A pair of Gregole who had been originally been sent out to investigate the sudden surge of unknown energy that had then vanished were the first to die on the blades of the enhanced Guyver. The blades, four in all, retracted back into the Guyver's left arm. Jets of steam shot out of the Guyver's facial vents as the remade Guyver continued on its way.
The Guyver's next victims were a group of Vamore; they fell victim to a weapon that – had any of them survived to do so – they would have probably described as a more powerful version of a normal Pressure Cannon. As the gray Guyver started walking forward again, the left sensor on its head snapped backwards, and it turned without hesitation to fire the Head Beam at its new opponent. The Gregole's head vaporized from the heat of the infrared laser.
Turning with machine-like precision, the Guyver continued to make its way forward. Its destination: the Chronos processing facility on the outskirts of a small village. The facility itself was a minor one, but there were enough Zoanoids there to be a good test of the abilities of its form. The Guyver's limited intelligence made no allowance for the fact that every branch of Chronos would soon be alerted to its presence.
All that mattered was that its host was in danger, and it was the programmed desire of every Bio-Booster Unit to protect its host when they were in danger. Of course, the fact that this particular Unit's host would not have been in any danger if not for the Unit's own actions was completely lost on the barely-sentient mind. As the Guyver continued to move inexorably forward, the crystal emitters set just above all of the joints started to glow.
The light coming from the emitters was soft and steady at first, but soon it started to pulse. The crystal emitters flashed in unison, and the world around the altered Guyver seemed to stand still. The Guyver had translated into Hypertime.
XxXxX
The first sign that something had gone wrong was when the door blew open. Seeing a three-inch titanium-alloy door almost exploding off its hinges wasn't something any of the Zoanoids in this area were expecting to see. They'd been told about the Guyver attacks made against all of the other, more important Chronos installations, but none of them had ever expected this plant to be attacked. After all, this was just a minor materials-fabrication facility. They only had a skeleton crew of Standard Zoanoids, mostly to do the heavy lifting, so when one of the Ramochis who had been carrying a heavy crate of computer parts was suddenly sliced in half from crown to crotch, the few technicians in the area were almost too shocked to react. That a Guyver would attack a backwater, no-name outpost like this wasn't something the staff had ever been prepared for.
As another Zoanoid, and then one of the human technicians, fell under the assault of an unseen attacker, the remaining humans and Zoanoids quickly elected to call for backup. This place may have been unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but they were still a part of Chronos and hence were entitled to at least some protection. But before any of the human or Zoanoid personnel could summon the clarity of thought to react to that, the slaughter started again.
Two Ramochis and two Gregole were the next victims of their unknown and presumably invisible attacker. By that time the installation was in a state of barely controlled panic, and it only took the deaths of three more Zoanoids to send the formerly complacent crew completely over the edge. Those three unfortunate Zoanoids were two Ziatt and a Razell. After their deaths, the panic that had been waiting in the wings finally overtook the Chronos materials-fabrication plant.
The masses of humans and Zoanoids running into and over each other in their haste to get out of the building and away from whatever it was that was attacking them made easy targets for the enhanced Guyver. The corpses of humans and the mostly-evaporated remains of their Zoanoid counterparts now littered the floor; some even stained the walls and ceiling.
XxXxX
The five processing-tanks had stood unopened for about a month now. Their cargo wasn't something that many people, outside of the Chronos Overlords themselves, were even privileged enough to know about. Every major Chronos base of operations had a room just like the one that held these specimens, one that even the elite Hyper Zoanoids were forbidden to enter.
As an additional precaution, there were very few processing technicians even aware of the true purpose of this room. Everyone else, with the exception of the Zoalord overseer of Chronos Japan, thought that the room was another of the many storage areas for Cloud Tower.
One of those who knew the room's true purpose, one of the most trusted of Cloud Tower's processing technicians, entered quietly. He'd been growing annoyed with their Zoalord overseer's reluctance to activate this particular contingency plan, especially given the fact that the Hyper Zoanoid in question had steadfastly refused any and all offers to be either reprocessed or simply repaired. Though the mental patterns – how they thought in a very general sense – of these Hyper Zoanoids had already been established, there was always the chance that this version would be more sensible than the last one.
Considering his actions for a moment, the technician decided to revive the other members of the Hyper Zoanoid Team Five as well. Zektor was certain to become curious and agitated if he did not have his four comrades by his side. If he were to become too suspicious, there was a chance that he would go searching for them and find this room. Giving a simple set of commands to the computer, he watched as the five processing-tanks drained completely.
The five Hyper Zoanoids within those tanks were still asleep, and they would stay that way at least long enough for the man to get them out of this room and into a more suitable recovery room. He wondered for a moment what the previous Zektor would think if he were to somehow become aware of the second Team Five, but there were very few chances of that ever happening.
Once Dr. Balkus had been informed of this new development, he would certainly want to keep the two generations of Team Five from meeting one another, if only to keep them from finding out that they were not as irreplaceable as all Hyper Zoanoids seemed to think they were. All Zoanoids could be replaced; it was just a matter of the correct materials and enough time. Hypers, however, were more useful when they believed themselves to be irreplaceable.
XxXxX
The Chronos materials-fabrication plant was in flaming ruins by now, and the time-shifted Guyver was staring at it impassively. If the rudimentary consciousness that resided within the Control Medal had been capable of feeling anything resembling human emotion, the enhanced Guyver would have most likely been feeling quite a bit of smug satisfaction at how easily it had dealt with its opponents. However there was not much beyond a simulated survival instinct within the Control Medal's limited intelligence, and the tall, spindly, almost wraithlike Guyver was merely scanning for new threats. Finding none, it left, flying under the power of the Gravity Controller. The wind whipped the flames that the Guyver had left behind, fanning them even higher. It would be some time before fire crews would arrive to put out the conflagration.
In the air, the Guyver translated back into normal time with an almost holographic flicker. There were no other enemies that its sensors could detect, and so it settled back into a kind of standby mode, waiting for its host to awaken. The programming that the Advent consciousness had tried to install within the Control Medal was already being rejected by the Guyver's rudimentary consciousness. The instinct to protect the host was already reasserting itself, and so the Guyver landed and stood still, waiting.
XxXxX
+I don't sense him anywhere, Agito.+
+I know,+ Agito responded, annoyed that they had to go to such lengths merely because Crouger couldn't be troubled to answer them. +But he is a fellow Guyver, and he could be in some sort of danger.+
+I know, Agito. I just don't know what Ryan could be doing now that would take up so much of his attention that he would just ignore us the way he's been doing.+
+Yes; I wonder about that as well.+