It was the snoring that woke him up first, since he'd trained himself to be a light sleeper. It wouldn't be very good, either for his own personal health or for his position as leader of Team Five, if he'd been caught sleeping on the job. Opening one baby-blue eye, still a little bit reluctant to wake up from that dream he'd been having, Zektor turned slightly toward the sound so he could get a look at just who was making that annoying noise.
The noisemaker turned out to be Darzerb, flat on his back and snoring fit to make a chainsaw jealous. It figures, Zektor grumbled internally and reluctantly sat up. He didn't really care why the whole of Team Five was sharing a single room, since Darzerb's snoring was irritating enough to keep him from thinking about anything else but getting Team Five's largest member to stop making all the racket.
"Hey," Zektor said, gently smacking the right side of Darzerb's face with the back of his left hand. "Hey! Wake up, you lump; you're not the only one in this room."
Smacking Darzerb a bit harder didn't really do anything besides get the large Hyper Zoanoid to roll over on his side facing in the opposite direction of Team Five's leader, which meant that if Zektor wanted to get him to either wake up or shut up then he'd have to leave the comfort of his bed. Not that these old hospital-style beds were all that comfortable, but it was the principle of the thing. Getting up when he was ordered to or when he wanted to was one thing; having to get up to silence the annoying buzzsaw in the next bed over was something else entirely—something he didn't really want to bother with right at the moment. So, wrapping the pillow around his head to block out at least some of the noise that Darzerb was making, Zektor settled in for a good nap. It was probably going to be the only one he got till the end of the day, so he had decided to make the most of it. Now, if Darzerb would stop making that goddamned racket Zektor would actually be able to enjoy his nap.
In the end, though, someone else decided to put an end to Darzerb's snoring.
The soft slam of a pillow hitting someone's face distracted Zektor from his effort to ignore the snoring of his compatriot and fall asleep. Sitting up again, Zektor had to hurriedly swallow a guffaw as he saw Gaster standing over Darzerb with an expression of complete and utter smugness on his face.
"Thanks," Zektor said, chuckling as Darzerb started looking for his assailant. "Remind me to get you something nice for your next birthday."
Gaster, chucking soundlessly, winked at Zektor to let him know that he'd appreciated the joke. Darzerb, who'd been looking at the front of the room for his mysterious assailant, completely missed the fact that Gaster had managed to sneak back into his bed and lay down. When Zektor lay back down in his bed, he only had to wait about a minute before he heard the muffled thump of Darzerb laying back down. After that, it was pretty simple for Zektor to get to sleep. Of course, rest was a rare thing for Zoanoids in Chronos, so the knocking on the door, while it was kind of annoying, wasn't all that unexpected for him. Sitting back up, Zektor saw that the newcomer was one of the female Zoanoids—probably a Ranza, judging by her build and hair color.
"Hey, babe. Come to get us for something special, or did the bosses just want us out of this room?"
"I'm afraid they just want you out," Ranza said, looking briefly at her clipboard. "So, if you'll all follow me, I'll show you to your quarters for the duration of your stay here."
"I'd follow a pretty lady like you anywhere."
Zektor rolled his eyes. "Zancrus, don't be a chump."
"Look, Boss Bug, just because you always have someone to keep your bed warm at night doesn't mean I have to stop looking."
"Look, Romeo, we're not here to find dates for the Prom," Zektor said, standing up so he'd be more intimidating. "And what I do in the privacy of my room, with my boyfriend, is none of your business."
"It's pretty obvious what to do in there," Zancrus drawled, "what with the grunting and screaming and all. You're only lucky you've got such short hair, otherwise everyone else would know what you two are doing in there. Well, that and the fact that your lover-boy's bald."
Just as Zektor was about to say something really crushing to his smaller teammate, he caught the sound of someone laughing—someone female, so that left out any of his team. Turning to look at the Ranza that had come to escort them out of the room, Zektor saw that it was indeed her doubled up with laughter.
"Oh, don't stop on my account," Ranza said, waving at them and still chuckling as she straightened up. "This is better than sketch comedy."
"Well, at least someone finds those two funny," Gaster drawled, cocking his head in the direction of his two bickering teammates.
"Well, now that we're all awake, I think we should get out of Ranza's hair," Darzerb said, acting as the voice of reason. He tended to do that a lot.
"See you, then," Zektor said, waving for the rest of Team Five to follow him out of the recovery room. "Let's get out of here, guys."
With a chorus of nods and acknowledgments, the rest of Team Five followed him and Ranza.
XxXxX
Shifting as he woke up, Ryan blinked up at the ceiling.
)You feeling better now, kid?(
)Well, I guess I couldn't get lucky enough to have that all be a dream. Damn.(
)Nope. I guess you're stuck with me from now on, kid.(
)Great,( Ryan rolled his eyes as he tucked his hands behind his head and stretched. )Those new attacks of ours were really cool, I've got to admit.(
)Yeah; I really wasn't expecting us to be able to use those kinds of attacks. I wasn't really expecting there to be any "us" anymore; just you, kid.(
)We're going to have to get used to using those new powers of ours, Snake-head. That is, if we ever want to be able to use them regularly.(
)Yeah, I know. Still, we should probably keep it a secret from the others.(
)Yeah, I think you're right. We should definitely keep it a secret from Agito, at least. And I so don't want to deal with Sho and Mizuki freaking out on me, so that leaves out telling them. I could always try to tell Tetsuro, but then he'd probably go and tell Sho anyway.(
)So I guess it's just our little secret, eh, kid?(
)Yeah, Snake-head, I guess it is.(
Rolling over on his bed, Ryan considered for a moment whether he wanted to get up or not. On the one hand, it was probably a good idea to start getting acclimated to his new powers and his new "partner" as soon as he could. On the other, he was still fairly wrung out from the battle, and he didn't have any pressing reason to get out of bed right now.
)So I guess the consensus is more sleep?(
)That's what it is, Snake head.(
)I can deal with that, kid.(
)Good.(
Ryan rolled over on his side, tucking his pillow back further under his head and curling up under the covers again. Then the door to his room opened, revealing Agito Makashima.