Flesh and Blood revisited: Gemini

by Cyblade Silver

Takaya and Shinya Aiba: twins divided by a cruel fate. Sometimes, however, fate can be more kind...

15. The Evil Spirit Revives

As they made their way back to Headquarters, Noal couldn't help stealing glances at D-Two; and at the empty chair that he was sitting behind. D-Boy should have been there, curled up and sleeping just like his brother. Maybe if we hadn't- Noal cut himself off; now was hardly the time for self-recriminations.

Besides, he tried to make it a point not to waste his time with stupid things like that; it had happened, it was in the past, and now all that remained was for the Space Knights to deal with the problem.

Flying out of the area before Tekkaman Blade's attention could fall on them again, probably getting them all killed, Noal pushed the thrusters a bit. They would be perfectly capable of refueling once they got back to Headquarters, but if they got into a scrap with Tekkaman Blade while he was going berserk like this, then all three of them would be in serious danger. Especially with D-Two conked out the way he was right now.

Breathing more easily as he passed the halfway point between the power plant where they'd all been fighting and OSDG Headquarters, Noal took another look at the back of D-Two's head. He wasn't particularly looking forward to telling the kid about what had happened to his brother; of course, maybe he'd already know when he woke up. He'd heard that twins were kind of freaky that way; theirs just happened to be a bit more freaky than most.

Landing back at Headquarters, Noal shut down the Blue Earth, climbed down out of his piloting station, and went over to check on D-Two. The kid was still sleeping, and when Noal moved his head, he saw that the kid's face was all nice and peaceful. That wasn't going to last; not when the kid found out what had happened to his twin, or just how close all of them had come to getting killed by the kid himself.

Unstrapping D-Two from his seat, Noal glanced over at Aki as he gathered the kid into his arms. She still seemed to be suffering from shellshock; still, given what the both of them had just been forced to watch, Noal couldn't really find it in himself to blame her. If he hadn't had D-Two to look after, he would have been right there to comfort her.

Knowing that Aki would come out when she'd managed to regain at least some of her composure, Noal made his way out of the Blue Earth on his way to D-Two's room. He knew now that the Gemini Boys had liked to spend time together when they'd had an especially bad day, something he still thought was pretty damned adorable, but since D-Boy wasn't exactly himself right now, D-Two was just going to have to get along without him.

Balancing D-Two's weight against the wall, Noal punched in the override code for his door and carried the kid into his room. Taking off his boots and vest, Noal put D-Two in his bed and covered him up so that he could sleep more comfortably. Looking back at the kid as he left his room, Noal sighed.

Poor kid; his own brother had just gone off the deep end, and he hadn't even been able to do a thing.

I

When he had gotten the report from Noal about what had happened to D-Boy, Heinrich von Freeman had begun to make plans for what would need to be done. He would have to speak with D-Two, of course, since that young man possessed the same type of power that his brother did and hence would be of great use to their efforts to discover exactly what had happened to D-Boy, as well as how the problem might be corrected in the future. It would also help D-Two to keep his mind off of what had happened to his brother; he knew from long, bitter experience that it was best to keep a soldier distracted under these kinds of circumstances.

Making his way out of his quarters, Freeman made his way down through the corridors and into the area of the general crew-quarters. He passed D-Boy's empty quarters, pausing outside the door for a moment to make a silent vow. We'll see you returned to us as soon as possible. Just hold on.

Making the rest of his interrupted journey to D-Two's quarters, Freeman paused outside. Common courtesy dictated that he ring the privacy chime and give D-Two the chance to compose himself, but under the circumstances he thought that it would be best to let the young man know what had happened quickly. As well as what they would all need to do to resolve the situation.

Overriding the door controls with his personal code, Freeman made his way over to D-Two's bed just as the young man himself began to stir. D-Two shifted slightly, bangs falling away from his forehead to reveal a strange spot of light. Curious, Freeman moved closer in an effort to observe it more clearly.

It seemed to be a vector-style image of his tekkaset, small enough to fit in the space between his eyebrows, and placed in the center of his forehead like some kind of third eye. It wasn't the strangest thing that he had seen in relation to these two young men, but it was yet another oddity that he hadn't been given cause to suspect. As D-Two's eyes began to open, Freeman stepped back to give the young man a modicum of personal space.

D-Two yawned, sitting up in his bed and rubbing at his right eye for a brief moment. As the strange, vector-image of his tekkaset appeared on D-Two's forehead once more, the young man's face contorted into an expression of worried concentration. Freeman, beginning to suspect what D-Two was trying to do, and now rather curious about just how he was doing it, decided that now was the time to speak to the young man about their current situation.

"D-Two," he called, drawing the young man's attention to him.

"Chief? Why are you here?" Varis asked, and then shook his head briefly. "Wait, I shouldn't ask that. Where's brother?"

"D-Boy went over his transformation limit yesterday; he's become an evil Tekkaman," he said, stepping forward so that he could lay his right hand on the young man's right shoulder. Seeing the expression on Varis' face, Freeman squeezed his shoulder gently. "I need you to help me. I need to understand what that other Tekkaman did to D-Boy."

"Spear," D-Two said, his eyes lowered; Freeman wondered for a moment what the young man was talking about. When D-Two looked back up at him, however, he realized that the young man was attempting to distract himself from the implications of the information that had been presented to him. "That new Tekkaman; his name is Spear."

"Spear, then," Freeman said, watching D-Two's face for any signs of further guilt or self-recrimination.

"Yes, Chief," D-Two said, looking up at him with solemn, light-blue eyes.

"Thank you," he said gripping the young man's shoulder just that much tighter. "The data I've been gathering on the Tek Set System isn't sufficient. I'm going to need some time to make preparations for gathering the necessary data, however, so I'll return here once I've finished with them. Will you wait?"

"Yeah," D-Two said, nodding and smiling in a way more rueful than happy. "If you're going to need me to transform, I'm going to need to eat, Chief."

"I know," he said, stepping back and away from D-Two's bed so that the young man could rise to his feet without feeling crowded. "Thank you for your cooperation, D-Two."

"Roger," D-Two said, giving him a tired sort of salute.

"D-Two," he said gently, clapping the young man on his left shoulder. "Pull yourself together."

"Yeah," he heard D-Two say; the young man sounded listless, as if all that he'd been informed about had just started to register emotionally with him.

Freeman knew that it would therefore be in need of the all the distractions that could be reasonably provided to him, and as he left D-Two's quarters so that he could confer with the Outer Space Development Group's research staff, Freeman resolved to give the young man what he needed to keep him from driving himself mad with worries about his twin brother's state. It would do a great deal of good, not only for D-Two himself, but for the Earth as a whole. There were clearly aspects of the Radam's Tek Set System that he had not yet discovered; Tekkaman Blade's descent into this dangerous psychosis was clear proof of that.

II

Curled up inside yet another of the tekkapods that had devoured the crew of the Argos even as they had tried frantically to escape, those that had been conscious to do so at least, one of the ones who hadn't even had the chance to run was starting to stir once again. She'd lost consciousness from the pain of the initial stages of the process, but now, in the absence of any pain, or indeed of any particular stimuli at all, she was beginning to regain awareness.

She still remembered who she was: her name was Feng Li, and she had been traveling with her friends, her fiancé, and the members of his family. Not to mention the rest of the crewmembers aboard the Argos. Feng Li didn't know just how many of the others had survived to this point, but now that she knew just what it was that the Radam did to their surviving captives, she hoped for all of their sakes that the people she knew had died.

It was a sad thing to hope for, but under the circumstances it was the best that she could do.

Feng Li could almost feel herself sliding backwards, back down into the abyss of unconsciousness that she had so recently climbed up out of, and as her mind slowly shut down again, Feng Li hoped that she would never wake up.

III

When he returned to D-Two's room, Freeman found that the young man had dressed himself in his Space Knight uniform and settled down on his bed. D-Two wasn't wearing his boots, however, the fact that he currently had his knees slightly bent and his feet up on his bed offered an explanation for that before Freeman could wonder about the fact for more than a few seconds.

"You're finished?" D-Two asked, turning to him with a slightly more calm expression on his face; he seemed to have adjusted to the situation.

"Yes," he said, nodding. "I would like to ask you about one thing, however."

"Oh?" the young man asked, looking up from putting on his boots. "What?"

"That symbol on your forehead, what did it mean?" Freeman asked, moving slightly backward as D-Two stood up.

"I was trying to contact brother," the young man said, smiling in a morose fashion. "I wanted to know if he was all right."

"You and D-Boy are telepathically linked?" he asked, having started to suspect that such would be the case but wanting also to have it confirmed by the young man himself.

"All Tekkamen can communicate telepathically," D-Two said, as the two of them began making their way out of his quarters and down the corridor to the medical research division for this particular sub-section of OSDG Headquarters. "We can sense each other, no matter the distance, too," the young man shrugged, seeming to be looking out at something only he could see for a few, long moments.

"I see," he said.

The implications of what D-Two had said, the full implications of the young man's words, were not lost on Freeman after he had finished speaking. After all, if every Tekkaman was indeed capable of both communicating with and sensing one another with only a mental effort, a slight one at that, if what he had seen from D-Two was any indication, then it was logical to surmise that Spear – or indeed any other Tekkaman that the Radam might be able to create – would be able to do the same. He would have to ascertain the full capabilities of the telepathic link that Tekkamen were all implied to share.

Not only for D-Boy and D-Two's continued mental health, but possibly for the continued safety of the Space Knights and the Outer Space Development Group as a whole.

When they arrived in the medical research division, Freeman took a moment to survey the room. All of the tools necessary for gathering data about Tekkaman Varis' transformation, and by extension Tekkaman Blade's in a more general sense, had been moved into the room.

"Good morning, Chief Freeman."

"Good morning, Silvia," he greeted, nodding to the head of his research staff. "I trust you have everything you need."

"Yes, Chief," she said. "So, this is the young man we're going to be working with, is it?"

"Yes," he said, motioning D-Two forward. "D-Two, this is Dr. Sylvia Woolfe, head of medical research for the Outer Space Development Group."

"Nice to meet you, Dr. Woolfe," the young man said, shaking her hand. "Sorry if I'm not good company."

"You're just worried about your brother," Sylvia said, smiling gently as she released D-Two's hand. "I would be, too, if I were in your position."

D-Two offered a small smile in response. "What do I do first?"

Moving off to the side of the room, wanting to observe D-Two's reaction to the tests more than the tests themselves, Freeman listened with half an ear as Sylvia explained just what Tekkaman Varis was going to be doing during the series of examinations that would be run to determine the nature of his powers. And just how that information might be used to help Tekkaman Blade in the near future.

Watching as D-Two removed his vest, Freeman wondered briefly about the dubious expression on his face as he stood before the upright scanner. It only lasted for a few seconds, and D-Two didn't resist being directed to step into the scanner, but Freeman was still curious about it. D-Two closed his eyes while he was being scanned, but Freeman could see that the young man wasn't entirely comfortable in his current position; there was an expression on his face that suggested he was concentrating in an effort to keep himself from walking out of the scanner before its full scan-cycle had been completed.

Once the scan had been completed and D-Two had been allowed to leave while the scientists gathered the recorded data, Freeman walked over to speak with the young man before the next set of tests could commence.

"D-Two," he said, watching as the young man put his vest back on and seemed to make an effort to recompose himself. "What was that?"

"Sorry," D-Two shook his head, chuckling in a rueful sort of way. "Those things make my skin tingle."

"Ah," he said; it was a slightly strange reaction, but then D-Two was not quite an ordinary young man. Perhaps this was just another symptom of that. "Are you feeling better?"

"I'll be all right, Chief. Thank you."

D-Two looked over his shoulder as Sylvia called him back over, then nodded to him and turned to make his way back toward the gathered scientific staff. The medical bed that had been brought in for the more detailed examinations was wheeled into the center of the room, placing it more directly under the large overhead lights. D-Two seemed mildly dubious, but in the end he went over to sit on the bed.

Sylvia's assistant, a young man named Shiyu Odagiri, took a pair of blood samples from D-Two's right wrist. The young man himself watched as the needle was inserted slightly, then turned his face deliberately away. Freeman made a mental note of the young man's seeming aversion to needles, before stepping forward.

There was one more request that he wanted to make of the young man, before he transformed in preparation for the next round of tests.

"Sylvia, I would like to speak with D-Two alone," he said, having made his way over to the medical bed where the young man was still sitting.

"Of course, Chief," Sylvia said, stepping back so that he could stand in front of the brave, determined young man who had chosen to volunteer for these tests, all so that his brother would benefit from the results.

"What did you want to talk to me about, Chief?" D-Two said, looking up from his examination of his wrist.

"I wanted to ask if you would be willing to provide a small tissue sample, so that we might be able to determine the composition of that crystal-substance that we detected in D-Boy's body when we ran the MRI on him," he explained, watching the young man's face as he spoke.

"How small?" D-Two asked, clearly dubious about the idea but still seeming willing to be persuaded.

"Two centimeters, square," he stated.

"All right," D-Two said, an expression of relief slowly appearing on his face.

Nodding, he stepped back as Sylvia and her assistants began to prepare for the operation; setting up the equipment that they would need to monitor D-Two's vital functions while he was placed under general anesthesia, as well as the gasses that would be used to induce such a state. D-Two kept his eyes on what the scientists were doing, even as he removed his vest, shirt, and then his boots. Situating himself more comfortably on the medical bed, he glanced over at the tools that were being brought over.

Then, he seemed to deliberately turn his attention away from the tools that were going to be used to collect the tissue sample that he had offered to give. As the breathing mask was affixed to the lower half of his face, Freeman moved closer so that he would be able to observe the operation in more detail. Watching as D-Two's light-blue eyes lost their usual focus and intensity, the lids falling shut as the mixture of gasses slowly took effect, Freeman felt humbled by the trust that D-Two had offered him.

After all, if he had been a different sort of man, it would have been very easy for him to order that D-Two be vivisected while he was helpless like this. D-Two had ultimately put his own life in Freeman's hands, the young man trusting him to ensure that he was allowed to wake up from the anesthetized state he had been placed in. Freeman made up his mind, then and there, that he would strive to be worthy of that trust.

"D-Two," he said softly, brushing the top of D-Two's head with his right hand.

Sylvia smiled gently at him, even as she finished removing the tissue sample that Varis had offered. "He is an amazing young man."

"Yes," he said, looking down again at one of the two extraordinary young men who had chosen to offer themselves in defense of the Earth; it was not just their powers that made D-Two and his brother so noteworthy, but the fact that not many people who had been granted this kind of power would have chosen to fight for the sake of people they didn't know. Sylvia nodded, as she began to reseal the incision that she had made in D-Two's left side, four centimeters below his arm.

When a line of bright, red light appeared briefly on D-Two's flesh, stretching from the young man's flank to the underside of his arm, Freeman wondered at it for a moment. At least, he did so until he saw the wound in the young man's side sealing itself tightly shut.

"Seems there's a bit more to these boys than even we suspected, Chief," Sylvia said, smiling slightly as she ran her fingertips over the location that she had taken the tissue sample from; it showed no signs of ever having been disturbed at all.

"Yes," he said, looking down at the unbroken skin of D-Two's left side.

It was interesting, the way that he could find out something entirely new and unexpected, when he was simply searching for a way to help Tekkaman Blade regain his senses, and to prevent a reoccurrence of such a thing in the future. As D-Two began to revive, assisted by the pure oxygen that was being fed into his respirator mask, Freeman wondered for a few moments just what the following round of examinations would reveal about the nature of Tekkaman Varis' armor.

IV

Searching for Aki throughout the halls and corridors of OSDG Headquarters had been something of a bust, but Noal could at least say that it had given him some idea of where to look next. Aki had mentioned that she had taken the Gemini Boys to the bio-dome, so that was as good a place as any to look for her. Making his way to the bio-dome, Noal went inside and started his search for Aki again.

It didn't take him long to find her.

"Hey," he called softly, crouching down next to Aki as she sat under a large bush of blooming lilac flowers. "You feeling all right?"

"You know, when D-Boy came into the main room yesterday, I never thought that something like this would happen," Aki muttered, staring down at the bunch of amaryllis flowers that Noal hadn't noticed her holding up until right then. "I knew that something was going to happen, the Radam monsters were attacking and that new Tekkaman appeared, but I didn't think things would turn out like this."

"There wasn't really any way that you could have known, Aki," he said, wrapping his right arm around her shoulders and letting her lean into him. "It's not like that Tekkaman told us what he was planning to do to D-Boy."

"But- I…"

"Hey," he said, gently cutting her off before she could get too down on herself. "Why don't we go see the Chief?" he suggested gently. "I'm sure he'll know what to do."

Actually, he wasn't sure at all about what he was saying, but he wanted to get Aki out of this funk she'd obviously sunk herself into about D-Boy. Besides, this was the Chief he was talking about; he probably had at least some inklings of a plan to get them all through this. He just hoped that nothing too drastic happened while they were all working to put together a strategy.

Leaving the bio-dome with Aki in tow, Noal made sure to keep an eye on her, wanting to make sure she was really as all right as she was obviously trying to convince herself she was. Maybe I should see about having D-Two talk to her for a bit, he thought; sure, D-Boy's brother wasn't too much like the kid himself, something that Noal often found himself grateful for, but he still shared that same essential toughness with his twin. If anyone would be able to convince Aki that D-Boy was going to be just fine, it would have to be him.

Speaking to a few of their comrades, he soon found that the Chief was with the scientific division. It sounded like he was doing something pretty involved with D-Two, probably trying to find out all he could about that armor that the twins had. Knowing where the Chief was now, and pleased to have D-Two so close at hand besides, Noal lead Aki to the scientific division's niche in this particular sector of their headquarters.

Making his way forward, tugging Aki along when she seemed inclined to fall behind for one reason or another, Noal soon came to the lair of the lab-jockeys; or so he liked to call it when no one was listening.

The first thing that caught his attention was the large, red-on-black figure of Tekkaman Varis standing in the center of the lab; and at the center of attention for all of the lab-jockeys, but that was only to be expected. Even though Tekkaman Varis was on their side, this was still a Tekkaman they were dealing with. Moving unobtrusively into the back of the room, Noal watched as Tekkaman Varis was put through his paces.

The funniest part, though, had to be when the lab-jockeys wanted Varis to walk though the upright scanner so they could get a more in-depth reading off his armored form. Only problem was, said armored form had those incredibly oversized pauldrons. Those things stuck out even further than Tekkaman Blade's, for Christ's sake, and Blade's were already pretty huge.

To be fair, though, Tekkaman Blade fired his Voltekka out of his pauldrons; Noal just didn't know what Tekkaman Varis did with his.

But, as the various techs and lab-jockeys tried to figure out a way to get Tekkaman Varis and his full armor to fit through the scanner, the kid brought his arms forward. The huge pauldrons both folded down over his arms, and there was a sound like a pair of knives being unsheathed at once. Which was pretty fitting, considering the fact that Tekkaman Varis was now sporting a pair of extremely sharp, foot-and-a-half blades from the place where his hands used to be.

As the kid folded his arms in front of him, obviously trying not to damage any of the equipment in the room or accidentally stab himself in the foot, Noal rolled his eyes. As Tekkaman Varis was put through the scanner again, after a brief comment from Chief Freeman that he couldn't quite hear over the general goings-on in the room at large, Noal chuckled under his breath. Well, at least now I know why he has those huge pauldrons, he mused; of course they were the size of his lower-arms, they fit over his lower-arms when he needed another weapon or two.

Still, he couldn't help thinking that the whole blades-up-the-shoulders bit was kind of overkill; what with the Voltekka-in-the-chest, the giant-bladed-boomerang/staff that was just a bit taller than he was, that could also fire off some weird kind of laser-grappling beam, and be split down the middle into a fuuma shuriken of all things.

Well, at least no one can say we're sending these kids into battle under-armed, Noal mused, as he continued to watch the lab-jockeys putting Tekkaman Varis through his paces. Things seemed to be going pretty well, up to the point where it occurred to him to wonder just how much time they'd all been at this. Tekkaman Varis only had twenty-five minutes to Tekkaman Blade's thirty, but the upside of that was that overstaying his time-limit didn't make him go crazy the way D-Boy had. It just made him pass out.

Then, as if someone out there had been listening to him, Tekkaman Varis started breathing more heavily, like he'd just run a marathon. Or else like he'd just used up the last of his energy and was running on fumes. When the kid started cupping his armored face with his right hand, Noal stood up from where he'd been leaning against the far wall of the room.

The Chief called Tekkaman Varis by name, trying to find out what was wrong with the kid, even as Noal himself made his way over to where Tekkaman Varis was standing. The blue, glowing crystal-shape that always showed up whenever one of the Gemini Boys transformed into or out of that armor of theirs faded in around him, and Tekkaman Varis' armor vanished into blue-white light just a few seconds after. Moving quickly through the room, he caught D-Two just as the light had faded out entirely and the kid had started to pitch forward.

"Hey, D-Two," he said to the top of D-Two's head, gathering the kid into his arms.

It always amazed him how light D-Two seemed. Not that the kid was actually light or anything, but it had always seemed to him that, given what D-Two and D-Boy were capable of becoming, that the kid himself should be heavier. He seemed about average weight for his height and level of physical conditioning, but all things considered D-Two still seemed too light to him.

"Where do you want him, Chief?" he asked, as the man himself came over to them.

"Lay him down on the medical bed," the Chief said, after he'd paused to look the kid over for a bit.

After he'd gotten D-Two all nestled back into the bed, Noal turned his attention back to Chief Freeman. The Chief's eyes stayed on D-Two for a bit longer, before he turned his attention to Noal.

"It seems that Tekkaman Varis operates under a different set of constraints than Tekkaman Blade," the Chief said, folding his arms.

"Yeah," he muttered, looking back over his shoulder at the kid before turning his attention back to the Chief; the kid looked pretty peaceful, but Noal honestly doubted that it was going to last, considering the current crisis they were facing. "Sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Chief, but D-Two only told me when we were heading out for that mission yesterday."

"I understand," the Chief said, his right hand on his chin. "Still, it is something else to consider."

"Right," he said, then sighed. "Chief, what are we going to do about D-Boy? We can't just leave him out there on his own. I'm sure that D-Two would be worrying himself sick if he didn't have all of these other things to distract himself with." Or if he wasn't conked out in a med-bed at the moment, Noal thought but didn't say.

"I know," the Chief said, nodding sharply. "That is why, once D-Two has had a chance to rest and refresh himself, I want you, him, and Aki to monitor Tekkaman Blade's actions from the Blue Earth. I want to know what's going on out there, and I expect that D-Two will, as well."

"Yeah," he said, looking back over his shoulder at the kid as he slept on.

V

She could hear Noal and the Chief talking, discussing what they were all going to do about D-Boy; how they were going to be keeping a strict watch on Tekkaman Blade, but she wasn't paying all that much attention to the conversation. D-Two was still asleep on the medical bed in front of her, and as she stared down at him, Aki couldn't help thinking of D-Boy.

Anyone could see that the twins were related, and most people who only got a quick look at them wouldn't really be able to tell them apart. Still, with D-Boy gone, all Aki could see were the differences: D-Two's skin was a lighter shade, almost creamy in its paleness; D-Two's eyes, covered now by his closed lids, were the same blue as the open sky; his face unmarked, and his hair falling perfectly straight down to his shoulders. He smiled and laughed where D-Boy brooded, joked where D-Boy was silent, and was cheerful in the face of pretty much everything the Radam threw at him.

He and D-Boy were really such different people, in spite of the fact that they were twins.

When D-Two had awakened again, Aki offered to take him to the cafeteria to get some food. D-Two agreed readily, and neither Noal nor the Chief offered any objections to her doing so. She'd known that D-Two wouldn't be opposed to the idea of getting food, since he'd used up so much of his energy transforming, even though he hadn't been forced to fight; something that she hoped would hold true for the rest of the day, but they were going out there to face Tekkaman Blade. Maybe not to fight him, but with what she had seen him do when he caught a glimpse of the Blue Earth...

Aki just hoped that nothing too drastic would end up happening today, that was all.

Finally, D-Two finished with his meal, and the three of them made for the Blue Earth to take off. Seeing D-Two in what was usually D-Boy's chair, working the controls that his brother usually busied himself with, made Aki acutely aware of just how different this day was from all of the other ones that had proceeded it. She just hoped that next time D-Two ended up at his brother's station, if there was a next time, it wasn't under circumstances like this.

The pre-flight checks completed, the Blue Earth was boosted into the sky by its pre-launch vehicle, and Aki caught her first glimpse of the outside world since they had flown back to Headquarters so that D-Two would be able to rest. She thought it was appropriate how night had fallen, how the sky around them was filled with dark clouds; even the weather seemed fitting: there was a thunderstorm going on. It would have felt so wrong if they had been chasing Tekkaman Blade on a sunny day, with white clouds drifting lazily in the sky.

It would have felt like the worst kind of mockery.

They were re-tracing their flightpath from earlier today, back to the place where they had lost Tekkaman Blade, to see if they could find him again along that heading. He hadn't seemed particularly coherent, so there was a silent consensus that he hadn't flown away. At least, she hoped he hadn't.

As they came closer to Cooper Nuclear Fusion Plant, and the field of flowers beyond it where they had lost contact with Tekkaman Blade, Aki looked over at D-Two. She'd been about to ask him if he was all right, since it couldn't have been easy for him to be out hunting down his brother like this, even if they were trying to avoid a fight. When she turned to look his way, however, she found that D-Two's eyes were closed and he had his arms folded over his chest.

There was an expression of such focused concentration on his face that Aki wondered what it was that he was thinking about; she didn't think it was a good idea to disturb him, though.

"That way," D-Two said, opening his eyes and unfolding his arms. "If we keep going straight along this heading, we'll catch up to him in a couple minutes."

"How do you know that, D-Two?" Noal demanded, before she herself could articulate a similar question.

D-Two looked over his right shoulder, his gaze taking in both her and Noal. "Brother and I have selective telepathy," he said, after a few silent, contemplative moments.

"Ha!" she heard Noal exult. "Something you remembered, but didn't tell us!"

"Yeah," D-Two drawled, giving Noal a look that Aki thought combined equal parts annoyance and amusement.

As they closed in on the location that D-Two had indicated, Aki wondered for a moment if he really could sense Tekkaman Blade the way he'd said that he could. All of those thoughts were pushed right out of her head by what she saw next, however: the ADF's ground forces were moving forward in formation, obviously about to engage someone. And, Aki had a feeling that she knew just who that "someone" was.

D-Two's weary sigh let her know that he had realized that, too.

Watching as the tanks, mobile pillboxes, and missile trucks all began to fire on Tekkaman Blade at once, Aki felt her heart leap into her throat. She did know why they were doing it, at least on an intellectual level: Tekkaman Blade was dangerous, unstable, and he had likely already started attacking them before they had brought out the heavy artillery to confront him. She knew all of that; emotionally, however, she was watching a friend, or someone who she thought could be more than a friend, as he was pelted with live ammunition and artillery.

It was probably even worse for D-Two, since this was his own twin brother who he was watching be hammered with the military's various heavy-weaponry.

When the dust and the light from the various weapons that had been aimed at Tekkaman Blade had cleared at last, Aki was at least somewhat relieved to know that D-Boy had made it. They were going to bring him back, but at this point he was still dangerous. She didn't know quite how she felt about this operation, but Aki suspected that D-Two felt just the same.

"They can't defeat a single Radam. Do they really think they can do anything against him?" Noal muttered, after the three of them had watched helplessly as Tekkaman Blade destroyed all of the tanks, their crews and the rest of the artillery that had been sent out against him.

"Brother…"

"But, we've got to stop him, somehow!" she reminded them all; herself in particular.

"Damn," Noal said, circling high over Tekkaman Blade's head so that they could all keep him in sight. "Have you really turned into a demon, D-Boy?" he muttered, sounding like he was just talking to hear his own voice. "Then, even if I have to risk my life…"

Before she could begin to berate him for having such a stupid, most likely suicidal, idea, the Chief spoke up. "Stop it, Noal."

"But, Chief, there's no other way!" he exclaimed, sounding just about as startled as she felt.

"You've got to calm down," the Chief said. "Do you really think you could destroy Tekkaman Blade by ramming the Blue Earth into him?"

"If I went out there, I could-"

"No, D-Two," the Chief said, firmly cutting him off. "We don't need you and your brother fighting. Stay on the Blue Earth."

D-Two laughed then, a sound with little humor and less mirth, and Aki wondered for a moment what he was thinking. "Yeah."

"Then, what should we do?" she asked, not wanting to give up on D-Boy, but not knowing what any of them here could do to help him.

"Fire the life-form sensors at him."

"Life-form sensors?" she asked.

"His pulse, his voice… anything will do, just check him out thoroughly," the Chief said. For a few moments, before she clamped down on her overactive imagination, Aki could see Tekkaman Blade standing over the maimed, bleeding form of his twin. D-Boy would never forgive himself if he harmed D-Two, so it really was best that D-Two stayed behind on the Blue Earth. For all of their sakes.

"Is there a way to turn him back?" she asked, since as far as she could see there was nothing anyone could do.

"I don't know, but we've got to find a way, at any cost! Otherwise, Earth will be destroyed by Tekkaman Blade!"

"Either that, or brother and I kill each other trying to stop him," D-Two said, his soft chuckles laced with a mordant good-humor that she never wanted to hear from him again as Noal sent the Blue Earth circling back around over Tekkaman Blade again.

The small, almost unnoticeable sensors, equipped with special electro-magnets that would help them cling to Tekkaman Blade's armor no matter how much he moved around, came flying out of the back of the ship. As Aki watched Tekkaman Blade leap forward, slashing and striking out against what she thought in his mind might be a small horde of Radam monsters but in reality were only the small rock formations that he had been standing in front of, she felt her heart go out to him. It seemed now like he was lashing out in pure, blind panic.

"D-Boy," she said, as he paused for a moment and she saw his large, armored shoulders heaving as he breathed deeply.

VI

It was a problem that he had personally hoped that they would never have to face: the prospect of one of his Space Knights becoming such a danger to the very people that all of them were ultimately fighting to protect, but it was one that he had tried to prepare for all the same. After all, with the Radam here in force – and that new Tekkaman, Spear – obviously looking to capitalize on any of their weaknesses, it had truly been only a matter of time before this obvious weakness of Tekkaman Blade's had been discovered and exploited. However, Freeman could at least find some solace in the fact that Tekkaman Varis' weakness was still undiscovered as yet.

If it had been discovered, then it was more than likely that Spear would have killed D-Two at the end of yesterday's skirmish, the same way that he had used Tekkaman Blade's own exploitable weakness to turn that young man into what seemed like some kind of mindless berserker.

"D-Boy, you look so sad," he heard Milly mutter, and for a moment he turned a bit of his attention to the youngest of his Space Knights.

So sad? he wondered; there was no answer that he could give, nothing that he could say that was likely to provide any measure of solace to the youngest of his Space Knight corps; nothing that he could state as fact with any degree of certainty, at least, and he was not about to lie to one of his own. So, he merely stood, watching the video-feed from the Blue Earth from behind the darkly-tinted visor that he used to help emotionally distance himself from what he was seeing or doing at times like this one. It was all he could do, for the moment.

VII

He ran, Amaryllis flowers in full bloom to either side of him, as he lead Miyuki and Shinya on a merry chase through the fields they were all running through. Shinya was catching up to him, though, and with a lunge his younger twin tackled him to the ground and they began to wrestle. Laughing as a storm of Amaryllis petals was knocked loose, falling all around them as he and Shinya rolled and tussled through the field. Miyuki was laughing, either with them or at them, and he laughed even harder as he heard her.

Finally, though, Shinya managed to pin him down on a clear patch of ground; laughing, his younger twin flicked him on the forehead. Lunging forward as Shinya laughed at him, he winced as his and Shinya's heads smacked together. Looking back up at his younger twin as he got to his knees, rubbing his forehead where it had smacked against Shinya's, he couldn't help but laugh.

It was funny, and Shinya was laughing too, so that made it okay.

He didn't notice that Shinya had stopped laughing for what felt like only a minute, but when he looked back at his younger twin, he froze in sheer horror. There were vines tightly wrapped around both of Shinya's wrists, coiling up his arms and lifting him about a foot off the ground. Shinya was struggling against their hold, but it looked like the vines were about to rip his arms off.

Rushing over to where Shinya was being pulled in two different directions, he grabbed his younger twin's left arm and clawed at the vines wrapping around it. He'd pull them off, and then he'd get Shinya's other arm free, and then they would both get out of this place. Shinya was struggling really hard, trying to pull himself loose from the vines; he was glad to see that, it meant that Shinya was still okay.

When had it gotten so dark, though? It didn't look like night, just like it had gotten really dark all of a sudden.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the vines wrapped around Shinya's left arm. It wasn't too dark to see, so he wouldn't trip on anything once he had Shinya loose, so he wasn't going to worry about it. It probably wasn't important, anyway.

When Shinya screamed, then started to gag like there was something caught in his throat, he looked back up to see if he could see what was wrong. Another pair of vines had stabbed Shinya in the left side, and even as he watched the vines dug deeper into his younger twin's body. Shinya was calling him by the special nickname that he'd made up, and there was blood, so much blood, coming out of his younger twin's mouth.

More frightened than he could ever remember being, he looked back over his shoulder to see if he could find anyone who could help Shinya. Kengo was there, standing with his back to them; he smiled. Kengo would be able to help him and Shinya for sure!

He called out, shouting to get Kengo's attention and to try to get him to turn around so he could see what was wrong with Shinya. Finally, after he didn't even know how long, he got his and Shinya's big brother to turn around. There was kind of a weird look on his face, but that was probably just him worrying about what was happening to Shinya. Shinya was calling to him again, so he patted his younger twin's cheek and tried to comfort him. Big brother would be there to help them soon, he thought, turning to look back over his shoulder again.

Wait, what was Kengo doing with that spear? It looked like it was bigger than he was. He was getting closer now, though, so that was... wait, what was that armor he was wearing? It looked really scary.

As Kengo, still wearing that scary-looking dark purple armor, walked slowly over to them, he shuddered and turned back to Shinya. He had to get Shinya loose; he didn't know why Kengo was wearing that weird, scary-looking armor, but he didn't like it. Still, maybe Kengo would be a better help to him and Shinya while he was wearing that scary armor of his.

Looking up at Shinya's face as his younger twin gasped, he saw that Shinya was staring at something behind them with a fixed expression of horror. Just as he was about to look over his shoulder to see what it was, he felt something sharp ram into his back. The sharp tip of what could only be that long spear that Kengo had been holding even before he had been covered in that weird, scary armor.

He felt the blade splitting his spine, ripping its way through his guts, and stabbing right through his body and into Shinya's besides. His eyes locked with Shinya's as the two of them were pinned body-to-body by the spear that Kengo had stabbed them with. His younger twin looked so frightened. He tried to say something, wanting to comfort his younger twin; to just say something to make Shinya stop looking so frightened.

When Kengo rammed the spear deeper into his body, Takaya screamed...

...and screamed, as he swung his tekkalance down and through the armored body of a tank and the gunner inside it in one complete, fluid motion. Turning and twisting, following the line of the latest group of ADF tanks that had been sent out to fight him, Tekkaman Blade tore through them without even seeing them. Screaming in the grip of his waking nightmare, Tekkaman Blade ripped his way through them as flames and explosions followed in his wake.

When he left the line of devastated tanks and the strewn forms of barely-alive soldiers who had been fortunate enough to survive the attack that Tekkaman Blade had made on their unit, he didn't hear one of the soldiers making his last transmission; he didn't hear them reporting on what he'd just done.

VIII

"Freeman! What the hell is going on?!" Colbert looked furious, looming over him and the other occupants the Control Room from the large screen in the front of it. "What happened to Tekkaman Blade?!"

"What I feared might happen, which I spoke to you about earlier: Tekkaman Blade has exceeded his transformation time limit," he said, forcing himself to put aside the worry that he felt for both of the twins; this was bound to be hard on D-Two, and D-Boy would doubtless feel remorse for what he had done once he had been returned to his proper mental state. "D-Two is still unharmed, however."

"Are you talking about how your Tekkaman Blade loses all control after thirty minutes?" Colbert growled, seeming to be trying to gather his composure. "Why haven't you deployed Tekkaman Varis?"

"Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Varis are twins, General. Their combat capabilities have proven to be, while different, of equal power as far as we have been able to determine," he explained calmly. "Any engagement between the two of them would more than likely end in a stalemate. Or else, they would both kill each other." Colbert sat back in the seat that he had clearly just vacated, gritting his teeth in obvious displeasure. "In that case, we would have no defense against the Radam."

"So, that's your reasoning," Colbert said, though he didn't sound particularly pleased; Freeman had honestly doubted that he would be. Colbert was the kind of man who preferred a more direct approach, no matter what the ultimate cost turned out to be. "I want you to look at this," Colbert said. A topographical map was then projected on the main screen, with enough transparency that he could still Colbert's face as the other man spoke. "If Blade keeps up his current pace, he'll reach Area KR-235 in fifty minutes. One of the few cities fortunate enough to have escaped a Radam attack." Freeman nodded; he could well understand the kind of terror that would be felt by anyone who had to face the threat of a Tekkaman, especially one who had been fighting for them. To anyone who didn't know the true circumstances, it would seem like the worst kind of betrayal. "The people have started evacuating, but they're in a panic; I doubt all of them will make it. However, since you don't intend to do anything about that, the military has made a decision to prevent further casualties," Freeman narrowed his eyes at that, but he knew it wouldn't do any good to argue the point, so he said nothing. "At 1430 hours, if Tekkaman Blade clears the last defense line, we will use the Reaction Bomb on him!"

Colbert's image vanished from the main screen, and Freeman finally allowed himself to sigh; he had been expecting that something like this would be brought up, especially considering the fact that Colbert had always been one to advocate for drastic measures. At the same time, he himself was well aware of the fact that dealing with Tekkaman Blade as he was at the moment was going to require the application of more drastic measures than the Space Knights had been wont to use in the past. He just hoped that it wouldn't come to such an extreme as Colbert seemed to expect.

He would have to contact his Noal, Aki, and D-Two aboard the Blue Earth; best they knew what could be happening soon.

IX

He could practically feel the tension in the air, crackling and vibrating like invisible guitar strings, and for a second or two he was tempted to crack a joke or something. D-Two didn't seem to be feeling up to par at the moment, which was pretty understandable given what was going on with his brother, and even Aki seemed to need a bit of cheering up. They both seemed to have picked up D-Boy's brooding habit, which would have really been funny under other circumstances but right now only reminded him of how wrong everything seemed to be going right now.

The Chief's voice on the comm. came as a great distraction from all the worrying they were doing, at least until what he was saying actually had a chance to register.

"What did he say?! Chief!" he demanded.

"Bastards, they're actually going to try that?!" D-Two snarled, speaking almost at the same time, so their voices ended up having this weird kind of overlap thing.

"A Reaction Bomb!" Aki exclaimed.

Still, that didn't mean he wasn't entitled to express his concise opinion of ADF command in general and General Colbert in particular. "Damn the military!"

"Therefore, should something prevent Tekkaman Blade's Tek Set from being released by 1430 hours, the Blue Earth is to evacuate to a safe altitude," the Chief said sternly; he dropped it.

"Chief! You'd abandon D-Boy?" Aki exclaimed; hell even he was surprised by how cold the Chief seemed to be right now. "Chief! Chief!" she shouted, as the familiar chirp sounded.

He almost expected D-Two to say something about then, since it was his brother out there and all, but the kid seemed to be closing himself off pretty well there. He was starting to act a bit too much like D-Boy for Noal's peace of mind at the moment. Sure, he was trying to be understanding here, but if he hadn't been staring down at Tekkaman Blade's red-on-white armor out of the windows of the Blue Earth's cockpit he might just have started to think that it was really D-Boy up here with them.

"Noal, get closer to D-Boy!" Aki said, sounding like she'd managed to regain at least some of her composure.

"Aki?" he prompted, not wanting the silence to stretch too long.

"I'm going to try to talk to him, somehow. D-Two, you try it too!"

D-Two drew in a deep breath, like he was about to say something, but all the kid actually did was sigh deeply. C'mon, D-Two, this isn't anything like the snappy, sharp-tongued kid I know; at least say something. I know you and D-Boy are twins, but you don't have to act like him, you know. "All right," was all he said, in the end.

Guiding the Blue Earth back out over Tekkaman Blade, pacing him from high up and just a bit behind, he sighed. He didn't know just what they were going to do to get through to the kid, but no one on Earth would be safe if they didn't do something. Damned if he knew what, though.

He just hoped that Aki or D-Two would have some kind of idea.

X

"D-Boy! D-Boy!" she called down, amplifying her voice with the Blue Earth's speakers as much as she could. "Can you hear me? It's me, Aki!"

"No," D-Two muttered, with another weary sigh. "He can't hear you. And I…" he slumped back into his seat, looking so much like D-Boy for a moment that Aki felt her heart wrench, just a bit. "I can't hear him."

"You can't?" she asked, splitting her attention between Tekkaman Blade and D-Two for a moment.

"No," he said, turning a worn, bitter version of his usual smile on her. "Not even a bit."

Suddenly, as if in answer to what his twin brother had just been saying, Tekkaman Blade's large, armored form stopped dead in its tracks. Smiling as hope like she hadn't felt since the beginning of this horrible night bloomed in her heart, she was just about to call out to D-Two, when Tekkaman Blade turned and lunged up at them, his lance held high like he was fighting some Radam monster.

"Emergency ascent!" Noal shouted.

As she held tightly to the armrests of her chair, Aki looked over at D-Two, wanting to know how he was doing. D-Two's tekkaset had appeared in his hand, but the way he was clutching at it, combined with the look on his face, suggested that the crystal itself was just there as some kind of comfort factor; like it was his lifeline in this crisis. Aki wished for a moment that their seats were close enough that the two of them could hold hands; she was starting to feel the need for a lifeline, herself.

There was a new voice on the comm. then, telling Noal that he had just entered a restricted zone. Noal rebuffed them, strongly enough that D-Two actually chuckled, and Aki felt a bit of honest relief. If D-Two could still laugh, then things weren't quite so grim as they seemed.

"Good work, Noal-kun," D-Two said, and when she looked over at him again Aki saw that his tekkaset was gone again.

"Oh," Noal said, obviously annoyed. "Are you done being gloomy now?"

"Maybe," D-Two said, after what seemed like a moment of consideration.

D-Two was grinning, and for a moment Aki thought that he was feeling better, but then she caught a glimpse of his eyes. His blue eyes were haunted and dark, fixed on where his brother was standing. Tekkaman Blade was being pelted with shells from a relatively small group of tanks, his armored form shining in the harsh glare of the spotlights that had been fixed on him, but the shelling seemed to be meant more to keep the Tekkaman in place than anything else. To distract his attention so he didn't just keep moving along his present course; the one that would take him into the city if they didn't manage to stop him.

She wondered why he was heading back into the city in the first place. Was it just a coincidence, or did Tekkaman Blade somehow remember that she had asked him to come there with her not so very long ago? Either way, though, they couldn't let him reach the city as he was right now; with the way he was acting, he'd probably think it was filled with Radam monsters and destroy it.

"Only twenty minutes left," Noal said, and Aki clenched her hands on the armrests of her chair.

This couldn't be the end! Not after everything that they had all been through together. Not when she had just been starting to explore the feelings that D-Boy had stirred in her heart.

She could hear D-Two muttering softly beside her, although whether he was cursing or praying she couldn't tell; though it might easily have been both, given the circumstances.

XI

As he kept watch on his younger brother, skimming across the surface of Takaya's mind when he could, Spear sighed softly. He was still in his armor, knowing that the slight energy drain was a small price to pay for the emotional distance that the armor provided him with. Takaya was all alone down there, and when he had skimmed the surface of Shinya's mind – a slightly more dangerous proposition, considering the fact that his other younger brother was fully conscious – he had found that Shinya was half out of his mind with worry.

However, he had also found that Shinya did have an emotional attachment to the woman that he had seen in that spacecraft yesterday. He also seemed to have one to the pilot, but it was of a subtly different nature than the one he possessed with the woman. Spear was curious about the nature of the bonds that his younger brothers had both likely formed with the humans in that craft, but as Takaya's mind was incapable of giving him the information he sought in its current state, and since Shinya was likely to try blocking him out under the present circumstances, Spear was left with his curiosity.

Curiosity that would have to be set aside for the moment, of course.

(Are you certain this will work, Spear?)

(It should serve to separate Takaya from the humans who have taken him and Shinya captive, at least,) he said, folding his arms and forcing himself to relax a bit; he'd be no good to anyone if he allowed himself to become too tense. (I'll have to return for Shinya, however.)

(What of that woman you spoke about? Do you still intend to fetch her?)

(Perhaps,) he said, tilting his head slightly in thought. (I think it would make Shinya happy, at least.)

He hoped so, at least; he knew that Shinya would never truly forgive him if he killed someone his younger brother cared for.

XII

They were back on Tekkaman Blade's tail again, and D-Two seemed to be back to his old self, but he knew just as well as anyone that things weren't nearly as hopeful as they looked. There was only a couple minutes or so on the big countdown; a couple minutes until they would have to break contact with Tekkaman Blade and leave the kid to fend for himself. Leave him to get blown up by a tactical nuke, more like, Noal thought, and shuddered briefly in sheer distaste.

He hated the thought of having to leave the kid to that kind of thing; hell, he was sure that D-Two hated it, too, and that was probably why he wasn't talking anymore.

"This is Freeman," the Chief said, appearing on the secondary comm. screen in front of him. "We've reached the time limit. Evacuate to safety at once!"

"Chief, I refuse."

"Aki," the Chief said; since D-Two didn't seem like he was going to say anything, Noal decided to see if he could do any good.

"He's one of the only hopes that we humans have left," he said. "How can we be the ones to destroy him?!"

He saw the Chief pause for a moment, like he was thinking heavily on something, but then he continued right on: "No; I'm sure that Tekkaman Blade will survive. Evacuate immediately! On the double!"

That last was clearly one of the Chief's orders, and Noal had long since learned that there was only one response to one of those: "Roger," he said, in concert with Aki.

Bringing the Blue Earth into a steep, fast ascent, Noal soon had her out of the range of the nuke that Colbert, high-strung, miserable bastard that he was, was about to drop on Tekkaman Blade. He didn't know what was up with D-Two at the moment, but Aki was looking after him as best she could. That was really all he could ask for right now.

"The Reaction Bomb is approaching quickly," Aki said.

As the nuke arced through the air, following the trajectory that would land it on Tekkaman Blade's head, Noal closed his eyes briefly. He didn't really want to watch this kind of thing happening to a friend, but it was also because D-Boy was his friend that he felt compelled to watch this as it happened. He could see the nuke falling toward the ground now, losing sight of the thing as it passed through the cloud-layers, but even as he did he knew where it was going.

It was going to blow Tekkaman Blade to kingdom come, with the force of however many megatons it had been rated for.

"D-Boy!" Aki shouted, turning stricken eyes back toward him.

He was just about to say something to her, when D-Two of all people spoke up. "Brother; you made it," the kid said softly, sounding as if he didn't quite know how he felt about that.

Noal could definitely relate.

"What?" Aki began to ask, but then she fell silent.

Because right there, right through the cockpit windows, the haze from the explosion cleared and there Tekkaman Blade was, all in one piece. Sure, he was at the bottom of the largest impact crater that Noal had ever seen up close, surrounded by fires, and molten rock, and with wisps of what looked like steam or smoke seeming to rise up from his armor; and oh, he was still completely whacked out of his gourd, but at least they still had a chance to save him.

"He's alive," Aki breathed, sounding like she didn't quite believe it.

"Yeah," Varis said, and he heard the kid chuckle; it wasn't quite a happy sound, but then this wasn't quite a happy time. "Our armor, brother's and mine... I'm pretty sure we could fly through a solar-flare and not even notice."

"D-Two," he said, circling over the new crater where Tekkaman Blade stood, motionless as an armored statue. "I think you might be right about that."

XIV

As he continued to oversee the events of this particularly eventful night from the relative safety of Comm. One, Chief Freeman sighed soundlessly. It had been something of a gamble, trusting in the strength of Tekkaman Blade's armor to protect him from a nuclear explosion. However, with all of the studies he had made on both Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Varis' armor and the powers that they possessed, he had felt that the risk was a calculated one.

He was pleased to know that he had come to the correct conclusion; to say nothing of the mental anguish that D-Two would have suffered from the death of his brother, D-Boy was one of his Space Knights, and all of his Space Knights were ultimately under his protection.

"There's no one who can stop him," he said, displaying his usual outward calmness. "No," he said, speaking both to himself and to the young man on the other side of the screen. "Only one man could."

However, he was forced to admit to himself that he didn't know just what hope they had. Tekkaman Blade's defenses were all but impregnable to anyone but another Tekkaman. He was also well aware that D-Two would have his own set of difficulties if he were sent out to fight Tekkaman Blade; all of them related to who D-Boy was rather than simply what. It was something that Freeman understood, and so he was not going to send Tekkaman Varis out to fight.

No matter what Colbert thought would be more expedient.

XV

Seeing that Blade guy rampaging around, having obviously gone completely off the deep-end for whatever reason, Balzac knew that it would be up to him to report the circumstances of the kid's condition. If this was what happened if either of those freak-brothers stayed in their armored forms for too long, that made it all the more important that he get enough data to the ADF for them to start building replacements for them; no way in hell was he going to put his faith in those two when all it took for them to turn on their supposed allies was just over half-an-hour in those armored forms of theirs. Aside from that, their powers had obviously come from the Radam, no matter how dead-set those two were about denying it.

Nothing that came from the Radam could ever really be trusted; he knew that now more than ever.

He'd have to begin making deeper forays into this Headquarters that the Space Knights maintained; he needed to know everything that that Chief of theirs had found out about those freaks and their Radam-derived powers. Not only would it get him in good with General Colbert, but it would also give him and Malraux something else to talk about while they were renewing their old bonds.

He'd been trying not to think about his old friend while he was working so deeply undercover, trying to be the man in his I.D. rather than the man he really was; hell, that was the whole reason he'd grown the damn beard in the first place. He didn't want to think about what Malraux had been doing all the time he was gone, even if it was probably just heading up his section of the R&D Division; he wasn't ashamed to admit that he missed his old friend, even if he wasn't going to actually say anything. Not here, to these people, anyway.

Still, his plans for getting the information he needed would clearly have to be put on hold, at least for the night. He might not need to know the rest of the story concerning those freak-brothers, but the General would prefer that he was as thorough as possible when making his next report. And, hell, he wanted to see what the end of this story of theirs was ultimately going to be.

XVI

He ran, over broken rocks and under a dark sky that seemed to actively want to press down and smother him, through a landscape that seemed to be tearing itself apart, he ran; turning to look back over his left shoulder, he saw that Kengo- no, the Radam Tekkaman Spear, was still stalking him. No matter how fast he moved, no matter how far he ran, Spear always seemed to be right at his heels. It was like some kind of a nightmare!

The armor seemed to fade for a few seconds, or maybe that was just him remembering what Kengo had been like before the Radam had turned him into one of their monsters; either way, he kept running.

He turned to look ahead, and there, under the light of a red moon, stood his youngest brother Sasuke, Kengo's fiancée Feng Li, and Goddard-sensei; he shouted at them, calling for help... but, when the three of them turned to face him, they all faded away, replaced by three more of the Radam's monsters. Leaping back, knowing that they would kill him even if Spear didn't manage to get to him, he felt the ground crumble away beneath him.

Screaming, he was sure that he was going to end up falling to his death, since the only thing beneath him was hard, broken rocks that would shatter every bone in his body when he hit them. But he didn't. Looking back up, having been paying more attention to the ground that he had been about to slam into, he saw that he'd actually managed to find the last of his family even in this horrible place. Miyuki and Shinya were with him now; Miyuki holding his left hand, and Shinya gripping his upper-right arm with enough force that that he would probably be sporting some bruises for it later; that was funny, really, if he tried hard enough to ignore the fact that he was hanging off of a brand-new cliff's edge.

Shinya looked like he was trying to say something, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was. When Shinya and Miyuki both started flickering, his twin brother and his sister both fading out in place of just two more of the Radam's monsters, he thrashed. He wouldn't be taken like this!

Shouting denials in the face of the Radam Tekkaman Rapier, he managed to get he-it to let go of his arm. The Radam Tekkaman named Evil was more persistent, his armored talons digging deeper as Tekkaman Evil held on just as tight as he ever had. Thinking of what Shinya would have done in a situation like this, he lunged forward and bit the hand nearest to his head; it almost felt like he was sinking his teeth into yielding, human flesh, but that wasn't possible. Tekkaman Evil was covered in armor, just like Tekkaman Rapier; there was nothing human about either of them.

Screaming as he fell, still knowing that the fall on top of the rocks would kill him faster than those Radam Tekkamen ever would but wanting to live all the same, he was surprised when all he felt was something slightly warm dripping on his face. Opening his eyes, he saw that Miyuki was sitting right there, right beside him as he lay flat on his back. When he managed to regain his bearings, he noticed that Shinya was there, too.

Shinya had his head resting in Miyuki's lap. It looked like his younger twin was napping, and he had to laugh; that was just like Shinya. Miyuki called out to him, and when he made a joke about Shinya, his younger twin opened his right eye and stuck his tongue out slightly. He laughed, and Miyuki even giggled a little; he was happy that he could still make his younger siblings laugh.

Sitting up, he smiled at Miyuki and reached out to stroke Shinya's hair the way he could remember both Kengo and Shinya doing for him at different times. Shinya chuckled, and he felt his younger twin leaning into his hand a bit; he smiled. This was good; he wished this moment could last forever, just him, Miyuki, and Shinya.

Just then, Shinya shoved Miyuki to the ground, covering her with his body. Shinya fell into his lap, a thin, bleeding gash carved into his younger twin's right side. The gash started halfway down Shinya's right side and ended just a couple inches above Shinya's knee and Shinya was bleeding all over him and Tekkaman Spear was right there! Spear hovered above them all, the Radam Tekkaman's lancer coming back up in line to stab.

Before he could do anything, Shinya threw himself forward again. Tekkaman Spear's lancer plunged into Shinya's chest, slathering his legs with his younger twin's blood as Shinya was skewered by the tip of Spear's lancer. He could hear Shinya's heavy breathing, and when Shinya turned to look back at him, he could see blood dripping down his younger twin's chin.

Shinya was talking to him now, smiling and asking him to protect Miyuki; he tried to remind Shinya of their promise, but Shinya just laughed and told him that he would have to make a new promise, then. Shinya asked him again to protect Miyuki, since they couldn't very well protect each other anymore; he tried to deny it, but Shinya just laughed again, more weakly; that was just like Shinya.

Reaching out to cup Shinya's left cheek, he felt Shinya leaning into his hand; and then he felt Shinya's body going limp and heavy as his younger twin bled out. Tekkaman Spear was gone now, but he had taken Shinya with him; not the body, Shinya's body was still laying face-down, draped across his lower-legs, but everything that had made his younger twin the person that Shinya had been, the person that he had loved for all his life, was gone.

Pulling Miyuki close to him, he reached out to gently stroke the back of Shinya's head; he knew that it was a stupid thing to do, he knew that Shinya wouldn't be able to feel it, but it made him feel a bit better at least. Shinya was gone now, but Miyuki was still with him. Miyuki was... Miyuki...

XVII

As she continued to watch, helpless to do anything but happy that Tekkaman Blade had managed to survive the missile that General Colbert had launched at him, Milly clasped her hands and began to pray. She was still sitting next to the vase of flowers that she had set out on the control console; the scent of lilacs was still lingering in the air, even in spite of the fact that some of the flowers had started to fall. There were three of them lying next to the amaryllis petal that had fallen yesterday.

Just before she'd heard the news about what had happened to D-Boy, that's when that petal had fallen; she hadn't wanted to think too much about what it had meant at the time, but she knew now that it had been fate's way of warning her about just what had happened.

"Tekkaman Blade's brainwaves are unstable," one of the other technicians reported, reminding Milly that she wasn't the only one worrying about D-Boy.

Listening to what Blade was saying for a few moments, long enough to hear the name that he kept repeating. "Miyuki?" she muttered to herself, thinking hard; she could almost hear it...

"Milly, do you know anything about this?" Chief Freeman asked.

"That's the name of their younger sister," she said, turning her chair around so she could see him better. She didn't even wait for him to prompt her, she just told him: "D-Boy and D-Two both told me I look like her."

Chief Freeman actually took off those sunglasses he'd been wearing ever since they had gotten here for the night, then he went over to the comm. setup next to her. "How are the repairs on Pegas coming along?"

"Yes, sir. I was just about to contact you, myself!" Honda reported.

"We're all set to go now! The rest is up to you, Chief!" Levin reported, seeming a bit more relaxed, with his arms folded behind his head like that.

Chief Freeman turned toward her, then, so serious and determined that she just knew he had something brilliant in mind. "Milly, I'm giving you a special mission. You must go to D-Boy with Pegas, and convince him to come back."

"Me?!" she gasped.

"Chief, you can't make Milly convince him!" Noal's voice came in over the comm. before she could do much more than gasp about the responsibility that the Chief had placed on her.

"Do you have a better idea?" Chief Freeman verbally steamrolled. "We don't have much time! I know it's a gamble, but we have no choice but to rely on Milly to save D-Boy, now that he's turned into a demon," the Chief said; she shuddered, staring down at the three lilac blossoms that had fallen. It was like there was one for each of them; one for her, who sat in Headquarters worrying, one for D-Two onboard the Blue Earth, and the last one for Tekkaman Blade.

"Aren't you going to say anything about this, D-Two?!" Noal demanded.

D-Two, who she could see had leaned his elbows on the console in front of him and had had his hands in front of his mouth, sat back up; that pose he'd been holding had made him look like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "It might work."

"I'll do my best, D-Two," she said, sitting up straight after having gathered up the lilac blossoms and tucked them safely away in her right pocket; one for her, one for D-Two, and the last for Tekkaman Blade.

As Chief Freeman arranged for her transport, and she talked to him about what she would need to do to get through to D-Boy, she felt the Chief grip her right shoulder. It made her feel a lot more grown-up than she usually did, and so did the things that Chief Freeman was saying to her; they also made her acutely aware of just what she was going to be risking by going out there. She wouldn't have anyone to protect her; even D-Two would be far enough away that he wouldn't be able to help her in time if Tekkaman Blade tried to attack her.

She didn't really like thinking about that possibility, but it seemed like D-Boy couldn't recognize anyone; she didn't know what would happen if she couldn't calm Tekkaman Blade down, but she also hoped she didn't have to find out.

XVIII

Noal was steadily cursing under his breath; Shinya could hear it clearly, and he found it kind of morbidly funny. Noal had certainly learned some interesting varieties of vulgarity during his tour of duty; some of them were even new to him, even after all of the time he'd spent working with Father and… other people. Looking down at the passing scenery in an effort to distract himself from thoughts he didn't particularly want to entertain, Shinya realized that he could recognize the place they were flying over.

"He'll be in the city in two minutes," Aki said; Shinya settled back into his seat with a weary sigh.

Now wasn't the time to think about the good times that they had had not so long ago, it wasn't even the time to think about what might happen when they all met up with Takaya again; now was the time to act.

When Milly's transport came up level with the Blue Earth, Shinya waited for a few seconds to make sure that Aki and Noal were distracted enough that they wouldn't notice what he was doing until he was nearly done with it, then he got out of his brother's usual chair and made his way to the back of the ship; he was heading for the air lock. Noal turned to look at him as he made his way out of the cockpit, and he winked in response to the other man's question.

He wasn't going to explain this; they would both try to stop him if he told them what he intended to do, and he wasn't going to be stopped.

Making his way out to the secondary air lock, Shinya opened the thing and stepped out onto the edge of the deck. He didn't know how long he had, before the Blue Earth pulled away from Milly's ship or someone noticed that he had the air lock doors open, so he moved quickly. Leaping from the Blue Earth's air lock as the air lock of Milly's ship came into rough alignment with them, Shinya tucked his arms and legs in like a sky-diver to reduce air resistance.

He was glad that Milly's transport was flying slightly lower than the Blue Earth, otherwise he would have had to transform to get to it, and Shinya didn't want to burn off any of the calories he'd taken in. Especially since he hadn't had a good meal since he, Aki, and Noal had all started tailing Tekkaman Blade.

The wind whipped past his face, and Shinya narrowed his eyes to keep them from watering too much. Grabbing onto the lip of the air lock doors on Milly's ship, he was just about to try yanking them open when they slid neatly open on their own. Slipping inside quickly, he stepped out of the range of the doors and started trying to rub the feeling back into his hands. Cupping them against his mouth, Shinya blew on them and then rubbed his hands together again.

He suspected that certain people, particularly Noal, would have some harsh words to say about what he'd just done, but he wasn't about to let Milly go off to face Tekkaman Blade alone; not when he was in his current frame of mind.

"Hi, Milly," he said, smiling as he made his way into the cockpit with Milly.

"Hi, D-Two," she said, laughing. "Noal's really mad at you."

"Yeah, I know," he said, settling into a chair on Milly's right.

"D-Two, you stupid idiot! Were you trying to kill-" Noal's tirade was cut off in mid-yell as Varis hit the button that deactivated the radio-link.

"Shut up, Noal-kun. He was being noisy," he said, in response to the look on Milly's face.

She laughed. "Yeah," she sobered quickly, though, as their ship settled to the ground. "Come on," she said, and he let her take his left hand and lead him toward the ship's air lock.

"Those are nice flowers," he said, smiling as he saw the Amaryllis blossoms pinned to her shirt.

"Thanks," she said, looking down slightly, before she locked eyes with him. "I'm really glad you're here. I didn't want to do this alone."

"Of course; we're comrades, after all," he said, smiling as she held up a sprig of lilac flowers and then gently pushed them between their clasped hands.

Tekkaman Blade had been moving forward all this time, and now the three of them were facing each other under the dark, rainy sky. A breeze tugged at his still-dry hair, and Shinya quickly tucked the errant stands back behind his right ear. He could hear Milly talking, and her words vaguely registered to him, but most of his attention was taken up by the armored form of his older twin. He knew that he would have to be ready to react at a mo-

Shit! Throwing himself forward, he shielded Milly with his own body as Tekkaman Blade rushed forward. His older twin's armored hands wrapped tightly around his throat, and Shinya darted a glance at Milly even as Tekkaman Blade yanked him up off the ground. She was okay, though she'd been knocked to her knees when he'd shoved her; better than the alternative, he was sure.

"Brother," he said haltingly, Tekkaman Blade's grip on his throat not quite tight enough to impair speech, though it was kind of a near thing. "You can still hear me, can't you, brother," he gagged as Tekkaman Blade growled. The pressure on his neck increased then, and Shinya instinctively grabbed at the armored hands around his neck. "I… I forgive you…" Forcing himself to let go of Tekkaman Blade's armored hands, even as spots began to appear in the edges of his vision, Shinya took as deep a breath as he could. "I love you, Ta-kun. Even if you kill me."

Tekkaman Blade hissed, and he could vaguely hear Milly shouting in the background, but his vision was starting to tunnel, and he only had enough air to say one last thing: "Take care, Ta-kun. See you… soon…"

It felt like he was falling then; when his head landed in someone's lap, Shinya realized that Tekkaman Blade had actually let go. That was good. Staring up into the face of his rescuer, he used the last of his energy to smile gently up at them; he would have said something, but everything seemed so very, very far away right now…

XIX

As he fell out of Pegas' interlock-chamber, not even bothering to catch himself, he heard someone come up behind him.

"D-Boy, are you okay?" he heard Noal ask.

No; nothing was all right, nothing was ever going to be all right again. How could it be? He'd just tried to murder his younger brother with his own hands! "Brother," he managed to say, furiously blinking the tears out of his eyes.

"D-Two's fine," Milly said, smiling as she smoothed down Shinya's hair. "He just fainted."

"Thank god," he said, even as he wondered how Milly could trust him after what he'd just almost done; if Shinya hadn't been there to protect her... "Damn it. Damn him!" he growled, looking down at the ground between his hands. In this one instance, he was grateful for the rain; he couldn't see his own tears through it. Lunging at Noal, knowing then that there was another person who had to answer for the atrocity that had almost taken place today, Takaya gathered his battered composure and forced himself to speak. "The Orbital Ring," he ground out. "You've got to take me to the Orbital Ring!"

"D-Boy!" Noal said; Takaya gripped the man's large collar tighter.

"Not in the condition you're in," Aki said; he knew she was trying to be kind, but he could see what she couldn't: he could see the way Shinya just lay there, limp as the corpse he'd come so very close to being.

He wasn't going to forget that; he couldn't forget that. "I've got to get there, please!" he shouted.

"Roger," Noal said, though he didn't sound particularly enthusiastic.

XX

His connection to his younger brothers' minds, tenuous as it had been, was gone entirely now. Wondering for a moment just what had happened, since he had lost his connection to Shinya's mind rather violently, rather than having his younger brother begin to notice him and hence block him out. It had almost seemed as if… Spear dismissed that possibility out of hand, since Takaya was not the type to murder his siblings; misguided he may have been, but his elder younger brother was no killer.

However, that still left him with the question of just what had happened; he could no longer pull even vague impressions from Takaya or Shinya's minds, which suggested that they were either fully aware of his presence, or that both of them had fallen unconscious.

When he began to sense Takaya's presence, growing stronger and more clear within his own mind even though he still remained unable to read his younger brother's intention, Spear smiled slightly. It seemed as if the elder of his two wayward younger brothers had indeed decided to return to him. He wondered for a moment where Shinya was, but then he realized that he and Takaya would easily be able to return to Earth and retrieve the younger of his wayward brothers; as well as that woman that Shinya seemed to be so enamored with.

However, when the space in front of him began to fill with brilliant, coruscating green light, the kind of light that could only be generated by a Voltekka, Spear tensed. Surely Takaya couldn't mean to fire that at- Spear's thoughts were abruptly interrupted as the energies of his younger brother's Voltekka surrounded and nearly consumed him. Screaming in the wake of the heat and pressure of the attack that had been unleashed on him, Spear was left staring up at the fathomless depths of interstellar space directly above him.

Why, little brother? Why would you attack me like that? Spear wondered, his thoughts lost to the uncaring cosmos; he would have asked Takaya directly, but his younger brother was still blocking him out. What happened to you down on Earth, that you would attack your own family like this?

XXI

When Pegas released him for the second time, and he slumped, exhausted to the Blue Earth's deck, Takaya hoped for a moment that he would be too tired for dreams. He knew what kind of dreams he would be having, after an experience like this, and while he knew that he would fully deserve each and every one of the nightmares that he was going to have, he didn't want to break down in front of Noal and Aki. Aki in particular; she'd never let him go until she knew everything he was feeling.

Even the things that could only be spoken about with family.

Closing his eyes for what only felt like a few seconds, Takaya wasn't surprised to find himself waking up in his bed, in his quarters. Rising, he shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed his vest, and made his way out of his quarters. He had to make at least some form of amends for this, even though he knew that nothing would really be the same between him and Shinya; even if his brother tried to act like everything was still just the way it had been, he would still know what he'd done.

When he came to Shinya's quarters, Takaya rang the chime, looked up and down the corridor to make sure that none of the other Space Knights were coming, and then dropped to his hands and knees. He hadn't wanted anyone else to see him like this, but he had to make things right with Shinya. He had to.

The door slid open, and Takaya took a deep breath. "Forgive me, Shinya… I know I don't deserve it, but-"

Takaya froze, feeling his younger twin's arms wrapping around him. "You're such an idiot, Ta-kun. I told you: I love you, even if you kill me."

It was like all of the air had left his lungs when Shinya said that; so when his younger twin kissed his right temple and began to guide him backwards into his room, Takaya was too confused to offer any kind of resistance. How could Shinya just forgive him like this, after what he'd nearly done? He'd nearly killed him, even after the two of them had promised that they would always protect each other!

When Shinya sat down on his bed, Takaya, overwhelmed by the sheer number of emotional shocks he'd been subject to during this long, horrible night, began at last to cry. Sobbing into his younger brother's lap, Takaya managed to gather himself enough to send one, last message: (Shinya, let me stay with you tonight… please.)

(Of course, brother,) Shinya said, and Takaya felt Shinya's hands on his head; his left just resting there, while his right combed through Takaya's hair. (Of course I will.)