The Headquarters rumbled and shook all around them, as the Radam monsters 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, Aki found herself wishing – not for the first time, and probably not for the last – that she could have sped up time, and thus let D-Boy and D-Two out to fight all the sooner. God knew they could all use the help.

"Come on, you two, just hang on," Noal urged, eyes raised to the ceiling as small bits of debris began raining down on them.

"We still have one more hour," Balzac said, a determined look on his face.

"Boys," she muttered, looking up at Pegas, and the silver cylinder of the pseudo-interlock chamber that Levin and Honda had built for D-Two to use while he was undergoing his own secondary transformation. "Chief, we should stop for awhile! Chief?"

"That won't be possible," the Chief said, though he sounded like he'd have been doing everything he could, if anything had been possible in the first place. "It's a highly unstable process, transforming Blade and Varis into Blaster Mode. It can't be interrupted, or they won't even have a fifty percent chance of survival. Interrupting the process would cause their bodies to self-destruct completely."

"Big deal, that just means we'll have to defend this base with our lives for one hour, right Master Freeman?" O'Toole 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.

"That's right," the Chief said, and Aki thought she could see the same tensed anticipation in his eyes that everyone else in the room was feeling; the Chief was too much of a professional to let it show anywhere else, though.

"All right, let's do it! I'm putting my life on the line for love!" Levin 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 D-Two would have to use, given the state his own tekkaset had ended up in during his last transformation.

"And for our boys!" Honda said, brandishing his wrench in a way that promised pain to anyone who crossed him.

"Sergeant Bernard," the Chief said, sounding as steady as he ever did; there were times Aki 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 Chief's reserve, right here and now.

"Yes?"

"I'd like you to take charge of this operation. Is that all right?" Chief Freeman asked, and Aki wondered for a moment just why he was so willing to do something like that, before realizing that it was probably because of O'Toole's more recent field-experience against the Radam; more recent than the Chief could claim, at least.

"That's all right. I've always told my troops to live to fight again, no matter what, because on the battlefield, it's the survivors who win. But, today it's different," O'Toole 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. "Protect my boys at all costs! No matter what happens to you!" She wasn't ashamed to admit that she herself joined the brief cheer that went up after O'Toole had made that pronouncement. "All right, then. I'm dividing you into three teams. I don't want to hear any complaints, even if you outrank me!" O'Toole continued, making his way over to one of the monitoring consoles so that he could call up a map of the Headquarters, and thus pinpoint all of the Radam monsters trying to force their way inside; still, there was more than likely to be at least one Tekkaman 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, anyway. As another screen rose up out of the monitoring console, this one displaying the interior layout of the Headquarters itself, Aki sighed.

"Fine by me, ex-Sergeant!" Balzac said, a wry, determined smirk on his face.

"First, the Sol Tekkamen will go out and get rid of as many of those monsters as possible," O'Toole said, nodding sharply.

"Gotcha," Noal said, sounding as calm and steady as Aki wished she could have been, under the circumstances. "Our job is to sweep away all the mosquitoes, then."

"You and Old Man Honda will join up with my troops in protecting the base from infiltrators. We know what the enemy looks like under that armor of theirs now, so keep your eyes open. Your positions are here and here," O'Toole said, gesturing at the map he'd opened. "I want you to move in pairs," he continued, turning his attention to Honda and Levin. "And, remember who you're fighting for," he added, turning a slightly teasing grin on Levin.

"Yeah!" the mechanic shot back, turning a good-natured glare on O'Toole as she held up the rifle she'd been given. "I'm fighting for love!"

Aki chuckled. "What am I going to be protecting?"

"And me, where should I go?" Milly asked, her enthusiasm somewhat at odds with the current situation, Aki couldn't help but think.

"You girls will be staying here with me," O'Toole said, pointing to the very place where all of them had gathered. "We'll be the last line of defense for my boys."

"Roger!" she said, saluting along with Milly.

"Of course, I want you fighting, too. Freeman, old boy," O'Toole continued, tossing a rifle over to Freeman, with a gentle sort of smile on his face.

"You might be surprised to hear this, but as a cadet, I got high marks in shooting," the Chief said, as he checked over the rifle in his hands. "This gun has special bullets made out of the talons of Radam monsters," the Chief continued, and there was a certain sort of grim pleasure to the expression on his face; Aki knew just how the Chief felt. "They're powerful enough to disable a Radam monster on their own," Aki winced, remembering all the trouble both twins had faced from those; yes, they were going to be used against an invading Tekkaman, but still… "I have other weapons here: shotguns, machine guns, and grenades." As the Chief had spoken, a storage-case had obediently risen from under the armored floor, smoothly opening on automatic hinges. "Go on and take your pick."

"I get it: an eye for an eye, and a Radam talon for a Radam monster," Noal said, picking up one of the chrome-colored rifles.

"This is great!" Balzac said, grinning as he picked out a rifle of his own.

"I'll protect him this time, just you watch," Levin said, grinning as she picked up one of the matte-black rifles next to it.

Noal laughed, seeming startled to have actually done it. "You're really getting into this, huh?"

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

"Everyone ready?" 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.

O'Toole 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 monsters.

"Okay, we have no time to lose!" O'Toole said, his voice little more than a growl; under the circumstances, Aki found that she couldn't really blame him. "Let's do it, men!"

Even as she joined in with the chorus of affirmations from her fellow Space Knights, Aki forced herself not to look back at Pegas, and the unnamed chamber where D-Two 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, Aki caught O'Toole'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 D-Boy and D-Two, 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 – Aki wasn't going to let herself consider the alternative – this war of theirs would have to continue.

I

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 Takaya were going through, Shinya 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 Honda and Levin had created for him to use in the absence of something like Pegas. He and Takaya 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 tekkaset had apparently gone the way of Takaya'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 Takaya had been in, those days right after Tekkaman Dagger had shattered his older twin's tekkaset and left him fending off the attacks from Omega's monsters all on his own; it was a nice feeling, but Shinya couldn't help wondering just what they were going to be able to do…

II

"We'll be fine, for the time being. This door is made of a tempered monocrystal compound metal, and it can withstand even a Radam monster's attack," Freeman 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 even a single Tekkaman, considering everything he'd seen Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Varis – and yes, even Tekkaman Spear – make their way past.

O'Toole whistled sharply. "Well now, that's sweet," he said. "If they do bust through, at least I'll share my coffin with two pretty girls! Although, this one does need to grow up a bit," he continued, looking over at Milly.

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.

III

When he and Balzac had taken the elevator up to the surface together, Noal couldn't help but find himself reminded of the time when he and Tekkaman Varis had made just the same kind of trip together. Sure, it wasn't like it was going to end up being Tekkaman 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 Radam monsters and not fight desperately for their lives against a Tekkaman made him feel a hell of a lot better about the situation.

As the pair of them continued to push back against the Radam monsters that were coming down on them like really, really unpleasant rain, Noal 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 Radam monster after Radam monster as they came falling steadily down on the Headquarters where the Gemini Boys were undergoing that metamorphosis of theirs, Noal tried as hard as he could to avoid looking back over his shoulder at the Headquarters 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.

IV

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 Omega-sama'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 Tekkaman 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 Omega-sama'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 Tekkaman 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 Radam monsters 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 Tekkaset once again, Lance raised it aloft.

"Teksetta!"

V

"It's been awhile since we last fought together, eh Levin?" Honda asked, as the pair of them made their way farther out, and into the more battle-damaged sections of the Headquarters.

"Yeah, I've been spending a lot more time working on Pegas, these days," she said, sharing a brief smile with her mechanic, as the pair of them continued their patrol. "I don't even get to spend enough time with D-Two," she said, thinking back to D-Two, and finding herself wishing for what had to be the millionth time that he and D-Boy could have come through this battle unscathed; or, at least no more scathed than their encounters with the Radam had left them, anyway. "I hope I get to see him again."

Yelping as the Headquarters shuddered around her, pitching her off her feet and nearly into Honda before the burly head mechanic managed to catch her, Levin shook her head as she got back to her feet.

"Ah, if I keep carrying heavy weapons like this, I'm going to end up looking just like my sexy D-Two," she said, turning to the man with a wry smile beginning to show on her face.

"Yeah?" Honda returned, wearing a wry smile of his own.

"I hope he'll still think I'm cute," she said, then grinned slyly. "Of course, I could always show him just how cute I still am." 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 Levin 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 D-Boy and D-Two where they were undergoing that metamorphosis of theirs. "They're both going to survive this, won't they Old Man?"

"I'm sure of it. Those boys will be just fine," 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, Honda, she mused, keeping a tight hold of her rifle as she and Honda 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 D-Two had his moments of uncertainty and fear; he just covered them a heck of a lot better than most people knew.

VI

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.

"You have nowhere to run in this narrow passage!" 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. Cutting down the two still standing between him and the fat human with his thinner compatriot, Lance picked up one of the remaining humans and held him out as a shield.

"Hold your fire, Levin," the fat human said.

He chuckled, 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 miserable fools," he sneered, continuing to close in upon the annoying humans who were so vainly attempting to impede his progress. "This is just another of your flaws: you always hesitate at the sight of a comrade used as a shield."

"That's so low!" the thin human – Levin, Lance recalled – shouted, revealing herself to be a woman.

"Where are Blade and Evil?" he demanded, having less than zero interest in anything else that these humans might have said. "I want to know where those traitors have hidden themselves. Stomping on a bunch of ants bores me."

VII

Here and now, finding herself under the gaze of one of the many, remaining Tekkamen 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'd heard that Spear did – well… It was terrifying, especially considering the way Levin had just watched him cut his way through the rest of her and Honda's fellow Space Knights, simply for standing in his way. Still, there was no way in hell that she and Honda were just going to let this guy go storming through the Headquarters, killing everyone in his way, until he found D-Two and D-Boy.

And so, while Honda put on as good an act as he could about not knowing where D-Boy and D-Two were, it wasn't the two of them who made the real impact in their standoff with the Tekkaman invading the Headquarters, 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 Tekkaman from the top of his armored head to the bottom of his feet, Levin struggled back to her own feet and looked at the rubble that had been scattered throughout the corridor in the wake of the detonation.

"Did he get him?" she muttered, only half-aware of the fact that she was speaking out loud to someone who might or might not have been listening.

"I don't know," Honda said, voice thickening a bit with the strength of the emotion he was clearly feeling.

"I'll go see," she asked, not particularly wanting to get close to what might very well prove to be a live, and probably angry, Tekkaman, but hurrying forward all the same.

"Be careful, Levin," Honda said, as the pair of them continued staring into the guts of their crumbling Headquarters.

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 Tekkaman 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, Levin found herself looking up at the Tekkaman, standing at ease near the top of the actual wall that they had all been standing just to the right of.

"What a primitive weapon," he commented idly. "Still, I'm not about to let a mere ant get away with injuring me," he said, chuckling in a way that couldn't help but come off as menacing, considering where they were and just what he was. "You'll pay for this," he noted, pulling another one of the offending shells from somewhere under his left arm. "With a blast from one of your own weapons!"

The sight of a Tekkaman 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 – Levin found herself almost literally having to fight her instinct to cringe in the face of the Tekkaman 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 her sweet D-Two and D-Boy 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 Honda had ended up in during their ill-fated confrontation with the Tekkaman who'd been trying so hard to force his way inside cracked and began to fall in on them. Throwing themselves forward, even though Honda had to know just as much as she did that they were still trapped in a collapsing Headquarters with a bloodthirsty Tekkaman, Levin's last coherent memory was of a bright burst of sparks and a sudden flash of pain…

VIII

Shinya, he said, reaching almost instinctively for Shinya'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, Ta-kun, Shinya said, a wry tone to his mental voice as his younger twin reached out in response. It's hard on me, too.

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

As much as he knew that everyone in Headquarters would be doing their best to protect them when the Radam inevitably attacked them in response to what they were trying to do, Takaya 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…

IX

Looking up at Pegas as it hung next to the pod that Levin and Honda had made for D-Two to rest in while he went through the same kind of process that was turning D-Boy into whatever kind of Tekkaman could be called a Blaster Tekkaman, Milly 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 D-Boy and D-Two 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 Tekkaman's armored footsteps, Milly 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 Tekkaman was trying to get inside.

"Here he comes," O'Toole said, standing up from where he'd been seated on the floor. "Spread out! It's the enemy."

"An enemy Tekkaman?" Aki asked, leaning in closer to the door, from where she was standing with O'Toole.

"But, it might be one of our comrades," Milly said, hoping it actually would be.

"Not possible," O'Toole said, glaring at the door.

"But, it could be," she said, not wanting to give up hope so soon.

"Aki, would you check?" the Chief asked, as all of them began to move toward the door that the Tekkaman who might be attacking them would have to come through on his way in.

"Yes, Chief," Aki said, as she made her way over to a nearby computer console.

Going over to where Aki was working, Milly 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 Headquarters; even the ones that didn't work anymore would have sent whatever they had recorded to the main computer for analysis. Looking over at Aki, when her fellow Space Knight narrowed her eyes at whoever it was on the screen, she turned to look back at the screen again.

"Mabashi Shinji," Aki 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. "That's who he was."

Milly wondered if anyone else was thinking about the little boy they'd met outside the forest of Tekkapods 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.

The four of them split into two groups, with her and the Chief on the right side of the double-doors, and Aki and O'Toole on the left. All of them were far enough out of the way that they would probably be safe from the blades that every Tekkaman she'd seen so far had all used when they were attacking, or at least that was what Milly 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 Tekkaman could do.

Still, knowing that D-Boy and D-Two were going to be waking up soon made her feel at least a little bit safer.

"Who 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 D-Two and D-Boy could feel it, waiting to wake up where they were. "Lance, or Sword?"

"He's the enemy," O'Toole 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 you can think about."

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

"Milly, stay back," the Chief 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.

"Roger!" she said, trying to make her voice sound as steady as she could.

"Right, the moment he breaks down the door, we're gonna smoke him," O'Toole said, actually sounding as calm as Milly wished she was at the moment. "Five minutes, don't let him near my boys for five minutes!" O'Toole 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 eleven centimeters.

The fist pulled back out, and whatever evil Tekkaman 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'Toole gave the order for them all to fire, and Milly 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'Toole called for them all to stop and Milly 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 Radam monsters, that D-Boy and D-Two wouldn't end up having to fight another Tekkaman 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'Toole told them all to keep steady, since they didn't actually know if they'd managed to kill the evil Tekkaman who was trying to attack them – or even drive him off – Milly tried not to think of just how many things could go wring even in such a short time.

"Did we get him?" 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 Tekkamen when they were around her.

X

Stepping forward, knowing that one of Omega's own Tekkamen wouldn't have been dispatched so easily – no matter how much she might have wished that could have been the case – Aki looked into the deceptively calm darkness in front of her, finding herself wondering what the Tekkaman 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 Tekkamen out of hiding. Looking out into the darkness that sheltered their enemy, Aki took a deep breath.

"Mabashi-kun, I know it's you out there-"

"Mabashi?" the Tekkaman in the shadows echoed, taking the bait and drawing Aki's attention to where he was: standing at ease on the ceiling of all places. He chuckled coldly. "Spear's always been sentimental, eh?" 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 Tekkamen Aki had ever had the dubious pleasure of watching in battle appearing in his hands as he landed. "I am Lance."

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

"You people are beyond salvation. The fact that I reached you here should've made you realize that your pitiful weapons have no effect," 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; Aki found herself wondering – for just a moment – what kind of a person Mabashi Shinji had been, before the Radam had tortured and warped him into the evil Tekkaman she could see standing before all of them now. "Unlike those misbegotten souls, Blade and Evil, I am a perfect Tekkaman!"

XI

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 Tekkamen – 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 pair of distinctly familiar presences.

"Ah, there you are," 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. "You uncompleted fools. What futile plan are you trying now?"

XII

Miyuki and Shinya, standing alone together against Spear and his forces… "Forgive me,"… all he could do was fly… Holding Shinya close, as the waves of Axe's self-destruction buffeted them both… Dagger's final scream as he died, along with a perverse, almost mournful sense of satisfaction… Facing the twisted kindness of what had once been Kengo… 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…

Blade 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 Tekkaplant channeled through him – whether it was the horribly familiar presence of one of the Radam's own Tekkamen, 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, Blade narrowed his eyes behind his crystalline visor. There was something distinctively small, almost insignificant, about the Tekkaman standing before him. Even as the power that had been channeled through him for so long, connecting him and Varis on what felt like an even more fundamental level than they previously had been, settled down to a more manageable level, Blade 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 Varis had originally undergone this procedure in the first place.

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

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

Grabbing Lance by the neck as soon as he'd finished his second transformation, Blade felt Varis falling in behind him, and the three of them rammed their way through the walls of the Headquarters 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 Blade could really make himself focus on was the fact that there was an enemy in front of him – he and Varis, 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 Varis were meant to be – somewhere they would have fit – but Blade pushed the feeling aside.

There was still Lance to be dealt with.

Let go of me! Lance demanded.

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

Narrowing his eyes behind his crystalline visor, Blade 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 Headquarters, Blade focused his attention on Lance again.

Just in time to catch Lance's Voltekka full in the face.

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

Ta-kun, he's really annoying, isn't he? Varis asked, and with their deepened connection to one another, he knew just what it was that his younger twin was talking about.

Yeah. Let's finish this! 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 Headquarters.

"Voltekka!" he roared, as the energies of his and Varis' newly enhanced greatest weapon sheared straight through Lance's inferior version of such, burning the foolishly defiant Tekkaman from the very air.

Shaking off the thought – Lance hadn't been defiant, he'd just been one more of the Radam's Tekkaman who'd been sent to attack them by Omega – Blade called to Varis, and the pair of them made their way back into the Headquarters again. Shaking his head as he flew back down into the room where he and Varis had undergone their transformation into… whatever new kind of Tekkaman that they had become, Blade 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 Chief was right about all this… he mused, with another shudder as he and Varis landed back inside the Headquarters again; he made for the sense of his Tekkaset that he always felt whenever Pegas was close, and he could clearly sense Varis doing the same with their own link. That was the only thing he could sense, however: only the link that he and Varis shared, tying them all the more closely together.

Shinya? 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. Are you here?

Yeah. Yeah, Ta-kun. Are you all right?

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

Shinya?

Ta-kun…

Takaya 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 Shinya actually was…