Eiji was gone for nearly an entire day. When he finally walked into the common room the next afternoon, Natsuki was the first one out of her chair and running towards him.

"Ei-chan, where have you been?" she cried, latching on to his arm in her usual effervescent way. "Natsuki was getting worried about you. No one knew where you went. What if we would have needed you for a mission?"

He only gave her a mock-exasperated look. "Well, obviously you didn't." He took a few steps further into the room and the yellow-clad girl followed, still firmly attached to his limb. "Besides, I didn't go out of communications range; you guys would've been able to get in touch with me."

The funny-shaped table in the middle of the rec room was littered with papers, snacks, and Sakura and Souta's laptops. Their respective owners were presently busy typing away in perfect stereo. Souta gave Eiji a smile and a nod, Sakura barely glanced his way, absorbed in her task as always.

Satoru had been hunched over some papers as well, coffee cup in hand, but he straightened up as Eiji approached the table. The two young men shared a look. Satoru's face was expressionless as he nodded to Eiji in greeting, but the Ashu-hunter could see the unspoken questions in the chief's eyes, could sense his uncertainty from the tension in his shoulders and the tight grip he had on his coffee mug. 'He's wondering what decisions I've made, whether I'm regretting what happened in the gym.'

There was no way for them to speak of any of this right now, of course. It would have to wait until later, so for now, the best Eiji could do to soothe the Boukenger leader's apprehension was to give him an inconspicuous smile, a quick yet intense non-verbal exchange to let him know his readiness – no, his urge – to talk.

"So…where'd you go?" Masumi inquired from his position on the lounge chair, and this time Eiji's irritated look was genuine. Nosy guy!

"Out. Around," he told the black Boukenger tersely. "You people are still too loud for me, therefore I still need to get away from you all from time to time." Eiji emphasized his statement with pointed looks at everyone but Satoru. Then he nodded towards the stacks of papers.

"So, what're you all working on?"

"Research for our next Precious-mission." Satoru made a sweeping gesture with his mug that encompassed all the papers. "Mr. Voice wants us to investigate a rumor about an artifact hidden in an extinguished volcano on Hokkaido. Apparently, there is evidence that the fabled Armor of Achilles is hidden there somewhere."

Eiji raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. "Achilles? The Greek guy?"

Satoru nodded and Eiji took this as the perfect opportunity to move close to him, peering over his shoulder as the chief pulled a few sheets of paper together with depictions of the various pieces of armor. "According to legend, Achilles' enemies believed that it was the armor that made him nearly invincible. So after his death during the battle of Troy, some of his loyal soldiers took the armor and smuggled it out of the country to keep it from falling into the Trojans' hands. Somehow it's supposed to have ended up in Hokkaido, of all places..." Satoru kept fumbling with some of the papers during his explanations, but he stilled when he suddenly felt a hand on the small of his back. He cast a side glance at Eiji, but the Dazzling Adventurer had his eyes fixed on the papers in ostensible fascination. Nevertheless, the hand was there, a subtle touch, yet to Satoru it felt like it was burning right through his jacket.

Sitting the way he was, facing the rest of the team, there was no way anyone could see the discreet contact and apparently, that's what Eiji was banking on as well. The hand was not moving, yet it remained, and Satoru took that as a very good sign that Eiji had, during his day-long retreat, come to some favorable conclusions about them.

"So when does Cone-Man want us to move out?" he heard Eiji ask.

"As soon as we've narrowed the search perimeter down to less than the twelve volcanoes it's up to now," Souta took it upon himself to reply, and Satoru found himself hoping that this would be soon.

Even with the Go Go vehicles, it would take some time to travel to Japan's northernmost island, so even if they didn't get a chance to talk before their departure, there would definitely be opportunities for some private conversations along the way. After all, there was room for two in most of the cockpits of the vehicles.

His thought process was interrupted when the tripartite video screen on the wall abruptly came to life. Mr. Voice was bouncing up and down, and their animated employer's 'face' was crimson red. "Boukengers, we have a serious situation in the downtown area," he cried. "This just came through our surveillance cameras. Look!"

The screen changed to a view of downtown Tokyo – and a monstrous robot marching through the streets, blasting its lasers at buildings and stomping on vehicles at random.

The treasure hunters were out of their seats in a flash, staring in horror. Natsuki pointed at the monitor. "Hey, isn't that the Quester-Robo? How can that be? We destroyed it just last week!"

Satoru shook his head. "No, look closer; it's a new one."

He was right; although it was unquestionably the same design as the first Robo, it showed several differences to the former model, mostly in its armor plating and armament. It had noticeably more lasers barrels, and in addition, was carrying a huge cannon under one arm.

"They already made another one?" Souta exclaimed. "For crying out loud! Where do they get their parts and labor from?"

"Gordom Incorporated, no doubt," Satoru said. "With Gaja as the CEO."

On the screen, the Quester-Robo kicked a formidable hole into the side of a building, and suddenly, a familiar voice came through the audio feed.

"Boukengers! Come out, come out, wherever you are," Quester Gai jeered in a singsong tone.

That did it! Satoru whirled around, facing his team. "Boukengers, we must put a stop to this right now! Move out!" He snapped his fingers, and the team turned as one and ran for the exit.

When the Daibouken and the Siren Builder reached the downtown area, the Quester-Robo was waiting for them. As soon as the Daibouken came within range, the Questers unleashed on it. A volley of rapid laser fire as well as half a dozen rockets hit it simultaneously, the impacts almost bringing it down to its knees. The Siren Builder came up alongside it, but neither its Knuckle attack nor the Triplicate Bomber attack seemed to have any effect on their enemies' new mecha.

Inside the Quester-Robo, Gai and Rei only laughed.

"Time to try out our new and improved fire power!" Rei cried, and with the push of a few buttons, they channeled the immense energy of the Robo's Goadam Engine into their weapon systems, hitting the Siren Builder dead on. The massive blast from the Thunder Obliteration Cannon promptly overloaded Eiji's mecha and Satoru cringed when he heard BoukenSilver's cry. The Siren Builder was engulfed in crackling electricity and already, the first acrid plumes of smoke could be seen emerging from it.

"Silver, get out!" Satoru yelled over the commlink, but Eiji had already beaten him to it. Satoru saw him ejecting from the Siren Builder a mere moment before the huge mecha crashed to the ground.

The Questers, however, were obviously not finished with Eiji yet. Almost as soon as BoukenSilver touched the ground, the Quester-Robo leveled one of its lasers on him. Eiji leapt sideways, but was just a bit too slow; the energy discharge caught him square in the chest and he was lifted off his feet and thrown backwards into the wall of the nearest building.

The impact, combined with the power blast, proved to be too much, even for the BoukenSilver suit. It overloaded and dematerialized, leaving Eiji unconscious on the ground in his black pants and silver SGS jacket.

Sakura was half out of her pilot seat as she peered anxiously out of the Daibouken's cockpit windows. "Chief, we have to help him!"

But Satoru was already turning the Daibouken around, ready to scoop up their unmoving comrade to keep him safe. They were stopped short, however, when the Quester-Robo swung its Thunder Cannon at the Boukenger mecha. The impact had the Daibouken reeling backwards once more. It was followed by a powerful volley of laser fire, and to the Boukengers' shock, their huge battle machine began to topple, then went down in a heap of screeching metal.

Sprawled on the ground, helpless like a beached whale, the Daibouken was on its back, presenting its five pilots with a dismaying view of the looming enemy mecha, but also of the events now unfolding with Eiji.

They could clearly see the dark flash emanating from the Robo's cockpit, and a moment later, Quester Gai appeared not five feet away from Eiji's prone form. The Quester grabbed the de-henshined Ashu-hunter by his jacket, lifted him off the ground without effort and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Eiji never stirred.

Cackling victoriously, the armored Ashu turned and waved to the Daibouken with his free hand. A moment later, the air around him expanded, then contracted; Gai was gone – and so was Eiji.

Cries of dismay echoed through the mecha cockpit.

"Eiji!"

"NO!"

"Ei-chan!"

A tidal wave of ice water seemed to wash over Satoru as he could do nothing but watch Eiji's abduction helplessly from their pinned-down battle machine. 'The bastards have been after Eiji from the start. Everything else was just a diversion!' The realization twisted his guts into painful knots, and he redoubled his efforts of getting the Daibouken upright once more. Through the comm. channel came Quester Rei's sneering voice.

"Mission complete. Bye-bye, Boukengers."

The Quester-Robo kicked the Daibouken one more time for good measure before it turned and strode away. By the time the Boukengers had their robot back on its feet, the enemy mecha was gone.

Satoru stabbed the video-link button to SGS headquarters. "Makino-sensei!"

The technician came online almost immediately, his face grave and drawn; apparently, he had witnessed the ominous events as well. "Boukengers, this is a most serious situation…"

"Makino-sensei, can we track Eiji through the Go Go changer even if it's not activated?" Satoru cut him off, trying hard to keep the distress in his voice under control.

The technology expert frowned in thought. "Well, we haven't had to do anything like that yet, but I suppose it should be possible. I would have to make some adjustments in the program..."

"Please hurry!"

The next few minutes before Makino-sensei came back on the comm channel felt like hours to Satoru. But his words made up for it.

"Got him."

Behind his visor, Satoru closed his eyes in relief while the others cheered.

"The signal is coming from the harbor area, or to be more precise, from inside one of the warehouses," Makino-sensei said. "I am sending you the coordinates now."

Satoru entered the received data into the Daibouken's computer, but before the huge machine could thunder off towards its predetermined direction, Souta suddenly snapped his fingers.

"Wait, guys," he said. "What are we going to do about their Gordom Engine? Our suits..."

"Then we will do this without our suits," came Chief's sharp response and there was no arguing with the determination in his voice.

The Boukengers nodded to each other in quiet agreement; Accel Suits or no, they would not leave their comrade in the hands of his sworn enemies.

"That presents us with a problem, though," Masumi said. "No Accel Suits, no weapons. And we can't go against the Questers empty-handed."

His statement was met with silence, and the fact that not even Chief had a ready reply unfortunately only underscored the validity of Masumi's words. Strangely enough, it was Natsuki who broke the silence.

"In that case…" Her helmet suddenly snapped to her right. "Sakura, do you still have, you know, your…stash?"

"Matter of fact, I do," BoukenPink replied, her smirk clearly audible. "And it would only take a quick detour to get it all, too."

"Let's do it, then!"

At Satoru's nod of consent, she turned the Daibouken around, heading back towards SGS's museum. Less than fifteen minutes later, the Boukenger mecha was back on course towards the Questers' hideaway, Natsuki's voice echoing through the cockpit.

"Hold on, Ei-chan, we're on the way!"

Behind his visor, Satoru clenched his jaws in grim resolution; Natsuki had taken the words right out of his mouth.

TBC…

A/N: Spoiler Alert: The secret 'stash' Natsuki is talking about refers to Task 12.