the muted rumbling vibrated up the length of his legs. He didn't let himself slow, demanding more and more from his body as he and Myrlha charged through the corridor which was now only itermittently lit.
"Those two're gonna bring the whole tower down on us!" she exclaimed as they ran through drifting clouds of dust.
Tygra remained silent, focused almost exclusively on the task at hand. If they failed, then all else was moot.
Sho leapt clear of the quartet of gravity bombs, yet the explosion which blew out nearly the entire south wall still knocked him off balance. He landed awkwardly and only barely managed to duck beneath Grune's own head beam.
The walls, the pillars, the entire chamber was in ruins and the bulk of the damage had been caused by the other Guyver. Pillars lay smashed and cut, craters lined the floor, and the air was thick with dust and smoke. Grune still stood before his throne, having barely needed to move in order to keep Sho on the defensive.
He's gotta be getting tired by now, Sho thought desperately. Grune lowered his arms, the tips of his blades nearly reaching his feet. The bastard wasn't even breathing hard. Sho charged forward and grasped one of the still-intact statues by the base before whirling about and hurtling it with as much force as he could muster.
The stone carving seemed to leap apart as one of Grune's blades bisected it. The two halves fell to the floor to shatter into jagged shards.
"Silly human," Grune said, "that trick is for children!"
Nearing exhaustion, Sho leapt aside as the orbs on Grune's face began to vibrate, yet not quickly enough. The acutely focused burst of sonic waves impacted his right arm just below the elbow. He howled in agony as the limb literally exploded in a shower of blood and tissue.
Sho fell to his knees and rolled upright again, fighting past the pain and the loss of blood which was already slowing down.