The Command Center rumbled and shook all around them, as the Spider-crabs that their proximity sensors had detected not so long ago came down on them all like some kind of horrible rain. Bracing herself as the floor shook under her feet, Star found herself wishing – not for the first time, and probably not for the last – that she could have sped up time, and thus let Slade and Saber out to fight all the sooner. God knew they could use the help.

"Oh man, I thought we just left this party," Ringo groused, eyes raised to the ceiling as small bits of debris began raining down on them.

"We were so close; just another hour," Balzac said, a stricken look on his face.

"Come on, you two," she muttered, looking up at Pegas, and the silver cylinder of the pseudo-interlock chamber that Maggie and Mac had built for Saber to use while he was undergoing his own secondary transformation. "Commander, do you think there's anything you could do? Maybe to speed things up a bit?"

"I'm afraid that isn't possible," the Commander said, though he sounded like he'd have been doing everything he could, if anything had been possible in the first place. "The amount of energy flowing through Slade and Saber's bodies has long since passed the point of no return. If it were to fluctuate in too great a manner, it wouldn't just stop their evolutionary process, it would trigger the immediate collapse of their cellular structure. Their bodies would simply self-destruct."

Star clenched her fists, feeling as if her heart was slowly being crushed by that same, unrelenting pressure. "Oh."

"The process will be over in another hour," the Commander said, and Star thought she could see the same tensed anticipation in his eyes that everyone else in the room was feeling; the Commander was too much of a professional to let it show anywhere else, though.

"In the meantime, we'll be the ones holdin' down the fort, am I right, Commander?" O'Roarke said, drawing their attention to where he was sitting, one of the Space Knights' newly-made rifles in his lap as he loaded and checked it in preparation for what they were going to have to do next; whatever that turned out to be. "Until Slade and Saber come back to us."

"I think that sums it up, Sergeant," the Commander said, sounding as steady as he ever did; there were times Star envied the man his composure, and other times when she found herself wondering just what it cost him to maintain it, in the end.

This time was one of the former; she really could have used some of the Commander's reserve, right here and now.

"So, no matter how long it takes, we're going to have to be the ones keeping Saber and Slade safe, this time," Maggie said, gathering herself as she made her way over to stand alongside the main group; just under the hanging forms of Pegas, and whatever they would end up calling the machine that Saber would have to use, given the state his Lapis Crystal had ended up in during his last transformation.

"Don't you worry, Commander, we won't let a single one of those aliens set so much as a foot in here!" Mac said, brandishing his wrench in a way that promised pain to anyone who crossed him.

She was glad for the sentiment, but she wondered if it would do any good, in the end.

"Sergeant O'Roarke."

"Yes, Commander?"

"You are in command, now," Commander Jamison said, and Star wondered for a moment just why he was so willing to do something like that, before realizing that it was probably because of O'Roarke's more recent field-experience against the Radam; more recent than the Commander could claim, at least. "This is more your field of expertise."

"Well, I've always told my men to survive at any cost," O'Roarke said, rising back to his feet with the kind of determination that she'd seen more and more in each and every one of them as their war against the Radam wore on. "Live to fight again. But now, what I'm saying is that our job is to protect Slade and Saber. Those lads can save the world, so their safety is all that counts!" She wasn't ashamed to admit that she herself joined the brief cheer that went up after O'Roarke had made that pronouncement. "All right, the plan is this," O'Roarke continued, making his way over to one of the monitoring consoles so that he could call up a map of the Command Center, and thus pinpoint all of the Spider-crabs trying to force their way inside; still, there was more than likely to be at least one Teknoman leading them. She could only hope that Spear was still out of commission, since she didn't know if either of the twins would have been able to deal with him; mentally, at least. "We'll break up into three teams: two teams for assault, and one for defense," O'Roarke continued, as another screen rose up out of the monitoring console, this one displaying the interior layout of the Command Center itself.

"I guess everyone knows what Ringo and I'll be doing," Balzac said, a wry, determined smirk on his face.

"That's right: you'll both be in your Tekno-suits," O'Roarke said, nodding sharply. "You'll head out and push the Spider-crabs back just as far as ya can."

"You got it," Ringo said, sounding as calm and steady as Star wished she could have been, under the circumstances. "Don't worry, sir. We'll get the job done."

"Right," O'Roarke said, looking about as pleased as Star had ever seen him. "Now, you two will be stationed alongside my men," he continued, turning his attention to Mac and Maggie. "And, just try to remember who it is you're fighting for," he added, turning a slightly teasing grin on Maggie.

"Yeah, yeah," the mechanic shot back, turning a good-natured glare on O'Roarke as she held up the rifle she'd been given. "I know, everyone can see it by now."

Star chuckled. "All right, Sergeant O'Roarke, where do you want us to be stationed?"

"Yeah; we'll stay wherever you want," Tina said, her enthusiasm somewhat at odds with the current situation, Star couldn't help but think.

"I want ya both right here with me, protecting our Teknomen," O'Roarke said, pointing to the very place where all of them had gathered. "If those two don't make it through this, then the Earth is lost."

"Yes, sir," she said, saluting along with Tina.

"Now, how about you, Commander?" O'Roarke continued, tossing a rifle over to Jamison, with a gentle sort of smile on his face. "Ya remember how to use one of these things?"

"It's been quite some time since I used a weapon in combat," the Commander said, as he checked over the rifle in his hands. "But, I believe I still remember how," the Commander continued, and there was a certain sort of grim pleasure to the expression on his face; Star knew just how the Commander felt. "These newly-developed weapons use a special, high-powered propellant. As well, the ammunition it uses was manufactured from recovered Spider-crab claws." Star winced, remembering all the trouble both twins had faced from those; yes, they were going to be used against an invading Teknoman, but still… "This ammunition will work where ordinary bullets would just bounce off." As the Commander had spoken, a storage-case had obediently risen from under the armored floor, smoothly opening on automatic hinges. "There's a variety of weapons for you to choose from."

"Commander, there's enough firepower in here to take over a small country," Ringo said, picking up one of the chrome-colored rifles.

"Well then, we shouldn't have that much trouble taking on a full-sized Teknoman," Maggie said, smirking as she picked up one of the matte-black rifles next to it.

Ringo laughed, seeming startled to have actually done it. "Okay, someone's been hanging around Saber too much."

Maggie stuck her tongue out at him, while around them she and Tina both laughed; though she sobered quickly, since this was hardly the time for that kind of thing.

"All right, so what are we waiting for?" Balzac asked, once their entire group had armed themselves with the new rifles that had been created with an eye toward giving humanity as a whole a fighting chance against the Radam. "Let's get the job done."

O'Roarke looked like he might have said something in response to the determination that all of them couldn't help but see in the eyes of everyone present in the room, but just then the entire compound shuddered under what could only be the impact of more of the Radam's horrible Spider-crabs.

"All right, that's enough of this lollygaggin' around," O'Roarke said, his voice little more than a growl; under the circumstances, Star found that she couldn't really blame him. "Let's go out there and get 'em!"

Even as she joined in with the chorus of affirmations from her fellow Space Knights, Star forced herself not to look back at Pegas, and the unnamed chamber where Saber had been placed while he underwent his own transformation. The transformation that would either save her boys, or kill them. Wincing as she forced those horrible thoughts down again, Star caught O'Roarke's eye.

The old soldier nodded kindly to her, and she sighed; there was still the tension of not knowing just what it was that was going to happen – not just to Slade and Saber, but to all of them, as well – but until the Space Knights managed to drive the Radam away from the Earth and all of her remaining people – Star wasn't going to let herself consider the alternative – this war of theirs would have to continue.

001001001001

He could all but feel his heart beating even down to his fingertips, and with all of the energies that were being forced into him – through him – by the process that he and Slade were going through, Saber found himself wondering just how many hours it had actually been. Sure, he knew it felt like it had been ages since he'd first climbed into the strange chamber that Mac and Maggie had created for him to use in the absence of something like Pegas. He and Slade had gone in just before the pair of them could find out anything about what their fellow Space Knights had been planning, to keep him in the fight after his own teknocrystal had apparently gone the way of Slade's, but he could at least be confident that the problem would be solved.

There wasn't much chance that his friends and fellow Space Knights would leave him in the kind of situation that Slade had been in, those days right after Gunnar had shattered his older twin's teknocrystal and left him fending off the attacks from Darkon's Spider-crabs all on his own; it was a nice feeling, but Saber couldn't help wondering just what they were going to be able to do

000101001001

"There, that should do it," Jamison said, knowing even as he did that the doors standing before them all would not be capable of standing up to a particularly determined assault from a single Teknoman, considering everything he'd seen Slade and Saber – and yes, even Spear – make their way past. "For the time being, Slade and Saber are safe. These doors are double-bonded neutrino steel. They're capable of stopping a small atom-bomb," he said.

The shuddering of the facility all around them, combined with the sounding alarms as the enemy drew ever closer, served to remind all of those present just how much each and every one of them were risking to hold the line against the Radam.

111001010010

When he and Balzac had taken the elevator up to the surface together, Ringo couldn't help but find himself reminded of the time when he and Saber had made just the same kind of trip together. Sure, it wasn't like it was going to end up being Spear they were facing right here and now, but it was still him and a buddy in their full battle-kit going up to face the forces that the Radam and their leader were aiming to bury them under. Still, the fact that they were only going to need to bushwhack some Spider-crabs and not fight desperately for their lives against a Teknoman made him feel a hell of a lot better about the situation.

As the pair of them continued to push back against the Spider-crabs that were raining down on them like really, really unpleasant rain, Ringo found himself wondering just when and where the next shoe was going to drop. There was no question in his mind that it was going to drop, with the Radam closing in on them like the proverbial noose around their necks, but the question of when and where still remained.

Panting as he shot down Spider-crab after Spider-crab as they came raining steadily down on the Command Center where the Wonder Twins were undergoing that metamorphosis of theirs, Ringo tried as hard as he could to avoid looking back over his shoulder at the Command Center when he would chance to lose sight of it during the course of the battle that he and Balzac were waging against the Radam's brainless cannon-fodder. It wasn't like that kind of thing was going to be any help, not considering what the pair of them were currently facing.

It wasn't like it was going to make the time they still had left go any faster.

00100100100

He'd shed his armor some time ago, knowing that even the human fools who staffed that place would not be so foolish as to allow him uncontested access to their little hole if he were wearing the armor that marked him as one of Lord Darkon's chosen. In a way, it was pleasing to know that those creatures who had once been his own were not such fools as to fail to take heed of the presence of a Teknoman among them. Still, in another way it was rather troublesome.

On the other hand, walking among them as one of their own and then turning upon them with all of the power that he had been granted as one of Lord Darkon's own was a rather attractive prospect.

Making his way into the hole where all of those pathetic humans were attempting to hide from those who would be their masters, Lance timed his movements carefully in order to evade the notice of those humans who had been assigned to patrol the outer perimeter of this facility of theirs. Because, while it was true that the humans would often prove too dull to realize when there was a Teknoman in their very midst, even such creatures as they would come all too readily to suspect him if they were to see him making his way inside from the open tundra.

It was a troublesome fact, but it was no less a fact for all that.

When he'd managed to make his way into one of the elevators that would take him into the lower levels of the pitiful ice-hole he was presently infiltrating, Lance folded his arms neatly behind his back and made his way inside. There were a great many things that the proper attitude and a great deal of bluffing could cover, at least so long as one made certain that they were not subject to suspicion in the first place. The ground pitched under him, clearly the result of a great many Spider-crabs and their collective efforts to collapse this pitiful hole into the ground where it belonged, nearly covering the heavy sound of a human's clumsy footfalls.

"Excuse me, sir," the human called, as though Lance would be remotely interested in anything he had to say; however, when Lance turned to dismiss the man and hence be rid of him, a strange thing happened: that same human's eyes locked on his features as though he was attempting to memorize them for some reason or other, before turning suddenly and slamming his fist down upon what turned out to be some kind of an alarm.

Catching up with the man before he could take so much as a single step away from the alarm he had activated, Lance shattered his spine and ground his skull underfoot. While it was true that there was no force that the humans possessed that could stand against him – save for the traitors, and he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the pair of them since he had begun making his way into this useless facility in the first place – but it irritated him that he'd not been capable of evading the gaze of the humans inhabiting this place while he had been making his way inside.

Hissing through his teeth as he drew up his teknocrystal once again, Lance raised it aloft.

"Tekno-power!"

1101010010101

"It's good to have you back, Maggie, I'm just sorry it's under these circumstances," Mac said, as the pair of them made their way farther out, and into the more battle-damaged sections of the Command Center.

"It's great to be back," she said, sharing a brief smile with her mechanic, as the pair of them continued their patrol. "Though, I hear you about the circumstances," she said, thinking back to Saber, and finding herself wishing for what had to be the millionth time that he and Slade could have come through this battle unscathed; or, at least no more scathed than their encounters with the Radam had left them, anyway. "I only wish I could do something-"

Yelping as the Command Center shuddered around her, pitching her off her feet and nearly into Mac before the burly head mechanic managed to catch her, Maggie shook her head as she got back to her feet.

"Heck of a change, being out here on the front lines, huh Mac?" she asked, turning to the man with a wry smile beginning to show on her face.

"Does that mean you're glad to be out here doin' your part, lass, or that you can't wait to go back behind your computer desk and get back to crunching numbers again?" Mac returned, wearing a wry smile of his own.

"I haven't decided yet, but you'll probably be the first to know when I do," she said, then grinned slyly. "Maybe the second." The pair of them shared a brief moment of levity, amid all the tension of the battle that was still clearly in the offing, before Maggie found all of that same tension crashing back down on her by looking at the darkened hallways they were moving through; a lot of their power having been diverted so that they could feed it into Slade and Saber where they were undergoing that metamorphosis of theirs. "Mac, do you think we'll ever be able to take our planet back?"

"Absolutely," the burly mechanic said, with the kind of confidence in his tone that could have easily been mistaken for bravado if someone didn't know him well.

I hope you're right, Mac, she mused, keeping a tight hold of her rifle as she and Mac continued on their way down through the corridors in front of them. It wasn't as though she was trying to be a pessimist, but the constant attacks that each and every one of the Space Knights had been dealing with from seemingly all sides were enough to make anyone more than a bit uncertain. Particularly when it came to the prospect of the future.

She knew, after having been so close to him for so long, that even Saber had his moments of uncertainty and fear; he just covered them a heck of a lot better than most people knew.

00100100011

Cutting his way through yet more of the pitiful forces that the humans had arrayed against him, Lance growled deep in his throat as he once again found himself the target of those irritating humans and their useless weapons. Batting the worthless projectiles aside as he forged his way deeper into this little ice-hole that those irritating creatures were attempting to shelter in, nearly snarling with every step. Even they had to know that their efforts were futile, but if they needed to be shown such a thing once again, Lance would be perfectly amenable to educating them.

The sound of what seemed to be plasma fire as the humans attempted in vain to drive him back with such a dull thing as that brought Lance's attention back to his present battle from where he had allowed it to wander in the face of the humans' continuing intransigence and the clear futility of such a thing, and Lance took hold of his weapon to cut his way through their ranks once again. It was a troublesome thing, that these ants would attempt to hinder him in spite of the clear fact that not a single one of them would be able to so much as scratch his wondrous armor with the pitiful weapons they were attempting to wield against him. And so he cut them down, with none of the mercy that he would have perhaps shown if they had possessed the sense to remove themselves from his path when he was attempting to make his way into this place.

The sight of yet more of those irritating humans storming into the room even as he attempted to push forward caused Lance to growl almost involuntarily, deep in his throat where the sound itself was perfectly covered by the weapons that the humans were continuing to attempt to use upon him, in spite of the obvious futility of every such attempt they had made in the past. When an explosion blinded the humans vainly attempting to assault him, Lance held himself poised and ready for a long moment, waiting until the humans' own arrogance had seen them lowering their weapons and beginning to make their way forward as though something so simple as that had been the end of him.

Cutting down two of the fools before him in their very tracks, Lance leaped forward, grabbing one of the three remaining humans and lifting the little man into the air before the very eyes of his compatriots.

"That's enough!" shouted the foolish, fat human who had thus far been fortunate enough to escape Lance's notice while he had engaged the fool's compatriots. "Put him down!"

"You're not seriously attempting to give me an order are you?" he asked, not quite certain himself whether he was more amused by the fat human's sheer audacity, or annoyed by it; under their present circumstances, however, Lance found himself coming down on the side of the former. "You puny creatures never cease to amuse." He laughed. "What will you do if I don't, pray tell?"

"Bullies like you are always cowards," the thin one standing next to the fat man spat, revealing herself to be a woman.

"This conversation is swiftly becoming boring," he sneered, continuing to close in upon the annoying humans who were so vainly attempting to impede his progress. "However, I suppose you tiny things might prove to be of at least some use to me: tell me where the traitors are, and I might just decide to have mercy on you."

1101101110101

Here and now, finding herself under the gaze of one of the many, remaining Teknomen who didn't have the Earth's best interests at heart – and one who didn't even seem to bother faking it, the way she heard Spear did – well… It was pretty terrifying, especially considering the way Maggie had just watched him cut his way through the rest of her and Mac's fellow Space Knights, simply for standing in his way. Still, there was no way in hell that she and Mac were just going to let this guy go storming through the Command Center, killing everyone in his way, until he found Saber and Slade.

And so, while Mac put on as good an act as he could about not knowing where Slade and Saber were, it wasn't the two of them who made the real impact in their standoff with the Teknoman invading the Command Center, but the soldier who'd been grabbed after the rest of his unit had been cut down. Diving out of the way of the explosion that engulfed the invading Teknoman from the top of his armored head to the bottom of his feet, Maggie struggled back to her own feet and looked at the rubble that had been scattered throughout the corridor in the wake of the detonation.

"I hope that did it," she muttered, only half-aware of the fact that she was speaking out loud to someone who might or might not have been listening.

"Brave lad," Mac said, accent thickening a bit with the strength of the emotion he was clearly feeling.

"Do you think it's safe to go see what happened?" she asked, not particularly wanting to get close to what might very well prove to be a live, and probably angry, Teknoman, but knowing that might very well be what she and Mac ended up having to do.

"Nothin' for it but to press forward, lass," Mac said, as the pair of them continued staring into the guts of their crumbling Command Center.

"You're right," she said, sighing even as the pair of them began moving forward again.

There were large slabs of fallen concrete, and even small fires, all along the path that they were having to force their way through as they tried to see just what had ended up happening to the Teknoman who'd been trying to force his way inside while there were still Space Knights alive to stand in his way. Leaping backward with a gasp, Maggie found herself looking up at the Teknoman, standing at ease near the top of the actual wall that they had all been standing just to the right of.

"Clever," he commented idly, though Maggie knew enough about Radam Teknomen to suspect that he was probably being sarcastic. "That almost made me blink," he said, chuckling in a way that couldn't help but come off as menacing, considering where they were and just what he was. "Spider-crab claws," he noted, pulling one of the offending shells from somewhere under his left arm. "Irritatingly inventive little things that you are, you've been a thorn in thorn in our sides for far too long."

The sight of a Teknoman stalking toward them, ill-intent in every line of his armored body, wasn't one for the faint of heart. And even with all that she personally had seen and done over the course of the Earth's long war against the Radam – which, naturally, felt even longer during times like this – Maggie found herself almost literally having to fight her instinct to cringe in the face of the Teknoman who clearly wanted nothing more than to finish cutting his way through the remaining Space Knights standing in his way and then go on to butcher Saber and Slade while they were helpless to defend themselves.

And, as if all of that wasn't enough, the already-stressed ceiling of the corridor she and Mac had ended up in during their ill-fated confrontation with the Teknoman who'd been trying so hard to force his way inside cracked and began to fall in on them. Throwing themselves forward, even though Mac had to know just as much as she did that they were still trapped in a collapsing Command Center with a bloodthirsty Teknoman, Maggie's last coherent memory was of a bright burst of sparks and a sudden flash of pain…

101001000101

(I keep having to remind myself to breathe,) he said, reaching almost instinctively for Saber's comforting presence as the energies that the pair of them were being subjected to continued to roar through him.

It was almost like being in his armor, but at the same time he could feel the changes happening… something about him was growing, becoming more powerful with every hammering beat of his heart.

(I know what you mean,) Saber said, a wry tone to his mental voice as his younger twin reached out in response. (I know how many times you and I have transformed together, but this feels different.)

(Yeah,) he said, knowing just as well as Saber did what it was they weren't saying.

As much as he knew that everyone in the Command Center would be doing their best to protect them when the Radam inevitably attacked them in response to what they were trying to do, Slade couldn't help but wonder when this interminable process – as much as it would help in their battle against the Radam – would finally be over

111010101111

Looking up at the Teknobot as it hung next to the pod that Maggie and Mac had made for Saber to rest in while he went through the same kind of process that was turning Slade into whatever kind of Teknoman could be called a super Teknoman, Tina held on tighter to her rifle and prayed for both of their safety. She didn't know just how long it was going to be until Slade and Saber were both finished and could come out without it being dangerous for them, since she'd really been more concerned if the pair of them would be okay, after everything they were having to go through to help protect the Earth from everything the Radam were trying to do to it, but after hearing that there was only five minutes more that they had to wait…

Well, it was really the best feeling she'd had since the pair of them had been forced to go through this whole process in the first place.

So, when she began hearing the sound of a Teknoman's armored footsteps, Tina turned with all of the other Space Knights to look at the door. It was the only thing standing between all of them and whatever evil Teknoman was trying to get inside.

"We had reports that one of Darkon's Teknomen had attempted to infiltrate the Command Center in human form," the Commander said, as all of them began to move toward the door that the Teknoman attacking them would have to come through on his way in.

"One of the cameras might have picked him up," Star said, as she made her way over to a nearby computer console. "I'll see if I can determine who he was."

Going over to where Star was working, Tina watched the computer as it scrolled through the footage that had been recorded from all of the cameras that had been recorded by the cameras in the Command Center; even the ones that didn't work anymore would have sent whatever they had recorded to the main computer for analysis. Looking over at Star, when her fellow Space Knight narrowed her eyes at whoever it was on the screen, she turned to look back at the screen again.

"It's Shinji Mabashi," Star said, a controlled sort of anger in her tone as she looked at the pictures she'd pulled up while she had been looking through the database. "Though that's just the name that was entered in the Argos' records once all of the crew had been selected."

Tina wondered if anyone else was thinking about the little boy they'd met outside the forest of teknopods so long ago, and just how much his name had changed from the one that had been entered in the Argos' crew manifest when the ship had taken off.

"This is it," Sergeant O'Roarke said, standing up as they all started falling into step with him on his way. "Let's go."

The four of them split into two groups, with her and the Commander on the right side of the double-doors, and Star and O'Roarke on the left. All of them were far enough out of the way that they would probably be safe from the blades that every Teknoman she'd seen so far had all used when they were attacking, or at least that was what Tina found herself hoping, but she knew just as well as any of the other Space Knights in the room just what kind of damage a Teknoman could do.

Still, knowing that Slade and Saber were going to be waking up soon made her feel at least a little bit safer.

"Quiet, everyone," O'Roarke said, as the armored footsteps outside the door grew louder and louder, as the Teknoman outside got closer.

"Which one do you think he is?" she asked, feeling the need to at least say something to break the simmering tension that had settled over them all; she wondered if even Saber and Slade could feel it, waiting to wake up where they were. "Lance, or Sword?"

"He's the enemy," O'Roarke said, a stern look on his face as he looked from her then back to the doors they were all standing guard over. "That's all we need ta know."

Before any of them could say anything else, the doors bulged inward around the impact of what seemed to be one of the Teknoman's fists, and then she started hearing the sounds of the Teknoman on the other side hammering away at the metal. Hammering at the only thing protecting them all from whatever evil Teknoman was on the other side of them. Probably with his fists, since she knew that Slade and Saber were both strong enough to do that kind of thing, all on their own.

"Stay calm, Tina," the Commander said, a gentle hand on her right arm as he tried to steady her; she thought it was nice of him, but under the circumstances it wasn't working very well. "You'll be all right."

"Yes, sir," she said, trying to make her voice sound as steady as she could.

"Stand by," O'Roarke said, actually sounding as calm as Tina wished she was at the moment. "I want everyone ready and moving when I give the signal. When you fire, cover the entire hallway: top to bottom, and side to side," O'Roarke said, just as an armored fist punched straight through the part of the door where he'd been standing, just missing his left shoulder by what looked like about six inches.

The fist pulled back out, and whatever evil Teknoman it was on the other side of the door they were all standing guard over repeated the action three more times, before the section of the door that he'd almost literally punched out went toppling to the floor with a metallic clatter. O'Roarke gave the order for them all to fire, and Tina braced herself against the recoil of the auto-rifle she was holding. After what felt like the longest few minutes in the history of everything, O'Roarke called for them all to stop and Tina let herself breathe again.

She also left herself hope that, since the ammo they had all been using had been made out of the recovered claws of a bunch of Spider-crabs, that Slade and Saber wouldn't end up having to fight another Teknoman right after they had finished going through the transformation that was going to end up causing them such problems already. Breathing heavily, even as O'Roarke told them all to keep steady, since they didn't actually know if they'd managed to kill the evil Teknoman who was trying to attack them – or even drive him off – Tina tried not to think of just how many things could go wring even in such a short time.

"Is that it?" she couldn't quite stop herself from asking, looking out into the darkness of the hall and wishing for a moment that she could sense other Teknomen when they were around her.

000100100111

Stepping forward, knowing that one of Darkon's own Teknomen wouldn't have been dispatched so easily – no matter how much she might have wished that could have been the case – Star looked into the deceptively calm darkness in front of her, finding herself wondering what the Teknoman looking back from behind his armored visor would have seen. She knew that he might very well have been planning to wait them out, to convince the Space Knights that he was dead and there was hence no harm in letting their guard down in the situation they'd found themselves confronted with, but she also knew that there was a sure-fire way of drawing any of the Radam's Teknomen out of hiding. Looking out into the darkness that sheltered their enemy, Star took a deep breath.

"Shinji, I know it's you out there-"

"Shinji?" the Teknoman in the shadows echoed, taking the bait and drawing Star's attention to where he was: standing at ease on the ceiling of all places. He chuckled coldly. "How quaint. You insects must have grown too accustomed to your confrontations with Spear; he always was the sentimental sort," another icy chuckle, this one accompanying his leap back down from the ceiling, that same kind of weapon that she'd seen in the armored hands of every one of the Teknomen Star had ever had the dubious pleasure of watching in battle appearing in his hands as he landed. "My name is Lance."

Leaping backwards just as the Radam Teknoman had jumped down from his perch, Star still found herself nearly caught by the tips of Lance's armored fingers as he grabbed for her.

"So, you have learned something from your encounters," Lance said, with that same, cruel humor that seemed to be just as much a part of him as the false, or at least twisted, kindness that Spear had always seemed to show them; Star found herself wondering – for just a moment – what kind of a person Shinji Mabashi had been, before the Radam had tortured and warped him into the evil Teknoman she could see standing before all of them now. "Still, I'm not here for any of you little bugs. I'm here for those traitors you keep stubbornly protecting. Now, where are they?"

001010010010100

Narrowing his eyes behind the crystalline visor that allowed him to see while he wore the armor that none of the pitiful insects would ever be able to pierce with the toys they had brought into this battle with them, Lance focused his telepathic senses on the links that all Teknomen – even the traitor twins – shared with one another. Passing over the link that he shared with Spear – newly buzzing with purposeful activity; a sure sign that their bold leader was set to make his return to the battlefield at last – Lance grinned as he locked onto a a pair of distinctly familiar presences.

"Ah, all snug in their little steel cocoons, are they?" he chuckled, raising his lancer in preparation for a killing sweep; Spear could avoid taking any more wounds to that gentle heart of his, and they would be free of the traitors in any case. "Well, that makes things quite a bit easier."

1110101101111

Shara and Cain, standing alone together against Spear and his forces… "I'm sorry,", all he could do was fly… Holding Saber close, as the waves of Axe's Tekno-bolt buffeted them both… Gunnar's final scream as he died, along with a perverse, almost mournful sense of satisfaction… Facing the twisted kindness of what had once been Conrad… Always the two of them; just the way it had been, and the way it had to be, since they'd left the Argos behind…

A hammering heartbeat- the thrumming of power in every one of his enhanced senses…

Slade didn't know quite what it was that had awakened him from what felt like roughly a solid week of having the thrumming power of the Radam's teknoplant channeled through him – whether it was the horribly familiar presence of one of the Radam's own Teknomen, or else it was simply because the process had come to its appointed end – but when he opened his eyes to see Lance standing before him, Slade narrowed his eyes behind his crystalline visor. There was something distinctively small, almost insignificant, about the Teknoman standing before him. Even as the power that had been channeled through him for so long, connecting him and Saber on what felt like an even more fundamental level than they previously had been, settled down to a more manageable level, Slade still found that he didn't quite feel like himself.

It was strange, but he almost felt like there was more to him than there had been when he and Saber had originally undergone this procedure in the first place.

"Lance," he said, and was almost surprised when his voice came out as a growl; it took time, actually, for him to remember just how much he despised Lance.

It almost felt as though he could have ordered the Teknoman standing in front of him to stop attacking, if he and Saber had agreed to do it. Shuddering briefly, even as Lance launched an attack that reminded him a lot of the one Gunnar had tried to use on him and Saber, back when they had been fighting him on the Space Ring, Slade called on the new power that he could feel at the back of his mind.

The one that he and Saber had risked their lives to obtain.

Grabbing Lance by the neck as soon as he'd finished his second transformation, Slade felt Saber falling in behind him, and the three of them rammed their way through the walls of the Command Center in front of them. Blasting his way steadily upward – there was a part of him that thought he shouldn't have been doing something like this, but all Slade could really make himself focus on was the fact that there was an enemy in front of him – he and Saber, with Lance being dragged in their wake, burst out into the open air once again. Again, there was the slightest shiver of wrongness, as if there was another place where he and Saber were meant to be – somewhere they would have fit – but Slade pushed the feeling aside.

There was still Lance to be dealt with.

(What are you?!) Lance demanded.

The sheer arrogance… Slade shook the thought off; he shouldn't have been thinking of Lance as one of his inferiors, the Teknoman was a danger to everyone and everything that Slade still cared about. As Lance fired on them again, Slade found that he could barely feel the impacts all over his armor.

(Get away from me!) Lance snarled, unleashing another hail of those strangely-familiar yellow bursts of light from his chest-mounted launchers.

Narrowing his eyes behind his crystalline visor, Slade tried once again to push aside the feeling that Lance should have been bowing to him. It didn't make sense, and there was some part of his mind that realized that he wouldn't be himself anymore if he tried to dig too deeply into whatever that feeling was. Walling his mind off from whatever it was that had been awakened within him when he had underwent the second transformation within the Command Center, Slade focused his attention on Lance again.

Just in time to catch Lance's Tekno-bolt full in the face.

But, it was as though he didn't care about the fact that he'd taken a Tekno-bolt full in the face; the link he shared with Saber was completely intact, even a bit stronger than before, so he knew that his younger twin was as perfectly well as he himself was.

(Are you getting the same feeling I am?) Saber asked, and with their deepened connection to one another, he knew just what it was that his younger twin was talking about.

(Yeah,) he said, feeling a harsh smirk beginning to pull at his altered face as he and his counterpart – his younger twin, who had supported him throughout every battle that he'd engaged in against the forces arrayed against them – faced down Lance in the air above the Command Center. (I know just what you mean.)

"Double Vortex-bolt!" he roared alongside his younger twin, as the energies of his and Saber's newly-engineered greatest weapon sheared straight through Lance's inferior version of such, burning the foolishly defiant Teknoman from the very air.

Shaking off the thought – Lance hadn't been defiant, he'd just been one more of the Radam's Teknoman who'd been sent to attack them by Darkon – Slade called to Saber, and the pair of them made their way back into the Command Center again. Shaking his head as he flew back down into the room where he and Saber had undergone their transformation into… whatever new kind of Teknoman that they had become, Slade tried to lock off the parts of his mind that had clearly been affected by whatever kind of transformation they had both gone through.

Maybe the Commander was right about all this… he mused, with another shudder as he and Saber landed back inside the Command Center again; he made for the sense of his teknocrystal that he always felt whenever Pegas was close, and he could clearly sense Saber doing the same with his own. That was the only thing he could sense, however; only the link that he and Saber shared, tying them all the more closely together.

(Saber?) he called, pulling as close as he could manage to the sense of where his younger twin was – there was a muted sense of pressure, nothing like the sheer sense of being crushed by all the energy that had been fed into him not long ago, but just the lightest sense that he might have been aware of his younger twin's grip on one of his arms, if he'd been aware of physical sensations at all – as best as he could, under the circumstances. (You mind being my eyes?)

(You mean you can't see anything, either?)

The sense of worry that he got from Saber felt all the more overwhelming, with the lack of any other kind of stimuli except the purely telepathic, but then, all of a sudden…

(Saber, what's-)

(I don't-)

Slade was almost sure he screamed, but without a single means of telling what was going on around them, he didn't even know how close Saber actually was