He really hoped that King Bastard was holding up his end of the fight. He'd landed in the top-level offices and really wasn't looking forward to having a bunch of Zoanoids swarming up at him from below. Speaking of which… +Sho, how are you holding up down there?+
+I'm all right, Ryan. How are you doing?+
+Well, I'm finally inside. Whether that turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen, of course.+
+Good luck, Ryan.+
+Right back at ya, Sho. Take care of yourself.+
+I will.+
As the link between them fell silent, Ryan started to hear the pounding footsteps that let him know that he was going to have more company of the Zoanoid kind very soon. Readying himself even as he extended the Vibration Blades at his wrists, Ryan took a running leap at the door just as some of those green lizard-guys burst in through what was left of the door.
It just never ends. With a rebel yell, he dove back in on the attack with his wrist-blades fully extended and slicing before any of the incoming Zoanoids could think to try to dogpile him. Driving his hand into a hairy ape-man's chest and ripping out what looked like a piece of his left lung, Ryan danced back out of the way of a punch from one of the thing's compatriots and limboed his way under a slash that would have pierced his chest if it had connected. Jumping sideways to the right, he fired the Head Beam into the skull of another one of those green lizard-monsters. When two more of a similar type – only with big spikes along their backs and upper-arms – came rushing at him, Ryan quickly decapitated them with his wrist-blades. These ones were easy; it was the hulking white ones with the big pinchers – those Enzyme IIs – that he didn't want to have to deal with. Anybody with half a functioning brain cell would hate those things, with what they could – and would – do to you.
Still, the fact that they were all swarming into the room with him meant that he had to deal with them, acid or no acid.
)Fun times, eh, kid?(
)Yeah, a regular barrel of laughs,( he shot back, mentally rolling his eyes.
He knew the guy was just trying to break up the tension, but he really could have tried to find a less annoying way to do it. Still, it was probably the thought that counted, or something sappy like that. But now wasn't the time to think about things like that; now it was time to make sure he didn't die fighting these damned Enzyme IIs. Sure, Sho had said that they could come back from the dead, but that would be really freaky and would probably hurt.
)Yeah, kid. Dying's not one of the things I'm in the mood to experience firsthand.(
Without pausing to acknowledge that particular nugget of wisdom, both since he didn't particularly want to think about the possibility and because there wasn't really anything he could say without sounding like a moron, he sliced the head off of the last non-Enzyme Zoanoid and then moved further into the room.
Turning back to the group of Enzyme IIs, he charged up the Pressure Cannon and blew the heads off of two more that happened to have the severe bad luck of standing too close together. He was then forced to jump over the sprays of acid that the five other Enzymes started firing at him, not to mention the stuff leaking from the corpses of the two he'd decapitated.
All in all, not a very fun situation. He certainly hoped the others were doing better than he was at the moment.
XxXxX
When he had managed to kill all of the flying Zoanoids that had been attacking him, Sho started to wonder just how Ryan was doing. He'd sounded fine while they were talking, but then he always seemed to sound fine, at least up to the point where he got himself in more trouble than he could comfortably handle. Sho was just hoping that it hadn't happened again.
+Ryan, how are you doing?+
+I'm all right, all things considered,+ he said. +Though you might want to keep your wits about you—there are Enzymes loose.+
+You've seen them?+
+I'm fighting more than a few of them,+ Ryan said, sounding mildly aggravated, but not at him. +Some of them keep slipping past me, so I'm guessing it's a good bet to keep your guard up, this being a Chronos base and all.+
+You're right,+ he said, sighing. +Still, I want you to promise me that you'll come out of this alive.+
+When have I ever not?+
+Ryan, please. I'm not joking about this.+
+All right, all right; I promise. Geez, you are such a mother hen, Sho.+
He didn't know precisely what it was that Ryan meant by that, but he'd sounded annoyed. Sho had never seen anything wrong with worrying about the people who were important to him, but Ryan didn't seem to see things that way. Agito was the same: neither of them seemed to understand just how dangerous Chronos was to them. The people that staffed Chronos were ruthless; they had no concept of mercy or kindness.
He'd learned that more than well enough after seeing what they had done to Mr. Murakami and Kenji. What Chronos did to the people who tried to oppose them was really too horrible to contemplate sometimes. There were times Sho really, honestly wished that he could forget what had been done to him, all because he'd had the sheer misfortune to come across the Guyver Unit they had been looking for; forget what had been done to his friends and family all because they had been close to him.
But that would mean that their deaths really had been in vain. Yamamura and Murakami, his father, Kenji, and all of the people Chronos had killed or subjected to the horrors of processing—all of their sacrifices would have been worthless if their lives were forgotten. And so, no matter how much the memories hurt him to carry sometimes, he would bear up under the weight. And that was why he had to look out for Ryan and Agito, because he didn't want to be forced to carry their memories, too. That would be too heavy a burden even for him. But there was no real way he could explain that to such self-sufficient people as Ryan and Agito, so there was really nothing he could do but keep trying to protect them and hope he didn't annoy them too much in the process.
Continuing on his way into the building, fighting his way past all of the Zoanoids who were trying to guard it, Sho hoped that Ryan and Agito would both come out of this battle alive.
XxXxX
He would not have been expecting a Guyver attack in this of all places—it was far enough away from the known territory of the Fourth Guyver that Fried'rich would have thought it safe. Apparently he would have thought wrong. The two Japanese Guyvers, along with Ryan Crouger, were even now attacking this building. Shin was out in Washington, overseeing the operation of the facilities in that area, as well as looking over the plans for the great skyscraper that would be constructed once X-Day had given Chronos control over the world.
That meant that it would be left to him to protect this facility from the Guyvers. Only one of those warriors was near him now, but Ryan Crouger had proven himself to be just as much a threat to Chronos' operations in this area as any Guyver, so Fried'rich didn't feel as charitable toward the boy as he once had. He was certainly not going to allow the child to go rampaging through a Chronos facility that he was able to protect. There had been more than enough Zoanoid lives lost to the Fifth Guyver's actions.
Turning just as the door to his right was blown open by what sounded very much like a Guyver's Pressure Cannon, Fried'rich found himself staring into the emotionless pale-pink eyes of the Fifth Guyver. Watching as the boy leapt out of the doorway and spun to confront another group of Enzyme IIs, Fried'rich was displeased to realize that the boy had found a rather simple way of killing the creatures that Dr. Balkus had been quick to praise as the perfect weapons against a Guyver.
It was time that he made his own contribution to this battle, time that this boy learned that there were dire consequences for challenging a Zoalord. He may not have had Imakarum Mirabilis' battle prowess or the sheer, overwhelming firepower of the Guyver before him, but that did not make him helpless. Before the boy could start to search for any new Zoanoids to slaughter, Fried'rich was upon him. Battering the gray Guyver with a barrage of Gravity Bullets, he was unsurprised when the boy broke off his attack and tried to come in from a different angle. Ryan Crouger had always seemed to know when to fight head-on and when to back off and attempt something new.
The boy would have been a great asset to Chronos, and perhaps before all of this unpleasantness had started he would have been willing to work with them in whatever limited capacity the other Zoalords – Dr. Balkus and Lord Alkanphel in particular – would have been willing to trust a Guyver. Of course, it was far too late to consider things such as that; the boy had been driven inexorably away from Chronos by the actions of those who had been trying to recruit him.
There was little chance that anyone who worked for the organization would be able to convince him to join forces with them after the way he had been treated. That was a vaguely disheartening thought, but it was the reality of the situation, and Fried'rich for all his optimism could not deny reality. The boy would have to die if Chronos was ever to succeed in their goals.
Closing with the Guyver as he tried to run, Fried'rich started to notice something odd. It was the sense of a Zoanoid, he was certain of it—a Hyper, if his senses were correct. Only there were no living Zoanoids in this area: the Fifth Guyver had been very thorough in his elimination of the personnel in this area.
Just as he was starting to wonder what on Earth could be going on, the Fifth Guyver fired a volley at him. A volley of electricity. The ribbons of electrical energy flashed out of the armored hands of the gray Guyver, racing along the walls like mad lizards, and Fried'rich had to raise his forcefield to deflect them.
"How in God's holy name did you manage-"
"Ah! A good magician never reveals his secrets," the Fifth Guyver said, laughing and even having the audacity to wag his finger at the Zoalord of Lightning.
It was simply not possible that this last Guyver possessed powers so different than his compatriots. Dr. Balkus had studied this Guyver with too much diligence for that to be the case. There had to be another explanation for the phenomenon that he had just witnessed, but the boy held nothing in his hands, and beyond that there were no broken wires or cables that he could have taken hold of.
Before Fried'rich could even begin to contemplate the puzzle of just how the Fifth Guyver had managed to throw electricity of all things, the boy was moving again. Moving and firing off yet another blast of electrical energy. And, yet again that sense – the feeling that there was a Hyper Zoanoid in this very room with him – came back all the stronger. Could it be possible…?
Reaching out with his telepathic powers – since there would be no harm to him if this venture failed, and he was honestly curious to know if his telepathy would find anything to hold onto within the boy's mind – Fried'rich found that there was indeed something about the boy's mind that he could take hold of. But only in the most tenuous manner, as there was something about the boy's mind that disrupted his efforts at contact. Most likely, it was the fact that the boy himself was a Guyver, so it was truly intriguing that the child had the characteristics of a Hyper Zoanoid. Perhaps he had possessed latent Hyper Zoanoid genes, and fusing with the Guyver had activated them somehow? It was a question for some other time, of course, a time when he wasn't facing down the Fifth Guyver in open combat.
He would also have to speak to Dr. Balkus about the possibility; the elder Zoalord would most definitely want to know about what he had discovered. But again, he had to deal with the boy himself first.