It had taken a while to get out of the city, and there had been a few close calls with Zoanoids when they had met up, but now they were all out of the city and heading for the old safehouse. They were going to have to move out almost as soon as they got there if they didn't want Chronos goons all up their ass, and no one in their right mind wanted that, so he was feeling pretty calm. Of course, the fact that there were no Zoanoids crowding and attempting to kill him was a big part of that.

When they got back to the safehouse, it was to find a trio of unmarked black vans surrounding the place. Everyone inside was being hustled out, and most of the guys there were looking around furtively as they moved.

"Your guys move fast," Ryan said, shedding his armor as the guys finished loading all of the "normals" into the vans.

"I took the liberty of contacting them while you two were escaping from the city," Agito said calmly. "We will need to move quickly to evade whatever agents that Chronos sends out after us."

"Yeah," he nodded.

He'd spent enough time battling Chronos to know how crazy-determined they were to kill him and his fellow Guyvers, so he climbed into the van without another word and leaned against the left-side wall as they set off. He couldn't help wondering just where they would end up when this trip was over, but as Agito wasn't likely to tell him and he didn't feel like talking, he figured he would just have to wait to find out with the rest of their group. Leaning more completely against the wall of the van, trying to find a way to make himself more comfortable while the metal of the wall bumped against his head with every small dip in the road, he finally gave up in disgust. There was just no way to get comfortable when your head was being constantly banged off a metal wall. Folding his arms and leaning against the wall more firmly so he wouldn't be jostled too much, he turned as someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"What's eating you?" he asked, seeing that it was Tetsuro, and that he looked like something was bothering him.

"I don't mean to disturb you if you're trying to rest, but what happened that made moving like this necessary?"

"We raided those 'Pillars of Heaven' that Chronos has set up in this area," he said, not knowing just how much information Tetsuro had been given and not wanting to make any assumptions. "Sho busted out this weird, huge armor and flew me out of there."

"Sho says you died," he stated, sounding like he didn't quite know what to believe. Or like he didn't want to believe.

"That's pretty much what happened," he said, remembering the way his vision had gone all wonky and faded out after that Zoalord – Purg-something-or-other – had slammed that Gravity Bullet through his chest.

"I thought that might have been the case," Tetsuro nodded, sounding more morose than surprised—something to ask about later. "In any case, I'm glad to see you're alive and well now. Still, was there anything else that went on during your battle at the Pillars of Heaven? Something that would have prompted Sho to retreat before the battle was over?"

"Besides me getting killed, I don't know."

"It must have been you, then."

"Must've been," he said, nodding.

XxXxX

When they finally arrived at the Arizona facility, Kenji's body seemed to have fully purged itself of whatever had been afflicting it. The blanket that he had wrapped the child's body in had been soaked through with sweat, and there was no doubt that the boy's clothes would be in the same state. Now, however, there was simply the matter of getting Kenji into some clean clothes and a proper bed so he could be allowed to recover from what had been afflicting him. And Fried'rich himself needed to convene the Council and tell them of what had happened to the boy. He was no longer convinced that it had been something so simple as mere treason that had been committed. Kenji had obviously been afflicted by something, and when the Council convened he would tell them all of what had been happening to the boy.

It would be cruel and inhumane to do anything less.

He was greeted with the usual deference accorded a visiting Zoalord, and he quickly informed the Zoanoids that Kenji was sick and needed urgent care. The boy was quickly removed from the helicopter and carried into the hangar bay. The Zoanoids made one last gesture of submission to him, before they hurried off with the still-comatose form of young Kenji Mirabilis.

He himself made for the communication room, where he would easily be able to contact the other members of the Council and respectfully request that they meet with him. It was a small part of the reason that he had come to Arizona in the first place: Arizona was the location of the Celestial Hall, where Chronos' grand Council would meet when there was something of grave import to the Chronos syndicate as a whole to discuss.

The fates of both Luggnagg de Krumeggnik and young Kenji Mirabilis were both the sort of thing that all of the Council would need to be informed about.

XxXxX

When he had been put in charge of the youngest of Chronos' Zoalords, Dr. Lloyd Asplund had been extremely pleased. Normally, an assignment dealing with one of the Twelve would have gone to Dr. Hekkaring, someone he wasn't particularly fond of. Hekkaring seemed to get all the interesting assignments, probably a function of his having seniority over all the other scientists except Dr. Balkus. Balkus, however, was one of the Twelve himself, so he didn't really count.

As he continued to push the bed holding little Kenji – and what an opportunity to study Zoalord physiology this would be! – Lloyd looked him over to see if he could make a preliminary diagnosis. The boy looked like he had been suffering from some kind of fever, but that was impossible considering how Zoalord immune systems were designed. There wasn't a virus on earth that could get past those kinds of defenses—not even Aptom, considering the modifications that had been made by Dr. Balkus.

Still, all the signs seemed to point in that direction. It would be very interesting to find out just what could be causing this kind of a reaction in the boy. Once his assistants had managed to transport the youngest of the Zoalords into his laboratory – it was something of a time-share, since he didn't yet have the seniority to command his own space, but he liked to think of it that way in any case – Lloyd hurried over to one of the counters and picked up a sterilized needle.

Taking a quick blood-sample, Lloyd turned as he began to hear the heavy footsteps he had come to recognize and dislike so much.

"Asplund," Dr. Hekkaring said, the sheer indifference of his greeting enough to put Lloyd's back up. "I would have thought that you would have remembered by now that I have authority over development on the levels of Hyper Zoanoid and above."

He'd known that. Lloyd had known it very well; he'd only been hoping that Hekkaring had been away at one of the other bases or deeply involved in one of his experiments and hence unable to come out and bother him or any of his assistants. Apparently, today wasn't going to be the day that he had the chance to study the physiology of one of Chronos' most powerful Zoaforms. Or, perhaps—

"Also, make sure to turn over that unauthorized blood sample you took," Hekkaring snapped, causing Lloyd to grit his teeth slightly.

"Why, of course, Alfred," he said, grinning widely at the man he would have liked nothing more than to punch, repeatedly, in the face. "I was just thinking of your convenience when I took this sample. I just thought that you would appreciate not having to take the sample yourself."

"I'm sure you did," Hekkaring said, putting just enough of a sneer in his voice to make Lloyd hate him just that much more. "The sample, Asplund."

"Here you go," he said, still grinning widely as he handed over the syringe filled with Kenji's blood. "With my compliments."

Turning to leave the room before he did something unacceptably drastic, like leaping on Hekkaring's wrinkled face and clawing out his eyes or one of the many other things he had found himself fantasizing about doing every time the two of them were stuck in the same vicinity for more than two minutes, Lloyd fumed. There had been his best chance of studying at least some facet of Zoalord physiology, the chance to know just what it was that made them so much more powerful than even a Hyper Zoanoid. He'd never truly believed that a simple crystal, even one that had been specifically matched to the specialty of each Zoalord at their creation, could be enough to grant anyone the kind of… near godlike abilities that all Zoalords so clearly had. Still, there would likely be other opportunities.

He would make certain of that.