When Ryan came into the kitchen, Norma immediately noticed that Ryan looked a little shaky; he'd probably been having those strange dreams last night. Truthfully, after everything that had happened, something like the dreams that he had been telling her about for the last four nights didn't seem all that strange. The fact that they were keeping her son from getting the sleep he still needed – in spite of the fact that nothing really seemed to be happening now – was troubling though. As she watched him plunk himself down at the table and take his usual plate of food, Norma made up her mind to keep an eye on him. These dreams probably wouldn't amount to anything anyway.
XxXxX
Waking from the fifth weird dream in the same amount of days, Ryan bit his lip to keep himself from cursing. It seemed like he woke up earlier every time he had those damned dreams, and it was becoming almost painfully obvious that he wasn't going to get any more sleep until he found out just what was causing them. Of course, doing something like that would entail getting out of the house. Getting out of the house would entail getting past His Royal Assness, something he was pretty sure he could do. The guy was probably still asleep right now anyway, but even if he got up at this ungodly hour, he'd have to be pretty out of it. Ryan knew from personal experience that Agito stayed up just as late as any of them, so there was no way he'd be as clear-headed as he always seemed to be during the day if he was up this early. With that thought in mind, Ryan made his way out of his room.
XxXxX
It had taken a bit of doing and a close-ish encounter with a nearly sleepwalking Tetsuro, but in the end he'd managed to make it out of the house. He also turned out to be right about two distinct things: one, it was too damned early for any normal person to be awake, and two, the house they were all staying in was nestled in a valley. He'd been starting to get that impression, and it was nice to know he'd called things correctly.
Weaving his way through the long grass and taking care not to bend the stalks – as well as anyone could do when they were walking on the stuff, of course – Ryan shivered slightly as he felt the cold air blast him awake. While he would preferred a hot shower like any normal person, that definitely wouldn't have been possible since he wanted to keep what he was doing a secret.
Anyone who knew him knew he liked to take long, hot showers. His Royal Assness had even complained that he tended to use up all the hot water and had tried to limit his time in there to something he felt was appropriate. Needless to say, the guy had been sporting a black eye for a week after that little exchange. He wasn't going to go without the one luxury he had in this backwoods dump, and certainly not for someone he could barely stand on a good day.
Picking his way through the grass, he soon found himself staring down at a small stream. It looked pretty placid—there were rocks at the bottom, so he probably wouldn't have to worry about getting mud all over himself, and the signal he'd just picked up on was telling him to go straight, so without much grumbling over things that couldn't be avoided – not too much, anyway – Ryan pulled up his pantlegs and forded the stream.
His shoes would have been soaked in transit no matter how careful he was, so he carried them in his hands as he made his way across. Wiping his feet as well as he could on the sandy banks of the stream, he shoved his feet back into his shoes and kept walking. He could only just see the mountains that bordered their little valley, even though his eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness. He thought it might be getting light soon, which was both good and bad, since while it would make it easier for him to get around, it would also make it easier for people to follow his trail. Still, some things couldn't be helped, and there was no point complaining about things that couldn't be helped. But it was kind of fun when you wanted to annoy someone you didn't like.
There was nobody with him at the moment, though, and he did like himself so he wasn't going to waste any of his precious time with stupid stuff. Pushing his way into the high grasses that surrounded the stream, Ryan continued on his way.
XxXxX
It'd taken him some time to find the cave, not that the small mountain that housed it had been so hard to come by. And at least the strange "call" he was getting through the Guyver had proved to be useful for something, at least. Still, walking into the cave in front of him with practically nothing to defend himself with wasn't in his plans. Calling the Guyver, just to have the security of its multitude of weapons, Ryan took a deep breath and walked into the cave. Time would tell if he'd find anything worthwhile there, but his curiosity would kill him if he didn't at least have a look.
XxXxX
As he picked his way through the rubble that was covering the… the whatever it was that had been calling to him, Ryan Crouger reflected on just how utterly, undeniably weird his life had become. It had all started when he'd found the Guyver unit. Being half-buried in a cave-in hadn't been the most fun thing to have happen, but at least it had been relatively normal compared to what had happened after that.
Bonding with the Guyver unit had been painful, and waking up covered in some kind of weird organic armor had been… well, weird. Really, really weird. Then there was the fact that his family doctor, someone Ryan had known since he was just a little kid, had been working for an evil corporation that was trying to take over the world. It was all just a little too surreal for him to deal with all at once.
So, why the hell am I going off on some little side quest that probably has something or other to do with this damn thing that's been stuck in my back? I've got no fucking idea. As he looked for a way to get through a particularly thick-looking wall that blocked his way, Ryan finally lost the little patience that he'd had with this venture in the first place.
When he came to the wide, high wall that blocked any further progress that he might have tried to make into the cave, Ryan prepared to fire the Pressure Cannon again. That was when the voices came back, seeming all the stronger for the time they had been silent and quickly overwhelming his hasty attempts at resistance.
Okay. Okay. They seem to want me to follow them. I just hope I'm not getting into something that even the Guyver can't deal with. He had long since learned that some types of Zoanoids—Enzymes in particular—were too tough for a lone Guyver to handle. As he contemplated just what the voices wanted him to do now, the wall opened up.
There was a liquid-like sloshing sound as the wall in front of him slowly drew itself open. As the tunnel shlooped and sloshed into complete formation, Ryan tried to make out something, anything beyond the entrance. But either his Guyver's external sensors were malfunctioning, or they were being blocked, because he couldn't make out a thing.
Great. Just great. They want me to walk into a place I know nothing about, can't see into at all, and am getting some serious-issue bad vibes from. Perfect. Steam shot out of the vent ports in the gray Guyver's cheeks as Ryan let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding. Stepping into the hole in the wall, Ryan hoped that his external sensors would come back on soon.
The darkness inside the place where he now stood was oppressive, and it was made all the worse when the hole in the wall sealed itself shut. He didn't notice this, though; otherwise he would probably have tried to blast his way out with the Mega-Smasher, voices or no voices. But he was too preoccupied with trying to find out just where he had ended up to look back over his shoulder at the entrance that was no longer there.
The Guyver's Control Medal had started flashing, the light unseen by Ryan himself, but the effect on his surroundings could not have been more pronounced. All of the interior lights activated at once, bathing Ryan and everything else in bright bluish-white luminescence. It wasn't at all like what he had been expecting, though to be perfectly honest even he hadn't known just what to expect.
But, whatever that had been, this sure wasn't it. The walls of the room he now stood in were rounded and looked like some kind of bizarre fusion of plants and technology. Whatever this place was, it was a sure bet that it hadn't been made on little old Earth. Ryan sighed. Okay, so I've been getting psychic messages from a UFO. My life is officially and deeply screwed-up.
It was strange, Ryan reflected, just how blasé he was being about the whole thing. Anybody else would have probably been panicking by now, unless they were one of those crackhead alien-abduction guys. Ryan wasn't one of those nutjobs—not by a long shot—but with everything he had been through, he would have had enough stories to entertain even the most far-out of those wackos.
Not that he intended to try and look for a convention of them just so he could brag about his experiences. Ever. Turning his attention back to the UFO, Ryan saw that there were two long, freestanding poles in the center of the room where he now stood. The poles themselves were somewhat thick and sturdy seeming, and they somehow reminded Ryan of the tines of a tuning fork.
Looking down at the floor of the room, Ryan found that there was a perfectly circular depression surrounding the "tines". That was when the voices came back. Hearing the many, overlapping whispers after having gotten used to the silence was both unnerving and annoying. Walking up to the tines, since that's what they seemed to want him to do, Ryan stopped once he was standing between them.
Mercifully, the voices stopped then, too. Now what? Ryan wondered. Just then, two long arms descended from the ceiling. One was holding something that looked a lot like the scanners that Ryan had seen being used in grocery stores; the other one wasn't holding anything. Ryan had a moment to wonder just what was going on before some kind of organic restraints snapped closed around his wrists and ankles.