Zero: Okay, I'm back! And hopefully I can do this better this time. As usual, GalaxyPegasus14 does not own MFB. Also, she thanks xxstarsnowxx for giving her a clue leading to Gingka in the last chapter, as she has now found him and is currently chasing him through… -looks at tracking device- South America. She hopes you enjoy this chapter, as usual, and let's get on to the story!
"Shinobu! Hand me that piece of wood, would you?"
"Haha! Very punny, Zero!"
"Well, no pun intended, but yeah, I guess that was pretty funny!"
Shinobu reached up and handed the requested piece of wood to his rival, who was busy helping Dunamis repair one of the houses that had only half burnt down. The group had gotten all of the various crates together from the shattered houses around the area, and Kyoya and Aguma were busy counting everything.
"I wonder what those are." Ren said as she watched Kyoya open a metal crate. The Leone blader began pulling small metal cylinders out, most of them no larger than his finger, and laying them carefully aside, handing the damaged ones to Aguma, who put them in a separate pile carefully.
"You could go ask." Zero grunted, hanging by his knees from a rafter to grab the hammer that Shinobu was holding up from below.
Ren walked over to the two bladers. "What are those?" she asked, pointing at the small object in Kyoya's hand.
"Fuel tanks for our jetpacks." Kyoya replied. "These can be fairly dangerous if they overheat, there is a reason they were in a refrigerated crate."
"How do you keep them cold when they are in your suits?"
"Our suits also have cooling systems, what ignites our jetpacks is a small spark that quickly heats up the different whatever it is that's inside here. To deactivate them, the suit automatically supercools them as quickly as possible."
"Cool! I was just wondering, they looked interesting!" Ren turned, then realized she had nothing to do. "Umm, I finished the last job you gave me by the way."
Kyoya paused for a second and looked up. "So you did, and it looks like you did a pretty good job with it as well. Hmm, why don't you go help Hyoma with lunch, he probably needs it."
"Okay! I'm on it!" Ren ran off.
"And get together a crew of the other girls to help you as well!" Kyoya shouted after her.
"Well, they sure do love helping out." Aguma commented as he tossed an empty crate aside.
"Yeah, I wonder if we could use these damaged fuel cells to blow up something…" Kyoya trailed off.
"Ehh, might work. Our beys can do a pretty good job of that as well though."
"Well, yeah, but what if we want to collapse a building? We can't be that close if we needed to do that."
"Ohh, I see what you are thinking! If we can take out the DNA main headquarters, they won't be able to make more of those robots for a while!"
"Exactly. And, we could set it just like a bomb to go off whenever we wanted it to." Kyoya grinned with excitement. "Hagane won't know how we did it!"
Aguma chuckled. "Should I go tell Yuki to make a few of these things supersized?"
"Let's finish taking inventory first, then we can go ask him if it would be possible." Kyoya placed the sorted fuel cells back into the open crate and closed it, then moved on to another.
"Whoa!"
"Calm down, I got you!"
Madoka glanced outside at the sound of Zero and Dunamis yelling. "Looks like someone lost his balance!" she laughed, spotting Zero dangling from the roof by his ankle, which was in the grasp of Dunamis. The lavender-haired blader pulled the teen back up, and the two continued working just as before.
Ren meanwhile, had gotten together an army of young girls to help with the cooking, and Hyoma released the controls of the kitchen to the girls, sitting back and directing the army of chefs.
"Ren, get out the flour. Noriko, help, um, that other girl with the beef." Hyoma called, trying to learn all of their names. Exasperated at this, the Aries blader grabbed several sheets of paper and wrote a number on each of them. "Everyone, come over here for a second!" he called.
Soon, he was surrounded by around fifteen teenage girls.
"Okay, so since I can't remember all of your guys' names at once, and I really need to be able to just call you quickly, I am giving each of you a number. I want you to put it on your shirt and remember it, and I will call you by number and learn your names over the next few days. Sound good?"
"Yeah!" the girls chorused, coming up in turn to take a number.
"Fifteen, get those eggs cooking! Ren, pour that into twelve's bowl. Six, help three stir that, would you? Great job guys!"
Ryo came into the kitchen, hearing the commotion. "Wow, you have a full restaurant staff here!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah, apparently Kyoya sent them to help out, since the boys are all outside building and doing things that the girls aren't quite as good at."
"Well, that makes sense. I'm going to head over to the hospital and see if Gingka is awake yet, since I have nothing better to do." Ryo said.
"Kyoya probably has something for you to do if you ask him." Hyoma called after the redhead.
"Okay then, I'll go to him after I go check on Gingka." Ryo muttered. The redhead slipped through the line of occupied bladers and headed straight for the hospital. Nobody noticed him leaving except for Kyoya, who continued working.
"That's about 100 of the 150 fuel cells that we had, we lost about a third." Aguma said, finishing his count.
"Okay, is it written down or recorded in some way?" Kyoya muttered, flipping the lid off of a crate of canned food. "This crate isn't even damaged, why bother going through it?"
"Yeah, all of our food supplies were furthest from the blast and stayed intact."
"Good, Gingka will be happy to hear that." Kyoya chuckled.
"Kyoya-san! What in the world it this?" Benkei's frightened voice came from the porch of one of the undamaged houses.
"That is what you get for sleeping in late." Kyoya replied without looking up.
Aguma looked over and saw Benkei tangled in plastic wrap, trying to get the clear web off of his body.
"I didn't know you had it in you, Kyoya." Kenta commented, coming over with Titi to help.
"Had what in me?"
"The ability to think of pulling a prank." Kenta snickered.
Kyoya glared at the other blader, then continued working.
"Madoka-chan, I found a really deep scratch in this one!" Maru said, holding up Dunamis's Jade fusion wheel for inspection.
"Oh wow, I guess that's something only I can fix at the moment." Madoka said, catching sight of a deep gash across the center. "Just finish the smaller ones around the edges, and then set it over here so I can fill in that scratch."
"Move that triangle shaped piece about a half-inch to the right." Yuki said.
"Here?" Eito carefully slid the required piece over, holding it in place with a pair of tweezers.
"Yeah, now don't move." Yuki said, turning on a small blowtorch and melting the small piece into place.
Eito tensed, but held still, even though the flames were within inches of his hands.
"Good job." Yuki said once he was finished.
Eito immediately let go of the piece that he had been holding in place and jumped back.
Yuki picked up the now-fused pieces of one of the many parts that made up the mask of Dragonfang, one of the fangs glowing from between the tongs in his hand as he plunged it into a bucket of water to cool. Kaito, on the other side of the room, was carefully popping out the many dents covering the surface of the Stormflight mask, which was mostly dismantled. Once the older Unbara finished straightening out a piece, he matched it up to an outline on the set of blueprints that Yuki had laid out, readying the mask for reassembly.
"Anything to do in here?" Kenta asked, coming in.
"You can straighten out Chris's mask." Yuki replied without looking up. "I already took it apart, the pieces are over there in a pile on top of their blueprints, just copy what Kaito is doing and lay them out once they are straight."
"What do I do with all these wires?" Kaito asked.
"Straighten them out and put them in a pile off to the side, I'll see if they can be reused later." Yuki replied, carefully laying another small piece of metal down in place for Eito to hold, this time with a longer tool.
"Switch! Shinobu, you come up here. Zero, you go down and go find more three-inch screws, Ryo or Hyoma will know where they are." Dunamis said, standing up from the boards he had been screwing in and dusting sawdust off of his jeans.
The two young bladers scurried to do as they were told, Zero soon disappearing in the direction of the Hagane home as Shinobu held a large board in place for Dunamis.
"Noriko! Watch what you are doing with that frying pan!" Hyoma called.
"Ahh! Help!" the black-haired girl yelped, jumping back form the stove as the pan she was supposed to be watching began shooting out flames.
Ren soon had both the stove and Noriko soaked with water, but the flames only rose higher.
"Ren! That's a grease fire! Throw flour on it, water only spreads it!" Hyoma yelled, snatching the flour off the counter and dumping the whole bag on the stove, which soon stopped burning.
"Umm, what happened in here?" Zero coughed, entering the kitchen.
"We just had a little accident." Ren blushed, a bit embarrassed.
"Need something?" Hyoma asked, brushing flour off his shirt.
"Yeah, Dunamis-san needed more three-inch long screws." Zero replied.
"Out in the shed, fifth drawer from the top in the third column. Any other screws you need will be in there as well." Hyoma said, getting out a few brooms and tossing two to Ren and Noriko.
"Okay thanks! Whatever you are cooking smells really good by the way!" Zero waved and left for the shed.
"Alright guys, let's get this cleaned up as fast as possible." Hyoma said, starting to sweep the spilled flour into a large pile.
"What if we just used a hose?" Ren said, following suit.
"Why didn't I think of that? There's one right under the window and this floor can handle it anyway, just pass the hose through the window and turn it on when I tell you to." Hyoma said, throwing the burnt frying pan into the sink and turning the water on.
Ren ran outside and soon found the hose. The blonde unraveled it from the hook on the wall and tossed it into the window, where Noriko grabbed it and handed it to Hyoma.
"Turn it on full blast Ren!" Hyoma said, sounding a bit too excited about watering the kitchen. Several of the girls screamed as Hyoma sent several spurts of water flying in their direction.
Ren jumped as she heard a clatter in the shed, then ran to the open door and peeked inside. "Are you okay Zero?" she asked, spotting her friend seated on the ground in a pile of random objects. A drawer marked 'Miscellaneous' was lying upside down on the ground next to the blader, who grunted and stood up.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Help me clean this up real quick, would you?"
"Ren! Turn the water off!"
"Just a second, I'll be back to help you." Ren said, running to the spigot and turning the knob to off. She then ran back to find Zero tossing tools back into the drawer, which he had turned right side up and pushed back into place. Ren joined him, and the two had everything picked up in an matter of minutes. Zero found the screws he had been sent for, thanked Ren for her help, then ran off back towards the partially-finished house, just in time as Dunamis began climbing down the ladder to look for him.
Kyoya and Aguma, meanwhile, were finishing up with their inventory count and began taking the loaded crates back to other houses for storage. The two had banished Kenta and Titi from helping them after Kenta and Kyoya had began arguing, and Titi, as Kyoya put it, 'was only going to cause more trouble if he works with me.' as a result, the fuchsia-haired blader was now hard at work helping Dunamis, Zero, and Shinobu with the house, and Kenta had gone to see if Yuki needed any help and to tell him of Kyoya's idea to use the fuel cells as bombs.
Ryo paused with his hand on the knob of the third door on the right side of the main hallway. The redhead took a deep breath and turned the knob, then pushed the door open. Everything was exactly as it had been the night before, with the exception of the oxygen masks and the large machine that was used to replace blood being gone, that process having been completed. Both Ryo and Gingka shared the intense dislike of hospitals in general, and Gingka still absolutely refused to take any kind of medicine, but they at least agreed that the general building and its doctors were very useful, and should not be underestimated.
Ryo pulled up a chair next to Gingka's bed and brushed a few loose strands of hair out of the redhead's face. Gingka's eyes fluttered slowly open at the touch.
"Dad…?"
"Yeah, it's just me." RYo replied quietly.
"What happened? I remember Ryuga attacking a few robots with some sort of explosives on their backs and-" Gingka suddenly struggled to sit up, but collapsed back onto the bed, gasping.
"Stay down." Ryo ordered, trying to keep the look of temporary panic off his face. "Everyone's fine, you just rest."
"Did we win?"
"For now at least, Kyoya has taken charge while you recover, and the ones you sent to take down the helocopter are completely unharmed, and are working to get your network back on its feet."
"And the ones that were with me?"
"Yuki is fine, he is already working on repairing your guys's suits. King and Chris both have a few scrapes and bruises, but they are resting at the moment and will be just fine by tomorrow."
"And Ryuga?"
"Over there." Ryo pointed. "He should be just fine too, but you two got the worst of it."
"I noticed that much." Gingka bit his lip.
"Ok, whether you like it or not, you are going to take some painkiller this time." Ryo said.
Gingka sighed in defeat, too tired to protest. Ryo went to ask the nurse about painkiller, and she soon handed him some in a syringe. When Ryo reentered the room, Gingka had closed his eyes. Ryo stepped over as quietly as he could and quickly injected the redhead with the painkiller. Gingka nearly jumped out of his skin, then let out a low moan and laid back down.
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?" Ryo asked. All he got in reply was a golden-brown glare. The commotion woke up Ryuga, who immediately panicked, then regained his usual calm outward appearance, seemingly ignoring his own pain, if he had any.
"How long have I been in here and when do I get out?" the dragon growled once he spotted Ryo.
"You have been in here for about sixteen hours, and you don't get out until the doctors give you an okay to go." Ryo replied.
"SIXTEEN HOURS?" Ryuga yelled.
"WOULD YOU BE QUIET?" Gingka yelled back. "Can't I get in some sort of nap without you interrupting?"
"Oh, so you are in here too?" Ryuga smirked.
"Blame yourself." Gingka muttered, closing his eyes.
"What? This wasn't my fault!" Ryuga exclaimed.
Gingka opened his eyes long enough to roll them, then drifted back off to sleep. Ryuga crossed his arms, looking extremely grumpy, and closed his eyes as well.
"Wasn't my fault…" was the last thing the white-haired blader muttered before the room again fell silent.
Ryo sighed, then left, seeing that the two were asleep. The older redhead walked slowly back to the group of bladers busy completing various tasks around the village. Wondering what to do, Ryo approached the house where he knew Yuki was chipping away at the enormous task that had been laid before him. Entering the room, he was rather surprised to see the amount of help Yuki had. The Mercury blader was chatting away casually with Madoka, pausing occasionally to give an order to Eito, who was currently holding yet another piece of Ryuga's helmet in place with the tongs as Yuki welded it carefully.
"Wow, you guys have gotten quite a bit done in here!" Ryo commented.
Yuki finished with the blowtorch and set the tool down, motioning to Eito that he could take a break. "Yeah, thanks to Madoka bringing these guys over." he said. "We have almost finished repairing the major parts of the Dragonfang system, after this it will just need some fine-tuning. I heard from Kyoya a few minutes ago that you went to check on Gingka?"
"Yeah, I did." Ryo replied.
"How is he doing?" Madoka asked, setting down the bey she was working on.
"He woke up, as did Ryuga."
"That's great! Do I need to go over there and convince him to take a painkiller?"
"No, I snuck up on him with it while he wasn't paying attention."
"Aww man! I would have loved to see that one!" Kenta laughed. "Gingka's hard to sneak up on."
"No kidding." Yuki chuckled, removing the protective glasses he had been wearing and putting his own back on.
"I assume he is doing alright then?" Madoka said.
"Well, he's not dying, so, yeah."
"That doesn't tell me much…"
Ryo laughed. "He fell asleep just before I left, both of them did after a short argument."
"Argument? Uh-oh." Kenta spoke up.
"It wasn't much, Ryuga had no idea what had happened and Gingka told him to blame himself, that was about it." Ryo said.
"That doesn't sound like a typical Ryuga-Gingka argument, they must have both been tired or something." Yuki sounded worried.
"They'll be fine." Kenta stated firmly. "They aren't the two strongest bladers in the world for nothing, they won't let this keep them down for long."
"Yeah, but if they don't stay down long enough to heal completely, I will go tie them both down with as many ropes as it takes!" Madoka exclaimed.
Ryo laughed. "I'll help you if you need it."
"I tied Ryuga to a tree once, it shouldn't be half as hard when he is more injured than before." Madoka replied.
Kaito and Eito exchanged surprised glances at this. "She what?" was the thought in both of their minds as Yuki once again put on the protective goggles, motioning Eito over again as Ryo left.
Zero: Well, that was rather eventful…
Shinobu: I can't believe you fell off the roof, and then made a mess in the shed. You are clumsier than I thought, Zero.
Zero: Hey! Have you ever heard of the powers of an authoress? They can do anything!
Shinobu: Really?
Me: Yeah, fear me! I duplicated myself now and am keeping an eye on you while chasing Gingka at the same time! -Disappears-
Zero and Shinobu: O.o Run! That's creepy!
Kyoya: I have to do this again? Those two better stop running off… GalaxyPegasus14 wanted me to say that the pictures of Firearrow and Lizardflight are now up on her site, and the link to this, again, is on her page.