I'm back! It's been about two weeks since I updated, but I'm back! And I do not plan on going on such a long hiatus again. Netflix got in the way. But I shall not let it do so again. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, which is set about two months or more after the last. Something like that. Enjoy!
"So… Let me get this straight… While I was in the hospital, you found out that Ryuga wasn't actually dead, got him to join us, and contacted the others about this?" Yuki said as he, Gingka, and Ryuga entered the observatory.
"Pretty much." Gingka chuckled sheepishly.
Yuki shook his head in amusement. "How do you manage to do all of these seemingly impossible things?"
Gingka chuckled. "You don't give up, that's all. So, here's what's going on." He tapped the keyboard in front of him, causing the computer screen to light up.
"The Garcias have basically an entire army already. While we could go in and take them out, it'd be risky. Ryuga and I infiltrated them last week and they are building weapons that our beys may not be able to combat."
"Well, glad to see you gained some strategy skills instead of the usual 'rush in and blow everything up.'" Yuki chuckled.
"... Aguma may or may not have helped me a bit." Gingka admitted.
Yuki kept chuckling, before taking a deep breath and calming down. "So what are these weapons then?"
"About what you'd expect the army of a small country to have. This battle is going to have to be much more than our beys alone. We'll need our own weaponry and potentially our own army."
Yuki looked thoughtful. "We have an army. And I have been thinking about a way for us to get around faster. That idea could easily be weaponized."
Gingka raised an eyebrow, looking intrigued. "Oh?"
Yuki grinned. "Come on. I'll show you." He led the way out of the main room and down a short flight of stairs into a dark room. With the flick of a lightswitch, a full science laboratory was revealed.
"... Has this been down here the whole time?" Gingka said, surprised.
"Yes." Yuki chuckled, walking over to some blueprints that were hanging on the wall.
"And this is?" Gingka asked, looking a bit overwhelmed by all of the lines and diagrams.
"The blueprints for a piece of technology. The prototype's over here. I haven't been able to test it. I was working on it before I discovered that the Garcias were up to something."
"And this is supposed to be..?" Gingka asked, looking at the seemingly random pieces of metal that had been welded together into a rather bulky-looking shape.
"If it works, jetpacks." Yuki said. "But they're connected to a helmet thing that will have night vision capabilities."
"And you were working on this for…?"
"Well remember that conversation we had a while back about how it'd be nice to not have to wait for plane tickets all the time, how much easier it'd be to get around without having to worry about the media all the time?"
"Yes…?" Gingka said hesitantly.
Yuki chuckled. "That got me thinking, about whether or not we actually needed to be getting plane or boat tickets all the time. It sure would save us all quite a bit of money if I could find an efficient way to do it, something we could easily carry around."
"Well this doesn't look like it'd be easy to carry around." Gingka commented.
Yuki looked sheepish. "I need to find a smaller fuel source. And a cheaper one. One we could easily transport ourselves."
Gingka chuckled. "Well I wouldn't know how to do that."
"Well I knew that." Yuki laughed.
"So does it work?" Gingka asked.
"That's what I have to find out." Yuki said. "But I don't have a way to test it."
"Yes you do." Gingka said.
Yuki raised an eyebrow. "Gingka, I'm not sure these are safe enough for us to wear yet."
Gingka shrugged. "Well there's only one way to find out, isn't there? Plus, what's the worst case scenario?"
"Somebody could die."
"Well, we don't plan on that. I trust you." Gingka said.
"I'm not so sure." Yuki looked hesitant. "I'd still have to fine-tune it so that it could be controlled."
"And how are you going to do that without knowing what exactly needs to be fine-tuned, hmm?" Gingka said. "Look, we have to start somewhere. You don't have to be so cautious all the time."
"But if you get hurt it'll be my fault." Yuki said.
Gingka shrugged. "Nah. It'd be mine. I know the risks. But we have to have something to combat the Garcias' new toys, and right now this is the best idea we've got. So let's do it."
Yuki shook his head and chuckled. "You've got me there. Alright, fine, but you have to do exactly as I say, got it?"
"You're the scientist here." Gingka laughed. "Just tell me what to do and let's get this testing underway."
"Let me set up a camera first so we can record the testing and review it to see what needs to be done. Don't press any buttons."
"Got it." Gingka chuckled. "Although I could help you with the camera."
"Go stand in that wide open space over there." Yuki chuckled. "I had cleared it for testing before realizing I didn't have a way to actually test it."
"You mean you didn't want to risk hurting yourself."
"Well when I'm out here alone in the middle of the Amazon jungle and there's a strong potential for injury... Yes, I did not want to risk hurting myself." Yuki rolled his eyes.
"Aha." Gingka chuckled, walking over to the area that Yuki had indicated. "So what are we going to do to test it, anyway?"
"First I'm going to see if it can even lift you off the ground." Yuki said. "The idea is to know how much thrust we're going to need just for that."
"Okay." Gingka chuckled. "I suppose across-ocean testing will have to happen later."
"That's assuming I can find an internal fuel source. This is going to be a long process." Yuki sighed, grabbing a fire extinguisher and putting it within reach. "Ready?"
"Duh." Gingka chuckled."This should be interesting, at least."
Yuki chuckled. "Yeah. Hopefully nobody gets hurt."
"It's an experiment. We probably will at some point. We just have to minimize it." Gingka chuckled.
"Hence the fire extinguisher and bucket of water." Yuki chuckled.
Gingka saluted. "Ready when you are."
Yuki chuckled and helped Gingka get the bulky piece of metal onto his back. The redhead promptly fell over backwards with a startled yelp.
"It's heavy! Can this thing even lift itself off the ground?" Gingka asked as he tried to get up.
Yuki laughed. "You look ridiculous like that."
Gingka stopped trying to get up and glared. "Shut up and come help."
"You look like a turtle!" Yuki fell to the ground laughing hysterically.
Gingka groaned in annoyance before smirking mischievously. Before Yuki knew what was happening, he had been put in a headlock and was being tickled.
"H-hey! S-tooooppp!" The brunette yelped, struggling. Gingka merely laughed and released his friend.
"How did you get out of that so quickly?!" Yuki demanded.
"... It's sorta like a backpack. And the buckles aren't that hard to undo." Gingka said, pointing at the metal object, which was still laying on the ground.
"Hrmm… I should make them tougher to undo then but still with a safety release."
Gingka raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because they have to hold your full weight if you're being lifted into the air."
"They held the jetpacks' weight."
"You way more than those."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"Shall we find out?"
"We may as well." Yuki chuckled. "We'll need to have these able to hold Aguma's weight though. He's probably the heaviest out of all of us."
"He is a big guy." Gingka laughed. "But not in a bad way."
Yuki chuckled. "Yeah."
"... I just remembered something." Gingka said.
"And that is?" Yuki asked.
"I told Dynamis that I'd call everyone from here once you were recovered."
"Well then we'd better get on that." Yuki chuckled. "Help me get this back up onto the table." He walked to the hunk of metal laying on the floor and began straining to lift it. Gingka helped, and soon the two had managed to get it back onto the work area.
"Off to call everyone then." Yuki panted, high-fiving Gingka before heading back upstairs with the redhead close behind.
"You sit down. Your injuries may have recovered but you're still not back at full strength. Just tell me what to do to initiate the call." Gingka said, forcing Yuki into a chair as they arrived in the main room.
"Well first you'll have to turn on the computer." Yuki said.
"And where's the button for that?" Gingka asked, peering under the desk.
"Should be right in front of your face. Literally." Yuki said.
"Oh, there it is." Gingka chuckled sheepishly as he turned on the computer, the giant screen lighting up.
"Now just call the same way as on your computer." Yuki chuckled.
Gingka nodded and clicked the correct icon, beginning the call. His eyes flashed across the screen as he added everyone else in, including Ryuga.
"I assume this is the group call we were told to expect?" Aguma said as he came up onscreen.
"Yep. Since Yuki has now been released from the hospital. We'll have to work together on this one for sure." Gingka said.
"What exactly is happening? Dynamis only told us that the Garcias were back." King said.
"And amassing an army. With weapons." Yuki said. "Apparently Gingka and Ryuga investigated a bit and found out that our beys may not be of much use against these weapons. The rules have changed."
"What do you mean the rules have changed? Can't we just swoop in, launch, and take them out like we usually do?" Kyoya growled.
"Not all people follow the rules. And this is definitely not a bey-based organization. They have bladers, yes, but it's what's behind the scenes that we need to stop. They'll probably try with bladers, and that we will let the bladers of the next generation deal with, but it's the other things we need to watch out for." Gingka said.
"Such as?" Aguma asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.
"Weaponry." Ryuga spoke up suddenly with a growling grunt, causing a few of the others to jump in surprise.
"What he said." Gingka chuckled. "Ryuga and I managed to sneak inside once. We saw things that could be defeated with beys, but not if they were attacking the beys, and not in the numbers we saw them. Those weapons are undoubtedly meant to be used on people, and that included bladers who get in the way. If we attack with beys, they'll merely ignore our beys and use their firepower to shoot us down one by one."
"So we need something that can equal and surpass that. But we do not have an army." Aguma said. "And if they are as large as Gingka is saying, then we do not have time to gather one. We must act on our own."
"Yuki has an idea, if we can get it to work." Gingka said, gesturing to the seated blader behind him.
"We're all ears." King said, flashing one of his grins at the screen.
"Well, for a while now I have been trying to find a way for us to travel around without being restricted to flight schedules and costs. With the amount we travel, and the occasional urgency of needing to get somewhere, it'd be easier to be able to just leave without having to worry about finding a plane to suit when we need to leave. Gingka and I were talking about this just a little bit ago and we think that the idea I have, if I can get it to work, can be weaponized. If we can do that, then we should have a fighting chance."
"You act as if we don't right now." Kyoya huffed.
"Because from what I've seen, we don't." Gingka said. "I know that sounds weird coming from me, but our beys alone can't handle this one. We have to ne more creative, find other ways. We do it in the heat of battle all the time. We can do it here. I think Yuki's idea will work, if he can make it lighter." Gingka gave a pointed look at Yuki, who chuckled sheepishly.
"I sense a story behind this." Dynamis said calmly, crossing his arms and looking expectantly at Gingka and Yuki.
"Long story short, Yuki already has a prototype of this device, but it's heavy, and when we tried testing it earlier it was too heavy for me to hold up." Gingka said.
"He looked like a turtle." Yuki laughed.
"... This I want to see." Kyoya grunted with an amused smile.
"... That wasn't a necessary detail Yuki…" Gingka grumbled, embarrassed.
Yuki merely laughed. "I'll have to keep working on it."
"In the meantime, we should all be extra careful about keeping an eye out for any activity that might be DNA-related in our areas." Aguma said.
Gingka nodded, the embarrassed look on his face becoming replaced by a serious one. "We don't know how widespread they are. It wouldn't hurt to walk around and just take a look at things. Talk to some homeless people living in alleys, ask them about anything they've seen. People who are always around places like that tend to notice things."
"So you were listening when I explained that aspect of strategy." Aguma smirked.
Gingka chuckled. "I was also paying attention when you explained the value of pretending you're not paying attention to things. That got me about half of the information I now know about the Garcias' abilities with this organization they have created."
Aguma chuckled. "Good. I suppose we all know what to do and should begin working on it then."
"Yes." Gingka said.
"Be careful, everyone. We do not yet know how widespread this organization is. They may be watching us." Dynamis said.
"Well they can't watch me and Yuki. We'd know if they were watching us." Gingka said.
"We'll have to find a way to watch them and take them down." Kenta spoke up.
"We could infiltrate them and watch from the inside." King said.
"How?" Tithi asked, rocking back and forth slightly in his seat.
Yuki suddenly grinned. "Oh but that would be easy. Leave it to me guys. I have an idea."
"Care to explain this idea?" Gingka asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The jetpacks. I could make them into a disguise as well."
"... How are you going to hide Gingka's hair with jetpacks?" Chris asked.
"You could burn it." Ryuga offered.
"Hey!" Gingka protested as several of the others fell out of their seats laughing.
"Ryuga, be nice." Kenta laughed.
"You can't make me, kid." Ryuga huffed.
"Wanna bet?" Kenta grinned.
"Now is not the time." Dynamis chuckled. "We all have work to do."
"Good luck guys. Seeya all later." Gingka chuckled, hanging up.
"Well then… Let's get to work." Yuki grinned.
Phew. Crazy stuff. Anyway, we're finally moving sorta into the main plotline, I think. Something like that. This story is being a difficult idiot to write sometimes and I think I have forgotten how I was going to end it. Ah well. I have a plot point to work towards, so hopefully there will not be any more long breaks like what just happened. Anyway, until next time, Galaxy out!