Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger vs Aliens
"You're a difficult man to find, it would seem."
She looked at the clutter of her desk, scraps of paper littered with equations, digitised photographs reprinted in poor resolution, antique illustrations of life upon other worlds. He said nothing in reply, silent, the scent of that which she associated most strongly with lovers in the morning rising from the rags he wore, the tattered cloak, the torn shirt and dirtied jeans.
It was a man's scent, rich and musty. How long had it been, she asked herself, since she had known a man, since she had awoken to that scent.
She looked up sharply, raising an eyebrow, waiting for a reply, annoyed in equal measures with the man they had spent so long chasing down and also with herself for allowing memory to get the better of her.
Washio Gaku glowered back at her, unshaven and unwashed, hands bruised and bleeding, bound by metal, dark eyes full of resentment.
With agitation, Odagiri Aya tapped the tip of a pencil against the blurred shape in one of the photographs, a smudge of lead amidst a sea of pixels.
"Perhaps you would prefer to explain your actions to the tribunal."
Another moment of silence. She resisted the urge to bring thumb and forefinger up to the bridge of her nose, to ease the headache she knew was coming, fearing that such a gesture would be interpreted as weakness. In his chair, he shifted slightly, and abruptly began to speak.
"I think you already know everything I could tell you."
She quietened the surprise she felt at this sudden willingness to communicate, already having convinced herself of how this meeting would go.
Slowly, she brought the pencil up from the mark it had made amidst her papers, leaning back in her chair, the blue of the upholstery stark against the blue of her jacket.
"Perhaps you could humour me."
He held her gaze for a moment, fierce and defiant, like a child, she thought—or perhaps a wild animal. At last, he looked away, staring down at his bound hands as they rested in his lap, gleaming silver bands about his wrists.
"Our mistake was in thinking they would just go away," he said softly, his voice full of regret. He shook his head as if already preparing an answer to further questions he might be asked. "They won't just go away, they can't just go away. They're us. As long as we'll be here, they'll be with us."
She felt chided by his regret, almost faltering in her interrogation of his prolonged absence from service.
"That would be the Orugu Nation, correct?" She glanced down again at her notes. "Our ancestors."
He shook his head once more, the gesture sharper this time, angrier, a new steel in his voice.
"Not our ancestors," he answered quickly, "but our oldest enemy."
She had heard all this from Miura, all of the business about Pangea, about humanity's unspoken past, the loss of ancient civilisations, and whilst it seemed incredulous to her, Odagiri was not a woman who easily dismissed the evidence of her own eyes. She had seen monsters, invaders from Vyram, and knew all too well the dangers such enemies might pose to humanity's otherwise now prosperous future.
"Did you stop to consider at any time that perhaps fighting these foes by yourself might be less effective than taking evidence to the authorities?"
He looked down again, staring once more at his hands.
"I wasn't alone."
She nodded, this had been in the report Defence Intelligence had prepared for Skyforce—the report she had had to prise from Supreme Commander Ichijou's hands, his apparent resentment of her all the more intense following his own tribunal and reinstatement.
"That's right. There was a team of you, correct?"
"Correct," he agreed begrudgingly after a while.
The headache threatened to overwhelm her once more, the sting of resentment. If she had been a man, then her superior's pettiness, his bad faith would have been unacceptable. They ignored her complaints because she was a woman. Miura was no different.
"And the five of you were selected by—" She looked down at her papers again, sighed, and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know what the proper term is here. A witch? A shrine maiden?"
He did not answer this time. She let it pass.
"And there was a sixth one too, I'm informed. We weren't able to find anything out about him, but the other four, all civilians I note, have been under surveillance for a good year or so now."
She waited, letting the unspoken threat sink in, a reminder that no one was above the law.
"We've yet to find anything that corroborates your story."
Her words had been designed to catch him off guard, to present to him a scenario in which his friends were threatened, and then to take that away, to make real to him the popular opinion surrounding his absence—that he had deserted, and that the fairy story he had come back to them with about an ancient race growing up alongside humanity, rising up from their refuse, would not be given credence.
He looked away from her.
"Shut up," he muttered in English, clearly hoping she would not understand.
A smile touched her lips, and she knew she had him.
She leant forward, tapping the pencil again amidst the papers.
"There's just one thing."
The air in the room grew cold, the atmosphere between them charged, the man staring fiercely at the wall as she, in turn, stared hard at him.
"We found something, a creature. We think it was once a video game console."
Beneath the fringe of his dark hair, there was sweat. She had to stop her smile from spreading.
"We want you to capture it for us."
A shot rang out, red brick exploding into dust, a flurry of colour, the memory of a prolonged stay with a friend in Goa, coloured powder in the air during mid-October. He crashed into the wall, a pain running through his shoulder that he knew he would come to regret later. How had he let himself be convinced to do this?
There was no time to turn his head, to glower at whoever it was in the unit who had fired, whoever had let their anxiety get the better of them in the face of the unexpected. The time for recrimination would come later, now all that mattered was the chase, his heavy boots in the dirt and dust of the alley, the shape of the Org ahead in the dim light, a hulking shape fashioned partly from dull clay and rock, the other half of its body crafted from scuffed and yellowed plastic.
This had been easier before, back when he had been able to rely on his armour, on Tetomu's guidance—back when he had been able to rely on friends.
Regret drove him on, the unwillingness to acknowledge that he missed the others, that despite having been alone with Tetomu for a year before the rest had been gathered, it was only once they were no longer alone in the echoing caverns of Gao's Rock that their purpose felt like a purpose, that it was more than just anger.
He remembered the mocking jeers of Scooter Org before the creature had been sealed, the loneliness of what it was that he had allowed himself to be convinced of, the extent of what he could do alone.
It had been Tetomu who had saved him that time, who had sealed up the creature when he had been too weak to kill it. Now, here he was, almost two years after the fall of the last of the Highness Dukes, Rasetsu, and still his purpose had not changed.
In the alley ahead, he saw the shape of the trǫll bouncing off the walls, struggling against lines of drying clothing, fighting wildly against thin air in its distress, its eagerness to escape.
He felt the hilt of his sword bounce against his hip, the weight of the buster rifle in his grasp as he continued to sprint after the creature.
The rifles, black and gold, able to switch between 'Normal Mode' and 'Final Mode,' were an echo of how much the war against the Orugu had changed them. A recent development of Skyforce patterned after evidence left behind of the Gao Mane Buster. Feeling the weight of the weapon, he wondered how Red would have reacted had he known of the impression his tools had left upon the world's military.
He recalled sharply the other man's kindness, his gentleness, the reluctance with which he wielded his weapons even against their enemies.
Ahead of him, the creature turned to glance back at him, an orange swirl discoloured in the centre of the absence of other features.
He raised his rifle, preparing to take his own shot, a less anxious one than the man at his back had taken, he hoped.
Light caught his eye as the trǫll moved, ducking instinctively before he had even taken the shot. There was a moment of delay, a moment of hesitation, and then the shape of the monster disappeared, rounding the corner.
Second Lieutenant Washio Gaku shouted with frustration, lowering the rifle and picking up his pace, sweat stinging beneath his armpits.
He made the corner a fraction of a moment later, finding himself in the centre of a crowded market square, baskets of fruit and men crouched on their haunches, smoking cigarettes, women in silken saris, men on scooters cutting through the crowd, the put-put sound of engines unwillingly bringing back the recollection of Scooter Org once more.
He swore loudly, stamping his foot, drawing hasty breaths through nostrils and mouth, only now beginning to feel the stitch in his side, the pain from running.
Movement to his right caught his attention, and he turned sharply to see the shape of the wounded trǫll in the shadow of a pagoda, pulling at rotten latticework in a courtyard, sinking down below into the foetid dark.
He swore a second time, giving chase, indifferent to the cries of the crowd as he pushed them aside, alarm at the sudden presence of an armed foreign man in the midst, the light catching the silver of the sword hilt bound to his side.
Already, he could hear the sound of police sirens and whistles, of uncertain bicycles and sputtering scooters. They had clearance for this, he cursed, this was a joint operation with Interpol, they had cleared it with the Nepalese government!
There was no luck for the rest of the team, he realised, sinking into the shadows after the trǫll, stumbling, falling down a splintering wooden staircase, the sound of running water close by, the stench of decay filling his nostrils as he took wrong step after wrong step, tumbling into the dark.
Somewhere in his fall, the wood and stone of the foundations above gave way to dirt and metal. He pulled himself up slowly, unsteadily, hearing the sound of the trǫll retreating further ahead of him, its feet taking clumsy steps in a continued effort to be free of its pursuers.
An ill feeling stirred in his stomach, the sense of familiarity in his surroundings as he continued to chase after the creature in the dark. In this place, silent save for the sound of the other's retreat and his incessant pursuit, he felt the familiarity he had once known on Sky Island when in the presence of the Power Animals.
The contrast between that tranquillity and his present state unnerved him as, ahead, the path opened up.
He took another wrong step, stumbling as the floor dropped under him, falling through a veil of foul mist, his lungs filling with stale air. Again, he pulled himself up, sickened now by his surroundings, aware that he had found himself deep within a cavern, grotesque outcroppings rising up from the floor, the mist dancing above the surface, as the trǫll ahead stumbled and fell also, seemingly no better at navigating the dark.
"Orugu!" he called out, his voice echoing.
Grasping his rifle with one hand, he drew his sword, the blade dulled by use, unwieldy in one hand. Push would come to shove, he realised, and he would be forced to throw one of the weapons away in order to effectively use either of them.
Still, he had been specifically ordered to capture this creature, not kill it, and whilst such an idea went against everything he had dedicated the last few years of his life to, the old training from his academy days still had a hold on him.
The creature had already been responsible for a number of attacks in cities with heavy industrial build up across the world, drawn to expansion, to pollution. Had not it been so bold as to attack facilities where UAOH had been stationed, then it was clear that the response would not have been so swift, but even with the freedom his commanding officer enjoyed in Skyforce, he had learnt that when the DIH barked, she still jumped.
He let the rifle fall from his grasp, the pain in his shoulder protesting as he hefted the huge sword up.
The trǫll scrabbled in the dark, clawing at the mist with swollen hands, and it occurred to Washio that surrounding them, the extrusions rising up from the ground were not stone yet something almost organic, skin like leather, bulbous like rows and rows of ugly eggs.
No time for that now. He held the sword above his head, what little there was in the cavern catching the surface of the scarred metal.
"Evil—" he said, again recalling the other man's kindness, his gentleness.
The trǫll stumbled again, turned, faltering, rows and rows of ruptured egg-like shapes around it.
"—disperse."
The sword fell, an arc of yellow light rushing forth, and he imagined it momentarily as a noble eagle taking flight.
Before him, the eggs tore open as the light passed, viscera and mandibles revealed beneath veils of opaque mucus dripping, spattering against the floor.
The trǫll cried out, arms thrown upwards in the dark as its body went down, falling amidst the shape of the fragile eggs, some opened long ago, some destroyed by the passing of the light.
No explosion followed, the creature's breath heavy and laboured, sickly sounding even for one of its kind.
In the swirling mist, Washio reached for his radio, unclasping it from his belt, breathless and exhausted.
"Second Lieutenant Washio to Command," he said, his voice full of unhappiness. "Org incapacitated. Requesting secure extraction by SkyPhoenix."
Indifferent to the words of the reply that came crackling through the radio, the mist continued to churn about him.
The soft click of the recorder, the sound of magnetic tape spooling, the whirring of the mechanism as she coughed slightly, clearing her voice.
"July 6th, 2003. Interrogation record, official Interpol designation: Unidentified Lifeform D3, unofficial Skyforce designation: Dreamcast Org."
She glanced over her shoulder briefly, dark hair falling out of place, almost as if she was making sure that they hadn't abandoned her.
"In attendance are Second Lieutenant Washio, on secondment to Skyforce, Detective Taki, Interpol, and myself, Captain Odagiri, Skyforce also."
She turned back to face the trǫll bound by fetters of iron and chain to the floor of the room, head bowed almost to its chest, all the fight long since having gone out of it. There was something about fairies and iron, Washio thought leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, conscious of the Interpol man standing behind Odagiri, cradling a polystyrene cup of dismal looking machine-made coffee.
He glowered darkly. All of those old superstitions about ogres and oni, none of them came close to what it was to actually find yourself face to face with an Org.
"Dreamcast Org," Odagiri said, her voice firm.
The creature did not lift its head.
"Dreamcast Org, I want to talk to you about your masters."
The trǫll still did not lift its head.
There had been rumours for some time now, threats called out, promises made in dying moments that retribution was at hand. He had been fighting the Orugu for long enough to understand the tenacity of life, and remembered the difference between the uncoordinated, chaotic attacks of earlier Orgs as opposed to those that had followed the awakening of the three Highness Dukes.
Even without confirmation, he knew that there was something pulling the strings again, something worse than space ninjas, something as dangerous as any of the singular horned Dukes they had faced in the past.
"Dreamcast Org, are you listening to me?" Odagiri asked again.
The creature sighed heavily, shifting in its chair, the chains that bound it rattling as it moved.
"There's no point," it growled, voice deep and forlorn.
Taki Ryusuke's posture stiffened, his grasp on the polystyrene cup so tight that Washio feared he might crush it.
"No point in what?" he demanded, his tone betraying a fiery temper.
Still, the trǫll did not look at them.
"What would the likes of you say to the King of Oaths? To the Duchess of Decay? The Lord of Misrule?"
The King of Oaths, that was the one he had heard most mentioned, Washio thought. The other two were new to him.
"These are your masters, then?" Odagiri said quickly. "These kings and lords?"
At last, the creature lifted its head, and Washio was surprised to discover that above the scuffed orange swirl of its insignia, there were four ports servicing as eyes, a detail he would not have recognised had it not been for their newfound proximity.
"There were my masters," the Org said softly.
The Interpol detective's grip on his coffee tightened, and Washio began to fear for his health.
"Who do you serve now?"
The creature turned its face to regard the man, and then answered simply:
"Death."
Washio shifted, moving away from the wall, the unspoken sixth sense that had warned him of danger long ago when they were transported to the past now flared up again. The manner in which this Org spoke was not unusual, it was not normal.
As if sensing his sudden alarm, the trǫll turned now to look at him.
"You," it said sombrely. "You stink of Gao Souls."
Washio looked around self-consciously, unfolding his arms, resting the urge to sniff at his armpits.
"What of it?" he asked in defiance.
Dreamcast Org nodded.
"You did not recognise that place? The place where you found me?"
"Your lair," Odagiri interjected. "Were there others of your kind gathering there? Did your masters gather there?"
The trǫll ignored her, staring still at Washio.
"How rare to find someone so favoured by the planet oblivious to the nature that surrounds them."
It laughed softly, shaking its head as if in disbelief, and at last deigned to answer Odagiri's questions.
"No, my masters did not visit there. I was sent there to establish myself due to the growth of refuse in the surrounding area. I chose such a place because I knew it would keep me hidden from you for a time."
Coffee splashed against Taki's hand. He ignored it.
"What is it? What is that place."
Dreamcast Org looked down at its chains.
"A Power Animal, long since dead."
Washio felt a chill run down his spine, remembering the feeling of familiarity, the tainted tranquillity that had pervaded the cavern as thickly as the mist that curdled above the ground. All that time, they had been inside a hollowed-out Power Animal, its flesh open and yawning beneath the city that must have grown up above it in the centuries following its death.
He felt suddenly nauseous at the prospect.
"Did you kill it?" Odagiri asked. "This Power Animal, did your people kill it?"
If the creature had possessed a mouth to smile with, then perhaps it would have. Instead, it shook its head, its voice reaching them through the projection of its mind rather than the movement of lips.
"No. Although, if we had, it would not have been the first of its kind that have fallen to the Orugu Nation. Rather, I found the body in that state, and thinking it good fortune, it was decided I should hole up there."
For a moment it was silent, and then again, the chains rattled as it moved in the chair.
"Would that I had not."
The head bowed, the sense of a body in pain.
"What happened that made you change your mind?" Taki asked, stepping forward, placing the cup of coffee on the table at which Odagiri sat, a trickle of dark liquid running over the rim and down the side.
"You saw them," the trǫll said, again addressing Washio yet no longer lifting its head. "That place was already occupied."
He remembered the outcropping of shapes beneath the mist, remembered the viscera and mandibles. Slowly, he nodded himself, loath to agree with an Org. Odagiri and Taki turned to him, questioning looks upon their faces.
"Leathery objects," he said, the poorest possible explanation. "Like eggs or something."
Odagiri glared in his direction, a warning look, as if there were things that she did not want spoken of in front of Interpol, things that she wished to keep between them. He looked directly back at her, a silent challenge, still unhappy with the current arrangement of their new relationship.
They had given him a brand new UAOH Thunderwing, had reinstated his pilot's license, promising him that he would no longer be confined to the ground, and all he had done since was run around with a squad of soldiers, asked to employ what he had learnt whilst considered absent-without-leave to now benefit national security.
He leant forward again, ignoring his new commanding officer.
"Those leathery objects," he said again, staring directly at the Org. "What were they?"
The creature looked down, a tremble running through its body, the chains rattling with the soft shuddering of his movement.
Washio found himself staring at the creature's chest, a blue-green stain.
He felt himself being called, a presence that he had not felt in the longest time, a voice choked off by evil.
His feet touched the dust and dirt, a cloud rising up about his trainers, particles of darkness washing over the white rubber and canvas, clinging also to his socks, also to his shins. How long had it been since he had assumed this form; how long had it been since he had appeared human, since he had been a boy?
"Fuutaro," he spoke the name he had once used, lips dry, voice surprisingly light and airy. A child's voice, he reminded himself.
For a thousand years, he had wandered in childhood, the memory of his true form vanquished following his defeat by the ancient Org tyrant, Hyakkimaru. Recollection had returned to him with the release of Shirogane from his curse, and he had been able to regain his true shape, all of which made his necessity to once more go amongst humans all the more uncomfortable.
Still, he felt the call, the echo of an old god, an old friend.
He advanced into the shadows, finding the place where the stone and dirt beneath the city's streets met familiar metal flesh, now rusted and decayed, and he reached out a hand, his fingertips dancing in the dust as he continued on, feeling the shape of the other, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt who it was.
"GaoRex," he said in both the voice of a child and that of his true form. "Old friend, what happened to you?"
An opening presented itself to him, an open wound in the side of the dead Power Animal. Sorrowfully, he passed inside, kicking up the dust, disturbing old memories.
A smear of blood blossomed upon its chest, the trǫll thrashing suddenly, wildly against its restraints, pulling arms up with inhuman strength, wrenching free the chains from the secured fittings on the floor.
Washio cried out in alarm, diving forward and seizing hold of Odagiri's chair, pulling her free as a heavy length of chain sailed through the air, smashing through the wooden table, a sea of splinters before her, the recorder dashed against the ground, plastic shattering, magnetic tape spilling forth like blood from a wound.
The weight of another in his grasp, the uncertainty of the movement sent them both toppling over, crashing to the floor after the tape recorder.
Behind him, he heard the sound of Taki drawing a gun from his shoulder holster, a shot ringing out. This time, he did not think of Diwali.
Back arched away from the wood yet still seated, the Org convulsed in the chair, a pained cry projected from its essence, its body trembling, sodden with fluid, mechanisms within it sparking and short-circuiting.
The sound of something breaking underpinned its cries, movement within the guts, dislodging of organs, eroding of bones—and then a small head the size of a man's fist punched outwards from its chest, the body of the Org going into its death throes, as the head of the new creature rose up, a tail coiled about itself unfolding slowly.
A cat, Washio thought with an almost chilling dispassion. The shape of the creature in the chest of the trǫll looked like a house cat curled in a ball, tail languidly wagging.
Odagiri tried to rise and he kept her down, shielding her from the sight of the parasite, Taki's gun firing once more even as he reached for his own holster.
The tiny head lunged forward, spurting out of the Org's chest, trailing a thick body behind, splattering fluids and blood in its wake as it flopped down amidst the wreckage of the table.
Forcefully, Odagiri Aya pushed back against him, struggling free as she pulled her legs up towards her, blood splashed in darkening spreads across her suit trowsers and shoes.
"Don't let it get away!" she ordered.
Washio fired his own handgun yet the creature was too quick, darting forward towards them, a tiny jaw snarling, an elongated, sightless head. Odagiri screamed. He tried to interpose himself between her and the thing, and then Taki's gun went off again, catching the tail, severing the tip in a spatter of something fierce and molten that corroded the floor, melting through the linoleum and into the foundations.
The creature veered off, darting backwards across the ground, disappearing between the legs of the dead trǫll.
"Get it before it enters the vents!" Odagiri shouted.
Scrabbling forwards on her hands and knees, she reached out for it, trying to seize hold of it and pulling away with a second scream at the heat of the melting pit spreading about the severed tail.
Taki fired again, Washio following after. Both missed. The creature scaled the walls, crawling upwards at impossible speed at an impossible angle.
Sea turtles, Washio thought suddenly, recalling the sight of animals crawling towards the shore on some documentary programme.
"The vents! The vents!" Odagiri cried out.
Too late came the sound of rending metal, the shape of the creature slithering into the dark, disappearing from sight.
Hastily, he pulled himself up, finding Odagiri already on her feet, the sound of her heels clacking against the floor, her hands on the door, yanking it open, and then her voice in the hallway as she sprinted off towards the command room.
"Shut off the sixth vent! Shut off the sixth vent!"
From overhead, the sound of bells chimed, the lights flashing red.
He disturbed the mist with his footfalls, careful steps within the belly of the beast, the fog rising up to his waist as he waded in like a child taking first tentative steps towards the ocean. Around him, swollen sacs of something unknown rose up from the ground, occasionally breaking the surface of the opaque mist without interference from him.
It was evil, he felt it in his chest; an unspoken, unknowable evil, like nothing that had ever grown naturally upon the surface of the world he cherished.
He reached out in the dim light, disturbing further the mist, once more like a child in water.
What had happened to his old friend?
GaoRex had been amongst the first of the Power Animals he had raised up from the soil, the first spirit that had called to him from the eternal well of souls, yearning to walk the hills of the world he had shaped, to taste of the bounty of the beauteous harvest of his world.
Without GaoRex, there would be no birds in the sky; without GaoRex, there would have been no meeting of humans and Power Animals, and, maybe, he thought darkly, there would have been no fracturing of the planet, half of his creation torn asunder by the severance of reality, an evil god rising up in the shadow of the meteor that had eradicated GaoRex's hunting grounds.
From starlight and the ash of primordial fires, he had made the world and filled it with Power Animals, and from the ribs of each ancient Power Animal had he had shaped the birds and beasts of the world.
Then had come humanity born upon the great fields of Pangea, and though uneasy at their growth and expansion, he had tolerated them, for still he had looked at the world and seen that it was good.
His trainers left marks unseen in the dust.
Within this place, the hollowed-out corpse of his old friend, was the presence of evil, a darkness not of his making, a sickness like that which had split the world in two with that falling meteor.
The hair rose on the back of his neck, movement stirring to his right.
Although most of the eggs laid within GaoRex's body had ruptured or ejected whatever had grown within them, there were still some that seemed intact, unmoved by the long years.
He found himself drawn towards the twitching movement, turning amidst the rows of eggs, wading through the mist until he finally saw that which had caught his eye.
A sound like the release of a sigh drifted to his ears, an egg before him peeling open slowly, the clouded mass within clearing to reveal the shape of something visible, something moving.
Fuutaro leant in close, the old god's boyish curiosity getting the better of him.
With shocking violence, a small creature smashed outwards, the shape of a hand outstretched, reaching for his face.
The sound of bells, lights flashing.
A girl glanced towards her as the door slid open, short hair, bespectacled, hunched over a board of glittering screens, fingers poised over the clean keys of her terminal.
"Contamination alert on A-Floor," she called out over her shoulder.
The blink of the alarm flashed across Odagiri Aya's face, a shade of red that highlighted the lines of age upon her face, the sternness of her expression. Around her, Skyforce's temporary command staff in the joint security HQ established amidst Kathmandu's 19 square miles of crowded streets, busied themselves with panicked, barely rehearsed emergency procedures.
This was not a drill, she thought grimly.
"I want a physical shut down of all doors on A-Floor, isolate us from the rest of the building. Send teams of security in to seal up the vents. Nothing gets in or out."
"Yes, sir!" the woman called out.
The door behind her opened, Washio rushing in, his gun barely holstered, Taki behind him, dancing around the staff of the command room.
"Closing all partitions," the junior office at the board called. "However, we are unable to evacuate all personnel from floor."
The alarm continued to blare loudly above their heads.
"Stop the alarm," Odagiri said irritably.
"Stopping the alarm, sir," the woman at the board hastily answered.
Her fingers danced lightly at her terminal, the lights blinking one last time before normal services were resumed, the sound of the bell tolling no more.
"This is a malfunction, an error in the alarm system. Report that to both the Nepalese government and central command in Japan."
"Yes, sir!" the woman said quickly.
"Hey, hey, is that okay? Is that legal?" Washio asked, reaching out for her shoulder.
She shrugged free of his grasp, and he turned to look at Taki, who said nothing, let on nothing, watching the array of stereovision screens at the woman's board, watching the movement of her fingers on the keys.
Something flashed up on a screen to their left, and hastily, the woman began to type even quicker.
"Unidentified Lifeform D3/1 now in fourth vent."
"H-How?" Washio asked incredulously.
"The same way it got in," Taki answered. "It must have chewed through or melted it."
"Don't let it out," Odagiri said firmly.
"Unidentified Lifeform D3/1 now in third vent. Second vent."
Washio sucked in air over his teeth.
A light on the board winked over and over, an unsteady heartbeat of shimmering LED amidst black plastic.
"Unidentified Lifeform D3/1 held. No further movement."
Odagiri shot a look at Washio.
"Come with me."
Without waiting for a reply, she marched past him and back towards the door.
The telephone had been ringing for some time before he reached it, his hand snatching the beige receiver from its cradle, his expression ripe with unhappiness.
"What is it?" he demanded gruffly, far from in the mood for small talk.
On the other end of the line, a voice spoke quickly and urgently, relaying information as it had been received, Chinese whispers rife with scandals of international security.
"I see," he answered after a while.
He turned to glance out of the window, reassured by the movement of traffic, the familiar shape of glass and steel, concrete and plastic, a blanket of night pulled over London through which only the lights stationed along the streets to offer security might poke through.
The world was safe, he told himself. They made the world safe with their presence.
"How is it being reported?" he asked, waiting a moment as the voice on the other line swiftly relayed the details.
International security was their business, an extension born of the need to keep their own house in order. Now, with them several months into armed conflict in Iraq in a tasteless re-enactment of the Gulf War ten years prior, they found the boundaries of their house extended far beyond previous expectations.
"How very imaginative of them," he said with a chilly indifference. "Let's hope that doesn't return to haunt them."
The street-lamps flickered, the sound of the traffic, the rumble of distant trains far beneath the soil, the languid torpor of squat, red buses crawling up the street.
In that moment, he missed his home, he missed the warmth of his cat, the quiet of his evenings, he missed those moments in which he was someone else, someone from far, far away.
How long had it been that he had been obliged to listen to the world's secrets?
He shook his head in answer to something said on the end of the line.
"No, you keep doing what you're doing. This might be a joint operation—"
He frowned deeply, unhappy at the tone in which he was being spoken to.
"I understand that, detective, and your fiery spirit is to be commended, but, as I'm sure you're aware, in this matter, you report to me, and I'm sure I don't need to explain to you the significance of the chain of command."
He waited a moment, curling the telephone cord around his finger, tightening and unwrapping it, tightening and unwrapping it.
Gradually, a smile formed on his lips.
"No, I did not think I did."
From this business, no one retired and no one left, making it important to know whom you were dealing with, and whom you should not cross, no matter the circumstances. Mister Oblique had been in his role for a very long time, and though there was no evidence to confirm that he had murdered the previous occupant of his storied position, he also had never denied the deed.
"Keep doing what you're doing," he reiterated. "Should your orders change, you will hear from me."
World peace was fragile, and since the plume of black smoke, the rising dust cloud, the sinking shaft of the first building as it had toppled, America had struggled in its self-appointed position as the world's policeman
He recalled grimly the state of shock that had followed, the scale of what happened far greater than any Pan-Am flight hijacking or Olympic hostages.
There was room now for manoeuvring, the old debts paid in blood, and now the world had opened up once more, old and dormant empires that had been slumbering for the better part of a century ready to assert themselves in the vacuum left behind by America.
After all, he thought, staring at the lights below, that was the entire reason they had accompanied their allies into Iraq wasn't it?
"Yes," he said curtly, "I am aware."
A rare moment of gentleness stirred within him as he remembered his first meetings with the young Interpol detective during the handover in Hong Kong.
"Taki. Take care."
Before the younger man could reply to his moment of weakness, he returned the receiver to its cradle.
From the window, the light illuminated his bowed head like a tarnished halo.
Her jacket fell from her shoulders, falling back against the chair of her desk, her hands pulling at the knot of her tie, tossing it aside as she undid the buttons of her blouse, stripping down to a camisole top, white spaghetti straps resting over the black straps of her bra.
His face reddening, Washio looked away.
From her desk, she reached out, picking up the buster rifle, pulling the strap up over her shoulder, locking it into Final Mode.
"Call your team in," she instructed him, not looking up as she went over the heavy weapon now in her grasp. "Have them rendezvous with us below the second vent. Tell them to prepare their Anti-Hazard Suits."
"Wait, you're not thinking about opening fire on that thing, are you? You saw what happened in the cell!"
She didn't look up.
"I saw."
She began loading a magazine into the rifle.
"If you start shooting at that thing and it bleeds on us, it will kill us!" he protested.
"The Anti-Hazard Suits will hold out," she said coolly, locking the rifle, looking up at last as she slung it over her shoulder. "Besides, I'm not planning on shooting it, just herding it."
"What are you planning to do?"
Her expression grim, unwavering.
"Flush the vents."
He waited for a moment, expecting more to her explanation, and when none was forthcoming, decided he had no choice but to prompt her.
"With what?"
Odagiri looked at him dead on.
"Fire," she replied.
Taki flipped his phone shut, returning it to his jacket pocket in an unhappy gesture. He turned away from the boyish girl at the terminal in time to see the door slide open, Odagiri Aya marching into the room, stripped down to a camisole, a stab proof vest worn over it and a heavy rifle slung over her shoulder.
He looked at her with incredulity.
"What are you doing?"
She glanced at him as she passed.
"Pest control."
Leaning over the woman at the terminal, she watched the slow blip on the screen, the location of the creature.
"No change?"
The woman shook her head.
"No change, sir."
Odagiri nodded.
"Good. That's what I want to hear."
She straightened up, at last deigning to engage with the man at her side.
"You want in?"
"Of course, I want in," he said without thinking.
This was a joint operation, he desperately wanted to say. He should have had as much authority in this situation as the woman before him.
She reached out and patted him on the shoulder.
"That's also what I like to hear."
Taki Ryusuke was no stranger to the strange. In his time with Interpol, he had assisted in the defeat of two separate creatures born from the mists of the shinshūkyō, Gorgom. This new monster seemed different, however, not a human transformed, not even an ogre born from their misuse of the world, but something entirely different, something alien.
"You're still intent on flooding the vent with fire?"
She nodded sharply.
"If it came from within an Org, and it was assumedly draining its power, then there's a chance it could latch onto something else and become even stronger."
She didn't say it but it was clear to Taki that she was talking of her own experiences with the Dimension Beasts, the invasion of Vyram four years ago.
He nodded, chusing not to bring up the past.
"It makes sense to be prepared."
"Exactly," she agreed.
She leant past him, attracting the attention of the girl at the terminal.
"You're sure there's no movement?"
The younger woman shook her head.
"No, sir. Lifeform is stationary."
Odagiri nodded.
"Good. Let's hope it stays that way."
Don't say that, thought Taki with an almost palpable sadness. That was bad luck.
Gutiérrez, Skyforce operative W12, loaded her buster rifle, looking suspicious all the while, her combat helmet heavy upon her cropped auburn hair, the loose band of white cloth amidst the smudges of brown and black that coloured its curve.
"Why do I have to do it?" she asked, her tone full of childlike petulance, bordering on insubordination.
"Because you're our explosive expert," Second Lieutenant Washio answered with annoyance, standing before the four of them. He then added in English, "So don't complain."
She fixed her with a glare, which she met with fierce indignation.
"And probably because you're the smallest," said a voice to her left, just loud enough for her to hear.
"My mouth isn't as big as yours, for sure," she snapped in reply.
A perpetual smirk upon his lips, a strand of blue about his helmet, Shinoda, W21, leered back at her.
"That's enough," said Washio, again in English, this time raising his voice.
She turned to look at her commanding officer again.
Catalina Gutiérrez, born in Ashiya to a Japanese mother and a Spanish father, 23-years-old, a 4-year-old daughter waiting for her back at her mother's house, had found herself signed up for Skyforce a year after the Vyram invasion, six months after having been bounced out of the JASDF.
She had not asked to become the unit's de-facto explosive ordnance disposal technician but seven weeks induction and a further 169 days training followed by just over two years' experience had seen expectations build up around her until, eventually, the little niche she had hoped to hollow out where no one else would bother her had now become the crux upon which this new hastily constructed mission rested upon.
"Why don't we just shoot the vents?" Shinoda asked, still smirking.
Washio glared at him in turn.
"Because I wonder if you can be trusted with a gun anymore, Shinoda."
The younger man pulled a face, an expression of distaste, lips still fixed in their smirk.
"What do you mean by that, man?"
On his other side, far from Gutiérrez, Nagasawa, W3, a band of black around his helmet, nodded quietly to himself, arms folded across his chest.
"He knows you peaked early in the last bug hunt."
Yamamoto, W2, a strip of red decorating his own helmet, leant in across the large shape of Nagasawa.
"He's saying you blew your load too quickly. Gutiérrez is a chick, she can be trusted not to do that."
The group descended into petty squabbling, Gutiérrez leaning over to strike indiscriminately at her three teammates.
"That's enough!" Washio shouted again.
The door slid open, and the group fell silent at the sound of heels, Captain Odagiri marching in, the Interpol man following after.
"It certainly is," she said coldly, taking her place at Washio's side alongside Taki.
Gutiérrez looked ahead, allowing her vision to blur. If she did not attract the attention of Odagiri, then she did not have to deal with the other woman.
She had known Washio since the formation of his team, known his reputation as a pilot. The three years she had spent with Skyforce, he had spent out there killing Orgs by himself, she could respect that, she could understand that.
Captain Odagiri, on the other hand, was someone she could not understand, a woman so hardened by experience that she could look two waves of alien invaders in the eye during a single year and still come back for a war against ogres.
There was something about that kind of experience that must harden a person, she thought. Perhaps she was a lesbian, Gutiérrez had heard that such experiences could make you a lesbian.
"I need all of you to stop acting like children, and start acting like Skyforce operatives. This is not a drill, this is not a test, this is a confirmed intrusion of an Unidentified Lifeform. To show weakness in the face of this jeopardises our entire operation. I need to know I can count on you. Each of you."
The last words she directed at Gutiérrez, her expression stern yet not entirely unsympathetic.
A hushed silence followed, her presence filling the room. At last, she resumed their briefing.
"We'll split into two teams. Washio and Shinoda, you'll be supporting Gutiérrez as she lays the charges in the vents. Taki, Nagasawa, and Yamamoto, you'll be with me once the fire drives the creature out to the western wing."
She did not give them a chance to question her orders.
"The whole of this floor has been locked down and a space has been cleared in which we hope to contain and exterminate the creature. I cannot emphasis enough how dangerous this particular being is. If we mess this up, then we risk it becoming an international incident."
Again, she was silent for a moment, looking at each of them in turn.
"I do not wish for this to become an international incident."
Either side of her, Washio and the Interpol man looked as uncomfortable as the rest of them, silenced by the intensity of her presence.
"Any questions?"
She raised an eyebrow, and Gutiérrez all but squirmed where she sat. Like the others, like her commanding officer, she remained silent.
"Good," Captain Odagiri concluded. "Let's move out."
He watched her as she unhappily sat in the vent, legs still dangling down from the open panel, the ladder abandoned beneath her. There was a jeer on his lips, a playful jibe ready to be spoken, and yet the expression his commanding officer wore had made him think twice.
Shinoda had seen a number of bugs in his time. Since the Second Lieutenant's arrival, their whole deal had been chasing after Orgs—Unidentified Lifeforms—running them down and running them in, sealing them up in the vaults built around the old Tatsumi place, Bay Area 55, that the government had bought up for that express purpose.
This was different though, they said that the bug they brought in early had been pregnant with another one inside it—one that had burst out of its chest! That give him the chills, that kind of stuff, he just wanted this hunt over with.
"Earth to Shinoda," Washio called snapping his fingers.
The younger man turned to look at his commanding officer with defiance.
"What?"
"What, sir?" Washio corrected him. With a snap of his fingers, he gestured again at the open crate.
"Get a move on, you turds!" Gutiérrez called from the vent, her voice echoing in the small space in which she was enclosed.
He kissed his teeth, moving with protest over to the crate, reaching out carelessly for the slab of C4, tossing it up and catching it as he turned back to his companions.
"I don't see why I have to be the errand boy," he muttered.
"Because you're a turd guy!" Gutiérrez shouted down.
His lips had twitched. He had always disliked the terms she referred to them as. There was something denigrating about phrases like 'turd guy' or 'scrap iron' that felt all the more vindictive than regular insults.
With distaste, he handed the block of C4 to Washio, who in turn handed it up to Gutiérrez, who in turn disappeared further into the vent.
"I'm going to close this up now," Washio called after her.
"Whatever!" her voice called back.
"You'll be okay coming back through the access panel, right?"
"Whatever!" she shouted again.
Visibly worn down by his team's lack of respect, Washio sighed, climbing up the ladder and closing up the open hole, the metal of the vent sealed up in the absence of their teammate.
Again, Shinoda thought, he would be happy when this particular hunt was over.
The dark was fine, it didn't bother her like it had when she had been a kid. This was the thing about being a parent, she reflected, crawling forward, using her elbows to drag herself along; when you had a kid, when you were suddenly tasked with responsibility, with looking after a life infinitely more fragile, more vulnerable than you, you couldn't afford the luxury of being afraid of the stupid shit that once had spooked you.
Emilia. That was her daughter's name, her father a washout, gone since just after her birth. That was fine, her own father had been the same. They didn't need men though, they looked out for each other. Moving back in with her own mother had been tough but between the three of them, they had made it work, three generations of women proving to the world that the idea of fathers was vastly overrated.
She felt an ache in her heart, a gentle ache, a wound that she did not share with others. She missed her daughter. These past six months they had been out in Nepal on the trail of Dreamcast Org had been a bummer, a waste of her time, a waste of tax payer money.
She was scared of how easy it had been to leave Emilia behind, how easy it had been to turn her back on that solidarity, to leave her with her own mother. Keep missing her, she told herself. Don't forget.
Now, here she was stuck in a vent, ready to plant a ton of explosives underneath a shitbug's kid. It didn't seem fair.
Well, tough! The world wasn't fair! It hadn't been fair when her no good father had walked out. It hadn't been far when Ken had left her, but she was, still fighting, still making her way in the world.
She grunted audibly, crawling forward still.
"C4 in the vent to flush out a bug," she muttered to herself. "Unbelievable."
What kind of commanding officer ordered someone to put C4 in the vent?
Still, this shitbug bled acid, they had said. There was a hole in floor of the holding cells from where that Interpol puto had shot its tail off.
Interputo, she thought with amusement, giggling like a schoolgirl.
Her laugh echoed about the vent and she instantly stopped, disliking the sound of it. Turning and looking up and around her, an expanse of space above and nothing to the sides. Whoever was responsible for building regulations in Kathmandu obviously didn't give two shits about standardisation.
She scowled in the dark, again moving forward. This was another thing she hated about being away from home. Kathmandu was a burgeoning city, flourishing, she might have been tempted to say if all she had seen were pictures on wikipedia, but being here at the heart of the city amidst the pagodas, the temples, the shacks and lean-tos, the casinos and hotels for tourists, all of it gave an impression of a city fossilised beneath strata of brick.
One of the fastest growing cities in the world, a testament to Nepal's growth, and all Gutiérrez could think of was how much she hated the smell, how much she hated the dirt.
She kept crawling on, distracting herself as she tried to name the temples of the city, and then, unwittingly, found herself thinking of the Kumari.
Six months and she had never once seen the goddess at the window of her palace. A year and a half older than her own daughter, a girl chosen from amongst hundreds of her peers to be the royal Kumari, fearless and merciful.
Gutiérrez did not want to admit it, but just once, she would have liked to have seen the child, the living incarnation of Durga, dressed in gold and red.
She kept on crawling—and then abruptly, she stopped, pulling her hand back from the touch of something dry and smooth, something decidedly not metal. Unable to prevent it, a sound escaped her, a visceral expression of disgust.
For a moment, she did not move, staring in horror at the shape before her, pale and limp upon the cool metal, and then eventually, she reached out again, touching it with her hand, feeling the smoothness of it, the dryness of it.
Snakeskin, she thought, remembering the time her younger brother had marched into the house carrying proudly the sloughed skin of a garden snake.
Her fingers moved amongst the dead skin, a prickle of fear working its way up her spine and towards her brain.
There were no snakes here, she told herself.
Slowly, she became aware of the lack of space around her; slowly, she became aware of the expansion of space above her.
She lifted her head.
The hum of the terminal was reassuring, the tactile feeling of the keys beneath her fingers. Akiyama Megan, W16, her hair cropped short, her wireframe glasses large and round, felt at home before the machines of their forward base. For some, perhaps, it might have been stressful to leave behind the comforts of home, to follow Captain Odagiri all the way out to Kathmandu in pursuit of a rogue Org, yet Akiyama, having previously worked for INET in the private sector and on the moon, felt no especial compunction about moving out from her small apartment in Oita, leaving behind her worldly possessions in the spare room of her parents' home—the spare room, she thought wryly, that had once been her bedroom. It didn't matter how far away from home she was, the hum of the terminal before her was like a lifeline, a reminder of the one thing she was good with: computers.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling at peace despite the uncertainty of the situation at forward command. One monster, she reasoned, was as good as another, and Skyforce's duty now, post-Vyram, was to fight monsters.
The sound of the terminal woke her from her abruptly from her reverie, the fierceness of its warning stirring the adrenaline within her, a panicked glance at stereovision screens, her fingers upon the keys, trying to close down access panels automatically, fighting furiously against the rigidity of the base's safety protocols.
"W16 to Captain Odagiri, W16 to Captain Odagiri!" she cried with alarm into her headset. "D3/1 is moving!"
The sound came from above, a thud, a scuffle, and then a gut-wrenching cry, wet and raw, the voice reaching a crescendo and then choked off abruptly.
Washio followed the sound with wide eyes, turning to look at the vents overhead running through the hallway. Then came the movements of hair on the back of his neck, the alarm, the warning that something that was about to happen.
Screaming wildly in fear or frustration, he wasn't sure which, Shinoda ran past him, unintentionally shoulder-barging him out of the way as he brought up his buster rifle, the weapon locked in Normal Mode.
"Shinoda! Wait!" Washio cried out, reaching for the other man, clutching at him as he passed, catching nothing but air.
A volley of shots tore open the metal of the vent, a line of scars across the tarnished silver, Shinoda lifting the weapon high above his head, firing indiscriminately.
Through the scarred metal there was the glimpse of something in the dark. Shinoda continued to fire. A screech echoed out, a sound of both warning and alarm, sharpened claws against shredded metal.
Shinoda continued to fire.
From the other end of the hallway, Washio heard the clunk of pressure applied to automatic doors, pushing them open faster than they were designed to open. He was aware of Odagiri, aware of the rest of his team, of the Interpol detective, yet his eyes never once left Shinoda.
A flurry of bullets tore up the vents. The thing moving in the shadows cried out once more. Washio looked away, and when he looked back, his heart leapt in his chest.
A scream resounded through the corridor, a glimpse of Shinoda thrashing wildly, the rifle falling to the ground with a clatter, his gloved hands reaching up for his melting face, fingers digging into the flesh, unwittingly digging out chunks of meat in the scrabble to assuage the pain, to make it stop.
Seconds passed, no more, the cry trailing off, a bubble of air and blood rising from the throat, the body tumbling back against the floor, shuddering in its final farewell, the trowsers sodden between the legs.
He was aware of Odagiri shouting orders, aware of footfalls on the ground, chasing the curve of the ventilation shaft.
A second, maybe more, Washio thought. That was how long it had taken him to lose two members of his team.
She ran, sprinting down the corridor, her own buster rifle swinging, the alarm screaming above, throwing her arms out every time someone got close, ordering them, begging them, to get the hell out of her way.
This was how you start to lose control, Aya, she told herself, and the voice, unwelcomely, sounded just like her mother.
She continued to run, pumping her arms, the rifle still swinging, aware of the stitch in her side, aware that the heels of her shoes were not suitable for such swift movements.
For a while there, after J-Project, after Vyram, she had convinced herself that she was not a soldier, that her job was now more theoretical than actual. She had been a fool to think so. If she still had Jetman, if only their powers had not been sacrificed, then perhaps the world would have been different.
She shook her head, continued her sprint down the hallway. There was no time to think of that, no time to think of what might have been, of the differences between her expectations of the world and that which she had inherited.
In a perfect world, there would have been Vyram, there would be no Orgs; in a perfect world, those who served under her would never have had to offer up their lives.
At last, the heel of her right shoe gave out, and she went down, thrown upon the ground, others rushing to her aid. With frustration, she punched the ground, the skin of her knuckles bleeding, a smear of red across pale flesh.
Above, the sound of the creature's escape through the vents faded into nothing.
Takeuchi yawned loudly, the sound resonating throughout the hangar, leaning forward on his mop as he pervaded a languid, apathetic sort of resentment at his situation. A Skyforce engineer, number W22, flown all the way out here to Nepal, and what was he doing? Mopping floors, staring at the rack of motorcycles he was now forbidden from touching, the curved eagle peering up from between the handlebars of the Second Lieutenant's personal machine.
Granted, perhaps he shouldn't have been quite so vocal in his criticisms of command decisions made during the six months he and others had been stationed in Nepal, but hindsight, as they said, was 20/20, and Takeuchi prided himself on being the kind of guy who spoke his mind when asked.
"Shouldn't have asked the question if you didn't want an answer," he muttered, and although the words were spoken softly, still they rang out throughout the expanse, bouncing off the walls and coming back to him with annoying familiarity.
Like just about everyone else in the world, he reckoned, Takeuchi hated the sound of his own voice.
Beneath the echo of his unfocused reproach, the recipients no longer present to receive his attempts to defend his contrarianism, Takeuchi had heard another sound, a dull echo and rattle, the sound of something in the old ventilation shafts that ran throughout the newly repurposed building—the sound of something dropping down.
Lazily, he pivoted, still leaning on the mop, half-convinced that it was either imagination or a prank, one or the other. The environment at forward base was so dull that he could understand easily how either could come into play, and yet something about that sound seemed wrong, like it wasn't something his mind could have made up and it felt too real to be someone playing a trick on him.
A dog, maybe? Some kind of stray? An animal for sure.
"Hey!" he called out regardless of the knowledge that any dog would not be able to offer a sensible, human reply. "Hey! What's going on back there?"
There was the sound of something back in the shadows, something big, big enough to be a person. A prank then, Takeuchi decided, straightening up and taking the mop in hand, advancing slowly, his combat boots echoing on the ground, almost-Kevlar lining sealed by rubber.
Shinoda, he thought. It had to be Shinoda.
"Hey! This isn't funny!"
It was darkest in the far corner beneath the vent, the shadows congealing, the darkness folded in upon itself like a curled-up spider at the heart of its web.
"Hey!" he shouted again, advancing, his mood turning mean with every step further he was obliged to take.
At the back of his mind was a voice, his own voice, jeering, sarcastic, goading. If you hadn't opened your big mouth, you wouldn't be down here, it told him. If you hadn't opened your big mouth, you wouldn't have to put up with bullshit like this.
"Hey!"
He jabbed the edge of the mop into the shadows, turning it left and right, trying to find the shape of Shinoda in the dark, to give him a good whack.
"Hey, you piece of—"
Something seized hold of the wooden shaft. He lost his footing, pulled into the shadows as a shape emerged, a momentary glimpse of something, a curve of a head smooth like chrome, an absence of eyes.
His lips parted to protest his fate. A moment later, he could neither speak nor see.
Yamamoto was squeezing through the door before it was open, raising the buster rifle, calculating the distance. Behind him, he could hear the sound of the other man, behind that, the sound of his commanding officer, and before him, the glimpse of a thing, a body shaped from clay and plastic, the familiarity of the Org they had chased previously refined in the brief glimpse of this new evil.
Long fingers, he noted, recessed horns, an open mouth, saliva dripping. In its grasp was a man vaguely recognised, a mop at his feet, the floor slick with blood, his shape dancing on the air.
Locked in Final Mode, he raised his rifle and fired, a spark of light from the exposed muzzle, the kick of the weapon writhing in his hands, the jolt in his shoulders, and then, before him, the creature retreated in alarm, the body if its prey falling lifelessly, a wave of garnishing light rushing forth.
Dimly, he became aware of the Second Lieutenant's voice, a warning, a cry.
The shot caught the trǫll in the side, the shadows momentarily burnt away on impact, its pale albino form illuminated, the rock and plastic outcroppings of its body, the smoothness of its bowed head, the viciousness of its whipping tail.
There was still a distance between them, Yamamoto reasoned. The acid that ran through its veins couldn't splash back across the distance of the hangar surely.
The darkness reclaimed its shape as it screeched and scuttled forward on all fours, yet he could hear the sound of the brickwork and the floor corroding, claws digging into ruin, finding the weakness—and there, there, were the wall met the support of the hangar bay's rolling shutter, it had found that weakness.
The sound of metal and brick fizzing. Yamamoto realised, to his horror, that the creature was using its wounds to affect its escape.
Breathlessly, Nagasawa arrived at his side, wide-eyed and face full of fear. Still dimly behind him, he thought he could hear the Second Lieutenant shouting in their direction.
He flinched, dim twilight falling on his face, bricks falling away, the sound and smell of the street outside seeping within. He turned back, bringing up the rifle again, Nagasawa at his side doing the same, and again, there was a glimpse of the trǫll, pale and sinewy, ghostly, smoke dancing in the shadow.
Warmth spread through him, adrenaline keeping his heart moving. He looked down, vaguely aware of the sound of Nagasawa toppling beside him.
With dispassion, he realised his guts were streaming out from his stomach, the flesh open in a yawn, the body armour shredded.
The dark grew suddenly darker.
A shot rang out, red brick exploding into dust, a flurry of colour, the memory of a prolonged stay with a friend in Goa, coloured powder in the air during mid-October. He barely managed to right the bike, almost crashing into the wall as he swung the buster rifle back and away on its strap, relinquishing control and taking up both handles once more. How had he let himself be convinced to do this?
He had seen the two men in their final throes as he had made it to the hangar, had dropped down for precious seconds, trying to hold onto them, to pull them back from the threshold, and he had watched the light go out of their eyes before making the hard, painful decision to leave what they also had left behind.
How small people seemed in death, Washio Gaku thought, not for the first time. As he had mounted his Skyforce issued motorcycle—his 'savage cycle,' Gutiérrez had mockingly called it, the shape between the handlebars crafted like the head of an eagle—as he had roared off in pursuit of the escaped creature.
He felt the pain of grieving welling up in his chest despite the urgency of the chase, gunning the engine of the motorcycle, leaning into the corner as he tore through the streets, mounting pavement, weaving between startled pedestrians, the albino Org-thing racing ahead of him, barbed tail dancing with distraction.
This sucked, a voice at the back of his mind echoed. The grief and the anxiety of the moment, this was not what he had signed up for.
The engine roared as he opened it up, a sound more reassuring than the put-put that haunted his recollection. Again, he tore through the crowded market, the baskets of fruit, the men crouched on their haunches.
He waved frantically with an arm, screaming at people to move.
Whatever apprehension they felt about this foreigner on a motorcycle, the creature ahead of him proved enough motivation for compliance.
He felt the hilt of his sword bounce against his hip, the weight of the buster rifle on his back.
There was no way to deal with the creature and its lethal biology now it was out. They had reached a previously unimagined crisis point, and now the only choice was about how much of the damage he could mitigate.
Again, he waved and shouted, driving forward, and when he understood that no amount of noise or gesture could communicate his intent, he reached down and drew his sword from its scabbard.
"Please, Tetomu," he whispered into the wind that struck his face. "Please, Tetomu, let it work this time."
He pulled the sword back behind him, the blade held out. Ahead, the creature turned, barbed tail, open mouthed, hook handed, the shelter beneath the broken lattice of the pagoda ahead.
"Evil—" he said, again recalling the other man's kindness, his gentleness.
The Org-thing continued forward, powerful legs stirring up the dust, head lowered, the hole into darkness ahead, the nest in which its host had cowered.
"—disperse."
The sword swung, an arc of yellow light rushing forth, and he imagined it momentarily as a noble eagle taking flight.
A heartbeat, a breath held, and then light connected, the wave passing through the shape of the creature, tearing it wide open, innards dripping, limbs flailing as it stumbled, the acid of its blood spurting across the foundations of building that had stood the test of time, robbing the future of their legacy.
The sword slipped from his hand and he lost control of the bike, skidding, toppling, the roaring machine spinning away from him as he hit the ground hard, rolling in the dust. The pain in his shoulder from earlier came back in a searing, unfaltering unwelcome.
As he pulled himself up, the wheels of the bike still spinning, the shape of the creature dissolving into the fluids of its own essence, the dirt beneath evaporating, he felt the shadow of something else, the pagoda toppling, masonry and stone falling before him.
He looked up, eyes wide in horror.
Above him, the arc of a familiar rainbow bridge rose up from the crumpling building into the dim dusk. Above, from the early glow of the fairy moon, unfamiliar shapes scuttled down from the heavens towards him.
The procession danced through the skies, circling downwards on the trail of light, the sound of music heralding their arrival now warped and distorted, hideously out of tune. Upon that arc of light, five shapes descended, abominable and alien, vestigial reminders of the beasts from which they had originated; a lion, a condor, a saw shark, a buffalo, and, at the last, a jaguar.
He had never seen the Power Animals in their prime, had not been witness to the struggles of the previous masters of the Orugu Nation and those who inherited the Gao Souls from the peoples of that distant island in the sky, yet standing now amidst the mountains of the Langtang, looking out towards the village of the valley below and the city in the distance, Duke Khthonie felt a sense of serenity in the sight before him.
"Magnificent," he said softly, the ache from the scar on his head causing his eyebrows to narrow as he spoke.
At his right side, the hulking King of Oaths, hunched and radiating impatience, scoffed loud enough that the sound might be heard, whilst to his left, Talaria, weak yet vindictive, kept her peace, docile enough for now to be willing to follow his lead.
Still though, the sight of these new Power Animals, lithe and wild, slender and vicious, stirred something of wonder in him. Perhaps it was because they were unnatural, or rather unnatural in terms of their presence on Earth, perhaps that shared parity was what resonated with him so much.
Perhaps, he thought, leaning forward eagerly, as if such would close the distance, it was simply the joy of seeing something once pure now perverted.
Again, the absence of his horn ached.
"I don't see what it is so precious about such beasts," the hulking Orgette at his side at last declared.
Khthonie kept gazing ahead, holding off a moment from responding to his accomplice.
"Mongrels," Prometheus Titan continued. "No better than humans-turned-Org."
The last was an attempt to get a rise from him, he knew this.
Though not human by any measure or definition, Duke Khthonie had been born in their likeness, a stunted, half-formed thing, a proud trǫll born with the face of a boy. He had shaved away what little of his heritage, his horn, he had been given, sacrificed his connexion with the past so that he might better serve the Nation by walking amongst weaklings.
He kept his eyes on the gigantic forms on the horizon, watching them scuttle down from on high.
"You're missing the point, friend." He tried to smile, though it was hard, and the language he used was that of camaraderie, though truly there was no friendship between them. "What we have achieved here is a decisive strike against humanity, the first real evidence of our insurgence."
Talaria, the scent of rot clinging to her, her sickly wings folded, the face of a woman stretched, stapled and pinned over the rusting decay of her elongated head, remained anxious, almost as if she could not decide if she should stay or if she should flee.
With uncertain energy, she stepped back, revealing the fourth member of their group, a child with white hair, the dust stirred about their trainers, particles of darkness washing over the white rubber and canvas, clinging also to their socks, also to their shins.
Upon their youthful face they held a sullen expression.
"It begins," their voice soft, gentle, musical even, like the sound of thin flutes that pipe mindlessly. "Now the world turns with no guiding hand, now only chaos will reign."
The smile remained upon Khthonie's face, yet quickly he turned away, unable to gaze upon the child's countenance for too long a stretch. Better, he told himself, to gaze on the procession, the wild hunt, the fall of angels. Better to hold their ground and wait for what must surely come next.
Up amidst the mountains, looking out towards the village of the valley below and the city in the distance, the air was thin and wild.
He looked up in horror at the shapes descended, the forms of the animals folding up into themselves as they grew closer and closer to one another, flesh sliding into flesh, each shape becoming a part of something greater, something huge and daunting, a towering form that blocked out the light of the sinking sun.
Washio felt his heart strain in his chest, the horrific binding of flesh before him resulting in a figure both obscene and familiar, a face in its chest and waist, an arm like a shark, an arm like a wild cat, a scream crying out from each.
He opened his mouth, lips moving as he shaped a name yet dared not speak it aloud.
Fuutaro.
Somehow, against all odds, the monstrous figure before him was Fuutaro, the Wild God, the creator whom, since time immemorial, had watched over the fate of the Power Animals—and yet, hunched on digitigrade legs, its barbed tail swinging, it was obscene, vulgar, the long shadow of something that once had resonated with warm and sunlight.
His hand shaking, he reached for his radio, unclasping it from his belt, breathless and fearful.
"Second Lieutenant Washio to command," he said, his voice full of unhappiness as he calmly bent down to retrieve his sword. "Org incapacitated. Requesting emergency backup from SkyPhoenix."
He felt his tongue heavy in his mouth, the words unwelcome, carrying with them a weight of understanding that he did not wish for.
The tail twisted in the air, slicing through buildings, masonry falling before him, and he still he did not move, his radio in his grasp, the wheels of his bike spinning where it had fallen, his face lifted up as he looked up at the towering monster, the protruding horn, mouths open and smeared with saliva, rows of teeth fashioned from metal, flesh like chitin, an insect birthed from the warmth of mammal womb.
Crouching like an animal before him, the creature leant forward, the curve of its slender head, the eyeless face, the open mouth.
So much like the thing that had come out of the Org, he thought, trying to stay rational in the face of something so huge, so foul.
The jaws of the thing opened, saliva pooling in the dirt at his feet. He felt a thrill of warning, and instinctively he leapt to his left, a second set of jaws revealed in seconds, thrusting forward, teeth snatching at the air where he had stood before retreating back to safety.
Its huge body tensed, an animal ready to pounce. Fear got the better of him.
Turning, he did the one thing you were supposed not to do before such an animal threat—he ran. Behind him, the creature immediately gave chase, bounding forward on all fours, the malformed faces of shark and wild cat sinking into the dirt as it raced forward, the shape of the creature tearing through the closely-knit buildings, shredding concrete and slate as it ploughed forward in pursuit.
His heart hammered, his breath short, the crowds scattering before him not for the first time since his residence in the city had begun. This was wrong.
All of the Orgs he had faced before, even the space ninjas that had briefly stolen his connexion with GaoEagle, they had all been opponents he could rationalise, creatures with thoughts and feelings, ideologies that, whilst in opposition to his own, could be understood. The creature that had burst from Dreamcast Org was different, the creatures that wore the likeness of GaoGod, they were different, a wildness far greater than any earthly realm over which the Power Animals were said to preside.
Again, he tensed, that warning running through him, and ducking down low, weaving right, bouncing off the wall of a building, he narrowly avoided the falling head of the shark-thing as it reached out and snatched at him, a terrible game of cat and mouse enacted in one of the world's fastest growing cities.
The shark rose and descended again, and still running, he turned at the waist, swinging out with his sword; the same sword that had been with him through countless fights since the invasion attempt of the space ninjas, the same sword that had felled the Corrosion Org, Venus Mantrap—it splintered on contact, shards of metal shattering like glass against the metal skin of the giant beast.
He slammed hard into another wall, feeling the pain in his shoulder flare up again, his teeth grinding together. Useless to him now, he let slip of the hilt of the sword. No time now for nostalgia. Bouncing off the wall, he continued to sprint forward, dust stirring, the thunderous sound of the beast at his back. How much longer would he able to keep this up? How much longer would he be able to keep out of harm's way?
The tail swung over his head, the barb striking a building before him, red brick exploding into dust, a flurry of colour, debris littering his path, sending him stumbling forward. If he couldn't keep himself safe, how was he going to keep anyone else in the city safe?
Earth's protectors, that was what he had signed up for, albeit reluctantly, when first he had met Tetomu. Being a Gaoranger afforded him an understanding of the world around him, give him wings to soar freely, and it also came with the responsibility of keeping safe all living life on the planet.
Not long after his connexion was made with GaoEagle, he had stopped eating chicken; a year after, he had stopped eating all other meat, and then, after that, had stopped eating dairy products, stopped wearing clothes made from animal product, stopped using anything that he could not be certain was as free from cruelty as was possible. Even once Rasetsu had been defeated, even once Tetomu had returned to slumber, he had upheld this, and now, here he was, putting countless lives on the line with a monstrous titan screaming for his blood.
Once again, he asked himself, how long could he keep this up?
A tremendous shadow fell over him, the shape of a massive foot crashing down into the dirt and stone of the street before him, a squat face at the kneecap, bulbous eyes like Jomon pottery.
He lost his balance in an attempt to avoid the giant leg, tumbling again upon the ground, the creature at his back now disinterested in him, now focused entirely on this new opponent.
Picking himself up, he lifted his head, neck aching, to regard a massive machine, a bull in the waist, a lion in the chest. GaoKing, he thought hopefully. GaoGod, he thought regretfully. Yet it was neither.
From the head extended the wings of a beautiful bird, red and vibrant. The SkyPhoenix, he recognised instantly. Upon the back of the machine were two heavy engines bristling and sparking with energy, in its grasp was a glistening silver sword.
The barbed tail of their enemy lashed out, the beast rising up to meet the new challenger, jaws damp and snapping.
Again, Washio fell, rolling out of the path of the warring titans.
"Chouriki energy levels at seventy per cent and holding. Imagination engines running within expected operational levels."
The hum of the terminal was reassuring, the tactile feeling of the keys beneath her fingers. This was not her terminal, this was a cramped room in the chest of a machine shaped like a lion originally designed for five different officers in armour and now crammed floor to ceiling with banks of computers, two operatives including herself, and Captain Odagiri, standing at her own terminal, her face full of thunder.
OhrangerRobo, now rechristened as unofficial Skyforce designation Jet Simurgh, had been requisitioned personally by the captain from UAOH, or she had been told. Megan could not imagine anyone at UAOH had been very happy with her commanding officer, Megan herself was not especially happy with finding herself in the cramped space within DashLion—Jet Machine 08—at the beck and call of Captain Odagiri, still dressed in her stab vest, still poised like a predator.
"Good. Let's keep it that way," the older woman announced.
On the opposite side of the compartment, the other officer, W30, Maeda Miki, sat at her own terminal, bobbed hair, looking no happier than Megan was.
Through the window of the cockpit, the shape of the new Org reared up before them amidst the pagodas and tower blocks, attention drawn away at last from the fleeing shape of Second Lieutenant Washio.
"Still holding," Megan remarked, fingers against the unfamiliar keyboard.
Jet Simurgh had been fitted out with two huge engines since its days in service of UAOH, both designed to drawn in chouriki energy from its surroundings. Imagination engines, she thought again, thinking the name sounded quaint. It was this modification that Skyforce were hoping would make the difference in the absence of any uniformed protectors at their call.
Odagiri Aya leant forward, fingers pushed down against her control board.
"Let's show the Second Lieutenant exactly what we are capable of here, shall we?"
He opened his mouth in protest, the words lost in the sound of the huge machine advancing. Beneath his feet, he felt the ground shudder, above his head, glass shattered, dust falling from loose brick, spattering the street around him.
He had fought such colossal Orgs in a variety of locations throughout Asia in his time in Tetomu's service; he had fought them in the mountains and the cities, come to blows with such creatures in places as far as Hong Kong's New Territories and across the river in Guangzhou, but on each of these occasions, the arena had been either deserted or in a place shored up against natural disasters of equal violence—Kathmandu had not.
One of the world's fastest growing cities, he thought again unhappily, bringing his arms up as dust and dirt showered him, sprinting out of the path of the giant Skyforce machine as it brandished its blade.
Crouched low in confusion, the creature—all too similar to GaoGod in its likeness, yet impossibly different in its nature—looked upon this new foe with suspicion and anger, a feral beast suddenly threatened by the arrival of something in its territory.
The memory of Animal Tamer Org struck him once more, the way in which they had all been reduced to animals in such a presence, and he saw the uncomfortable familiarity of that bestial state reflected in the giant Org now.
Saliva ran from the creature's jaws, the second mouth easing out from between the first almost tentatively, and then suddenly it was on the move once more, hind legs kicking against stone and dirt, barrelling forwards, crashing into the unprepared robot.
Above him, he heard the protest of buildings, beneath him the cry of foundations, and he began to consider that the alley was not the best place to be. Still, it was either that or out in the street beneath the feet of the warring giants, and he was even less enamoured with that prospect.
The sword of the machine rose up, the golden crown of its hilt catching the red sunlight, the sharpness of the blade repelling the creature, its varied mouths howling at the thrust of the weapon, clearly unprepared for resistance at such close quarters.
The sharp recollection of Shinoda clawing at his own face returned to him, and he shuddered at the memory, the connexion made between the acid that had bled out from the Org in the vent and the potential of the giant having the same constitution. If the robot's blade caught it, and it bled—
A deafening cry echoed above the eaves of pagodas, the blade striking true, burning blood pooling beneath its crouched form in an expanse of molten danger. Hastily, he brought up a hand to his mouth, coughing violently as the acrid scent of burning reached him in moments.
From the back of the machine, the huge, mounted engines rumbled into life, the grinding shape of the machine continuing to push forward against the hissing, wounded shadow of GaoGod. There would be no explaining this away as an error in the alarm system.
He watched the giant Org tense, preparing to run, and almost as if in anticipation—though the motion must have been ordered by the machine's crew long before—the robot lashed out again with the sword, striking decisively, violently, a spray of acid rising up from the creature, spattering its metal chest.
The titan tottered and then, a dynamited skyscraper, it began to fall, weeping corrosion, howling in impotence.
From the back of the robot the engines at last kicked in at full capacity, a projected field of chouriki energy, ever decreasing images of illuminated hexagonal shapes pushing into the creature, creating a barrier, a cage in which it was suppressed.
The robot swung its sword one final time, the creature writhing within the constraints of the imposing waves of chouriki energy. An extension of the robot's will, the sword passed through the projected field, cleaving the Org in two in a final, decisive blow.
Within the field, the shape of the creature erupted, a shower of acid exploding outwards and running downwards into the soil, poisoning the earth, ensuring that no matter how much the city continued to grow, in this place nothing would take root after.
He watched the gore slide downwards within the fading field, the dim sunlight catching the shape of the robot, the face of the lion in its chest tarnished by the acid that had washed over it.
In his chest, his heart continued its thunderous hammering. Standing there, in the shadow of the alleyway, despite Skyforce's triumph, this, he reflected, did not feel like a victory.
Behind pagodas and tower blocks, the red sun sunk further.
Taki Ryusuke's brought the phone up to his ear, letting it ring, the sound traversing waves as the hard plastic of the device pushed against the softness of the flesh.
There was a soft click, the sound of an expectant voice on the other end, and he looked at the array of the stereovision screens, his jacket thrown over a deserted chair, the image of the requisitioned Ohranger Robo in flickering repose upon every monitor.
"It's me," Taki said. "It's been resolved."
There was noise around him, not in the control room, Odagiri had pulled out the two girls whose job it was to remain there, but in the corridors outside, the sound of combat boots on the hard floor, of men rushing back and forth, medical officers calling out the names of different narcotics.
"No," he answered a question from across the sea. "No, definitely not without cost."
He looked up at the screen, at the shape of the robot in the dying sunlight, and he tried not to think of the aftermath of Unidentified Lifeform D3/1's growth spurt and subsequent rampage, the life cycle of a creature seemingly devoted solely to confrontation.
"Four operatives confirmed, a handful of support staff, presumably some civilian casualties too." The robot did not move on the screen, now surely having powered down. "I don't want to, but I'll give it to her, Captain Odagiri did not hesitate to act."
He waited, listening, and then his expression became even more grave.
"No. They're still there. Eggs, the report called them."
Again, he waited, again he listened.
"I'll leave that in your care then."
He sighed, looking upwards at the ceiling, the conduits and vents, any number of which could have allowed the creature into the heart of the control room, any number of which could have signalled the end of Skyforce.
"To be honest, I'm glad, in a way. Interpol is not set up for encounters with alien lifeforms. I'm happy to leave that to the professionals, we have enough problems with man-made monsters."
He lowered his head, nodding.
"Yes," he said, then again, "Yes."
Another pause.
"Thank you."
Another pause.
"I'll make sure the report reflects that. Thank you."
The line went dead, the connexion silent.
Taki flipped his phone shut, returning it to his jacket pocket in an unhappy gesture.
He lay silent, unmoving, close to the ground, far from the sky. Focus on drawing breath, he told himself; focus on healing, on repairing, the wound in the chest from where violent birth had occurred still aching, filled now with dirt, packed with the nutrients of the soil. How long had it been since he had assumed this form; how long had it been since he had appeared as GaoCondor alone, since he had felt the absence of the four other Power Animals that constituted his essence?
"Fuutaro," he spoke the name of the boy he had once been, beak stained with blood, voice surprisingly deep and resonant. A dying god's voice, he reminded himself.
He would survive this, he told himself. He had survived before when Hyakkimaru had struck him down, and he would survive now despite the violation of his form, the ruin of his spirit. With his own will, he had fashioned life on Earth, with his own hands, he had nurtured life on Earth. Now, he lay in the dirt amongst the broken trees at the foot of the Langtang mountains, drawing breath slowly, willing the healing process to quicken, for his body to heal.
He felt his eyes closing, shimmering rubies obscured, yet still he drew breath, pained and wounded, crushed and ruined.
Above, the sun drew closer to the soil and the moon rose up higher. It would be cold soon, and still he would not move, healing, hoping, drawing breath.
He lay silent, unmoving, close to the ground, far from the sky.