Guyver Ryoga / Ryoga 1/2 : Worlds in Collision
A fanfic about three alternate Ranma 1/2 Universes
by Mark Latus
Part 5 : Invincible Defender P-chan
2:30 am Tuesday Morning - Tendo Dojo - Guyver Ryoga Timeline
Harbel was an excellent example of the mindset Kronos looked for in its
Zoanoids. Viscious, cruel and happy at doing things that would sicken many
sadists. Lithorne was more of a follower, he could commit atrocities because
of a complete lack of empathy. He neither disliked or reveled in his kills.
Kronos preferred people like Harbel, a happy employee is a productive employee.
In any case both were extremely dangerous. As he prepared to kill
Nabiki's pet prior to dismembering her Harbel couldn't help wondering why she
wasn't terrified. He was about to get his answer.
The piglet stood on its hind legs and oinked loudly, "BWEEEE!" It was
immediately surrounded by a sphere of energy that shredded the flooring it
stood on. Within it an alien symbiote reconfigured itself for its host's
current form. Harbel got a brief glimpse of something like an armoured
football. Then there was a massive pain in his chest and he felt nothing ever
again.
Being behind Harbel Lithorne got to see the thing explode out of his
comrade's back after punching right through him. It headed for the ceiling,
bounced off and headed for him. The girl was shouting "WE NEED ONE ALIVE!"
It changed course, avoiding impact with Lithorne's face, and headed for the
floor. Lithorne suddenly felt a massive pain in his ankle. Probably because
it wasn't attached to his foot anymore. He screamed, collapsed into a seated
position and wrapped his tentacles around the stump. The four legged thing
stood watching him. The basic shape was a small pig, a small pig covered in
something that resembled the biological armour the Guyver wore. The
resemblance to the pictures Kronos had shown him and his fellow troopers was
unmistakeable.
The girl came over, stopping outside of his immediate striking range.
"I have a few questions for you."
Lithorne was not in a good mood, "You fucking bitch I'll rip ..."
His monologue was interupted by Nabiki saying, "P-chan, take his other
foot off." The pig gave a "bweee" that presumably meant "Sure".
"WAIT!" That thing was some sort of Guyver and not being a Hyperzoanoid
it could cut him to ribbons. "You had some questions ma'm?" The pig thing
checked its leap. It still radiated hostility, just waiting for the order to
kill him.
Very coldly Nabiki asked "Where's the rest of my family?" To herself she
added, "If they're dead I'm going to tell Ryoga to cut you apart slowly."
"Uh well we don't know where most of them are. We grabbed those two
girls but no one else was home. Me and Harbel ..." He broke off, looked at
Harbel's remains and swallowed nervously. From the way his audience was
looking he'd better get back to his story. "Me and Harbel we were supposed to
wait here and kill Saotome, your father and you. You're the first one to show
up."
"I see. What happened to Ranko and Akane?" She kept her voice level,
she was not going to cry in front of this thing. But it sounded like Kasumi
all over again.
"The others took them with them." The Guyver pig growled and stepped
closer. Lithorne added quickly, "They're still alive, the captain said they
were wanted for some sort of brainwashing thing."
"Why?"
"How should I know, I'm just a trooper. They give me orders and I follow
them. I don't ask questions, that's dangerous."
"Well I'm asking questions and my friend is very dangerous." The pig
nodded as if it actually understood her words.
"Now then, why attack now? The two of you obviously weren't up to
handling a Guyver."
"All I know is the captain said the tech's had figured out some way to
get rid of the Guyver for a few hours. He didn't explain. Me, I was half
figuring on walking into a massacre ..." his voice trailed off as he
considered his situation.
Nabiki didn't give a damn how nervous the Zoanoid was, what she needed
to know was if it was still possible to save Ranma and Akane. "Will they have
started converting them already."
Lithorne snorted, "Convert them? What with? Hell, they were taking them
to Tempus and that dump doesn't even have genesis pods. I don't even know
if they have brainwashing equipment there. They might have to order it in
from main base. We've been stuck there since you blew up Kronos Tokyo and
those stuck up techies look down on us troopers ..." He realized that his
resentment was making him say way too much. If he got out of this alive and
they found out he talked ... He needed a plan.
Nabiki had picked up on the sailent points. "Main base? Well forget
that for now, if the others are at Tempus I want to know about it. Tell me
about it."
As he answered Lithorne tried to think of a way out. His stump had
stopped trying to gush blood as regeneration kicked in. They didn't know he
could stop applying pressure with his tentacles. Meaning he was free to
strike. Except what to do about the pig? Stall. "Tempus is Kronos's
research and development branch. When we dig up alien hardware it goes to
Tempus to test. I hear they don't want to risk accidentally wiping out Main
Base if something goes wrong during a test. Anyway after you guys blew up
Tokyo branch the survivors, meaning anyone who wasn't in the building at the
time, got sent to Tempus. They could have rotated us back to the mountain
but no, they stick us in a converted storage room and tell us our job is
keeping an eye on Hibiki and looking for the missing Guyver unit." It
suddenly struck him, the missing unit was right in front of him. Somehow
Nabiki's pet had found it and merged with it. If he could get the news back
to Tempus all would be forgiven.
Nabiki hadn't paid attention to Lithorne's whining. What had caught
her attention was the name of the company. She fished the cards she'd found
on the dead Zoanoids out of her pocket. She'd thought the "T" looked like a
company logo. "What are these cards for?"
"Security doors. For access to the building. Tempus is mainly R & D
but they usually don't get anything too hot. More stuff we can't figure out
than weapons. Anyway security is mainly automated, meaning there's more room
for those techie types. Wimpiest bunch of Zoanoids you'll ever meet. Not one
of them would swallow a live puppy on a bet."
"You eat live dogs?"
"Only when I'm bored."
Nabiki decided there was nothing she could say that would properly
express her contempt for the Zoanoids. In any event rescuing Akane and Ranma
had to be her prime concern. Evidently no one knew where Daddy was, which was
sort of good. She'd find him later. "Where is Tempus and where will I find
my sister?"
As Lithorne gave the directions he came up with his plan. Being an
animal the pig couldn't think, only react. Probably it couldn't use the
suit's weapon systems, just its strength. He'd fake a break to the left, as
he did he'd grab the girl with his tentacles and hope it wouldn't attack when
he used her as a shield. Then he'd limp outside, hail the observer and get
a ride away from here. He could kill the girl when they were clear of the
pig, that would prevent her saying anything about what he'd told her.
She looked distracted, probably composing her next question. Now!
Lithorne threw his body left, the pig surged at him. He flicked his tentacles
at Nabiki intending to snap her to him. Before the tentacles reached her a
laser beam sliced them in half. Lithorne's scream was brief as P-chan stood
on his hind legs, pointed his front legs forward, and fired the gravity
cannon. The force beam made a cylidrical hole through Lithorne's head. He
flopped to the floor, twitched once and was still.
Nabiki took a deep breath. That certainly solved the ethical problem of
telling Ryoga to kill the Zoanoid in cold blood. Would she have given the
order? Probably, they could hardly leave a live Zoanoid behind them. Ryoga
wouldn't have regardless of what she told him. Still ... She shook off the
speculation, there was work to do.
She scooped up P-chan and headed for the door. The piglet began
squealing but she kept going. "We don't have time to heat up hot water, if
the Zoanoids were in the house they may have planted bombs or something. We
have to get out now! I should have interrogated him outside but neither of
us can carry a Zoanoid." What really drove her was the fear of Akane being
changed like Kasumi. This time it would be different, she wouldn't let it
happen again. "Kronos, Tempus, whoever has had them for hours. We've got
to get out now before the wind up like Kasumi." P-chan went silent then
grunted with assent. He let her carry him without further protest.
Outside Webber saw the main gate open. Something was wrong, why were the
troopers moving out. Then he saw who it was, somehow Nabiki Tendo had got
back inside without his seeing her. No problem, he'd deal with her. He
flicked his communicator on as he got out of the car and started transforming.
At Tempus the monitoring section were jolted awake by his report. "I've
spotted Nabiki Tendo, am moving in for kill. Should be easy she isn't trying
to run. What the hell is she carrying? It looks almos like ... it is, a
Guyver pig! It can't be ..AAAIIIIIEEEE!" Transmission cut off abruptly.
The two security officers looked at each other. After a moment one said,
"Well I suppose that report justifies waking the director at three in the
morning."
The other nodded, "Yeah, I guess you should." He replayed Webber's
report and began transcribing it. "How many 'i's in aaaiiiiieeee?"
"Just fake it."
A short while later, having been jolted awake by the phone, Director
Nagaoka sat in his temporary office and tried to decide what to do. As far
as he knew Commander Gyro was still here. Waking him with news like this
might not be wise. Assuming Zoalords do indeed sleep. He was an just an
administrator, why did he have to make these sort of decisions?
He called back monitoring and told them to contact Harbel and Lithorne.
They reported that neither was responding. He made a decision and headed
for the Director's office.
Meanwhile outside the dojo Nabiki had stepped over the smouldering corpse
and was examining the car. Great, the keys were still in the ignition. She
slid in and dumped P-chan on the passenger seat. "Next stop Tempus."
P-chan made an interogative "Bweee?"
"Of course I know how to drive!" She hesitated, "Well in theory anyway."
P-chan made a worried noise.
"You're armour plated Ryoga so stop complaining. Here we go!" The car
crunched over Webber. "Dammit!" She backed up and went a little green at the
crunch of bone under the tires. "OK, now here we go." The car pulled away
relatively smoothly as Ryoga contemplated fighting a horde of Zoanoids in his
cursed form.
Back at Tempus Commander Gyro was resting. He was not precisely asleep
or dreaming. Instead memories replayed themselves. Recently one memory in
particular had been recurring, the last disasterous day of Kronos Tokyo.
Things had begin so well, Hibiki was dead, the Control Medallion was
being studied, and the Guyver bait (the Tendos and Saotome) was secure and
were to be used for Zoanoid experimentation. Everything was under control.
Then the Control Medallion regenerated Hibiki in Guyver form. He began
rampaging through the building killing everything. Reports came in that the
holding cells had been blown open and the prisoners were gone. While he
struggled to control the situation there was a report of trouble in the
basement lab. Gyro telepathically linked to the Zoanoids down there and saw
the source of the disturbance. It was an ancient dwarf who netherless seemed
incredibly manuverable. The Zoanoids Gyro controlled kept missing their
strikes. As he evaded them the dwarf kept up a running commentary on how
Kronos should be doing good by manufacturing hundreds of oversexed school age
girls instead of monsters. As he dodged the old man also kept destroying the
Zoanoid genesis tubes, somehow smashing the armoured glass with his bare hands
and feet. Obviously some sort of rogue Zoanoid but where had it come from?
Gyro had subsequently learned he was wrong. The old man's name was
Happosai. There was no indication he'd ever been converted. In any event
fast and agile as he was he remained only human. He slowed down and a
Ramothis slashed him across the back. He rolled across the floor, tried to
get up and failed. He sighed and said, "Oh well I always expected to die in
battle someday. Though I expected it to be with angry husbands." As the
Ramothis moved in for the kill he added, "I do like this plastique stuff,
much more powerful than those gunpowder based bombs I used to use."
Gyro felt the Zoanoids he was linked to stop and glance around. For the
first time they saw the C-4 packed around the building support columns. The
old man said, "I intended to detonate this from outside but ..." There was a
detonator in his hand.
"KILL HIM!" Gyro had screamed in the Zoanoids' minds. They rushed
forward but the old man's finger hit the button. There was a brief flash and
Gyro's contact with the Zoanoids broke.
Then the walls came tumbling down.
The sound of knocking jolted Gyro back to consciousness. He gasped and
glanced around. Remembering where and when he was he calmed down. He'd
survived the destruction but it hadn't been easy. He regained control and
checked his appearance in the mirror. Once more he looked like the cold,
unshakeable commander. His underlings must never see him as anything else.
"Enter."
Nagaoka came in somewhat furtively. "Sorry to disturb you so late."
"What is it?" Nagaoka marvelled at his superior's alertness. Just woke
up and he's ready for anything.
"Uhm, well we had a report that Nabiki Tendo was seen with a ... a third
Guyver previously unknown to us."
"WHAT!" Impossible, two units were accounted for and the third was
destroyed by Hibiki.
"Our observer reported a ... ah nonhuman Guyver prior to his apparent
death. I've sent a patrol out to check the dojo."
"Nonhuman?"
"A, uh that is, a pig Guyver. I suppose in theory an animal could meld
with a Guyver unit ...." He trailed off at the look in Gyro's eyes.
"If this is some sort of joke be advised I have little sense of humour."
"Uhh, yes Sir. All I know is what was reported."
"Probably some sort of juvenile joke. I want those responsible severely
disciplined. Loss of a limb or something of that sort."
Nagaoka started sweating. Gyro continued, "On another topic when is the
shipment due from Main Base?"
"The brainwashing specialists and the Hyperzoanoid team will be here by
morning."
"Excellent. Our prisoners will control Kuno giving us our own Guyver.
Meanwhile you'll have Maxwell displace Hibiki again. When he reappears the
Hyperzoanoids will be surrounding him. Once he's dead we'll cryofreeze the
medallion until we know how to remove Hibiki's genetic pattern. Then we can
create a Zoanoid Guyver." He looked at Nagaoka, "You can manage your part of
the operation."
Nagoaka forced himself to look calm, "Absolutely. Doctor Maxwell is
confident that ..."
"Fine. I'm sure you have lots to do. Oh one last thing ..." Gyro had
recollected an old matter.
"Sir?"
"Whatever happened to the operation to use Hibiki's family members as
hostages to control him?"
"Ahh. Uh well, we've still be unable to locate them sir. We had a
sighting of his mother last week but our observers were unable to track her.
There are indications of people coming and going at the Hibiki home but we
have so far failed to capture any of them. We did intercept a postcard from
his father last week."
"Oh?"
"It read 'Went to store to get milk and have found myself in Alaska. Was
unaware they had a rainforest.' The card was postmarked Brazil. Obviously
some sort of code but so far cryptography has failed to decode it."
"I see." I am not going to think about that Gyro told himself. I don't
need another migraine. "You were just leaving."
"Uhh yessir, I'll get on with it." Nagaoka backed out and closed the
door behind him. Then he headed for Maxwell's lab. Everything must be
working again. Despite the lateness of the hour Maxwell and his techs were
very busy. "Well, Doctor?"
Maxwell was looking nervous. "Uhh we still haven't found the source of
the problem. The Displacer itself hasn't shown any change so we think it's a
bug in the software for our triggering equipment."
Nagaoka suppressed the urge to transform and kill the scientist. He
looked at his watch, 3 AM. "We, you are in a lot of trouble. Hibiki was
supposed to reappear after three hours, that point passed five hours back."
"That was an approximation, he'll be back soon."
"He'd better be. Commander Gyro wants to run the operation tomorrow
when his team arrives. We locate Hibiki, displace him a few minutes, surround
the spot with Zoanoids, he reappears and they kill him. Nice and simple.
EXCEPT YOUR GODDAMN MACHINE ONLY WORKS WHEN WE DON'T WANT IT TOO! GYRO'S
GOING TO KILL YOU, ME AND EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR STAFF IF WE SCREW THIS UP!"
Nagaoka calmed down and took a deep breath. "Well that's your incentive now
get back too work."
The staff redoubled their efforts. Maxwell tried to smile, "Just a
software bug. Simplest thing in the world."
Had he known the source of the bug Maxwell would have been a lot less
confident. Several hours earlier, a little after 7 PM Monday, the trucks
holding Akane and "Ranko" Tendo had arrived. They had pulled into the
vehicle bay and parked. The protesting captives had been hustled off to the
holding cells. The lights went out as the last Zoanoid departed and the bay
became silent except for the ping of cooling engine metal.
About ten minutes after that a figure dropped silently off the bottom of
each truck. Neither man looked remarkable and neither looked like Ryoga
Hibiki. However until very recently both had been identical to him. Ryogoids
541 and 673 were running on combat mode. They had shut down all verbal
communication and communicated in coded bursts. Twentieth century technology
shouldn't be able to intercept, let alone deciper, these transmissions.
Still Kronos was a company ahead of its time. Best to be cautious.
673 continued feeding false signals to the monitor detectors mounted in
the corners. There were cameras but they seemed set only to trigger when the
detectors went off. Of course the risk of random sweeps remained. If those
were digital cameras they could feed false images back. But the old video
analog versions were protected by their obsolesence.
541 finished working on the electronic lock. It opened without sending
any indication to security that it had done so. 541 entered the corridor
ready to kill any witnesses. As his sensors had indicated there was no one
there. Still better safe than sorry.
The door closed behind 673. Both androids continued their scan of the
building, tracing power lines and structure as they looked for a good
interface point. This was supposed to be a subtle operation. Pity, they'd
have preferred a "kill em all then check the rubble" operation. Ah well.
This level seemed to be for storage and vehicles. Thermal scans seemed
to indicate an occupied dormitory area on the next level. The level above
that seemed promising.
The air vents were wide and the alarms on the grills pitifully easy to
disconnect. They replaced the covers behind them and began the climb to their
objective. They moved silently upward, past the level full of Zoanoids
complaining about the accomodations and lack of recreation. Most were also
discussing what they would have liked to have done to their new captives.
Ignoring this the androids left the shaft on the next level. No trace
of anyone, it appeared shut down for the night. After another quick job on
the electronic lock they were in. This place was full of PCs, probably used
by clerical staff writing up the reports all organizations generate. This
should do assuming the terminals connected to the mainframe.
A quick check revealed that powering up a terminal would send an alarm
to security. That was easily dealt with. 673 moved over to the door and
began scanning for intruders. 541 would be having an out of body experience
very shortly, he wouldn't want interuptions.
541 had unbuttoned his shirt and sent a command to his artifical skin.
It flowed away from his chest uncovering a hatch. This opened and several
cables snaked out. Configurations changed but one of his adaptable connectors
would grant him access. Connector 4 linked to an input port, success. Most
Ryogoids didn't carry the connectors. The empire network didn't depend on
anything as crude as physical connection. But when you spend time in the
twentieth and twentyfirst century you have to accomadate the local systems
if you want to download data.
541 moved into his consciousness into cyberspace, bypassing the password
requirements and everything else designed to stop unauthorized humans from
gaining access, and reveled in the freedom from being tied to a physical body.
That didn't last long, the processing speed of this system was pitiful. He'd
have to suffer it, there was a job to do. He pulsed a message to 673. "I'm
in, beginning search."
He was somewhat surprised to find it so quickly. These idiots didn't
have a clue what real encoding was. To be fair given their limitations the
cipher was pretty good. He began downloaded the data, might as well be
thorough and copy everything. "OK what we're looking for is on the fourth
floor in labs 4a to 4c. Seems they knocked out a few walls installing their
equipment. It's some sort of alien space drive, they think they've found a
time machine. No indictions they realize what they've got hold off. At least
no speculations on dimensional shifting committed to the system."
673 pulsed back, "Maybe we should grab a few scientists and torture them.
Just to be sure."
"Better not, low profile remember. Anyway this seems to be the only
unit in existence."
"So we wreck it and it's all over?"
"Maybe. Except from the reports it might be harder to destroy than you'd
expect. It can quite possibly survive plasma weapon impact. Besides there's
another problem?"
"Namely?"
"Kronos has their own computer network, I'm tracing it now. They have
dedicated satellite links, bases on every continent and all the major
countries. It's remarkable how widespread they are, they must have to kill
a lot of people daily to keep all this covered up. Very efficent for humans,
Zoanoids I mean."
"So the data from this experiment could have been downloaded to any of
these bases?"
"Pretty much." A pause. A few nanoseconds later, "Think I should drop a
few of our viruses into their network? They'll never detect them."
"Better make 'em dormant for the time being." 541 acknowledged, sent
Maxwell's data to 673 and got to work. 673 reviewed the data and made a
decision. "Hey 541."
"Yeah?"
"I think disabling the dimensional shifter for the time being would be a
good idea. Now we may not be able to affect the extraterrestrial artifact
but they're using Kronos designed equipment to activate it. Now that we can
affect, after all nobody in this century expects computers to run bug free all
the time."
541 smiled (metaphorically). "I like that. OK I'm back in the lab.
Linking into their equipement. OK let's rewrite that, delete that line, add
a 20th century virus, shut down that, scramble those codes, add a program to
keep adding errors .... All done, let's see them get this lot running before
Christmas. They'll either have to replace everything or rewrite every program
in the existing equipement. It'll take them days to figure out just how bad
the corruption is."
673 nodded, "Sounds good. OK, disconnect and we'll go report back. It's
still all clear.
With an electronic sigh 541 broke his connection. Back to having a
physical shell, waiting for servos to respond before you could move. While
they seemed to move with speed and grace the androids thoughts outraced their
physical limitations. They had to run programs to slow their minds down,
otherwise they'd got mad with boredom in a slow motion world. 541 switched
from Machine Intelligence speed back to the merely superhuman.
"OK let's go."
Without a sound, or indication that they'd broken Tempus security the
two androids departed.
Coincidentally the moment they left the building was the moment Ranma
made made her own escape attempt. When the light from the "Mouko Takabishya"
faded she examined the cell door. There was no sign of any effect. Ranma
cursed. "That's a well built door."
"It's probably built to hold Zoanoids." Akane's voice was flat, she was
sitting against one wall, leaning her head and arms against her bent legs.
She sounded defeated.
Ranma decided to put on a brave face on the situation. "Look I know
things look bad, but we've been in worse situations."
"When exactly?"
"Errr, well there was the time ... ummm ... Look it could be worse."
"BULLSHIT." It was the first time Ranma could recall hearing Akane
swear. "THEY'RE PLANNING TO USE US THE WAY THEY USED KASUMI! THEY'RE GONNA
RIP OUT OUR MINDS AND TURN US INTO MONSTERS! IT CAN'T POSSIBLY GET ANY
WORSE!" Her outburst ended and she began to cry. Ranma went over to her and
embraced her. There was nothing he could think of to do but hold her until
she stopped crying and tell her, "We're still alright, we're still alive, that
means there's still hope."
"My isn't this a pretty picture." It was that sonofabitch Zoanoid
captain, Charburn. Ranma gently released Akane then lunged for Charburn's
throat. The bars caught him across the face, Charburn was just out of reach.
"Temper, temper. You don't want to hurt your pretty face before Kuno sees
you."
"KUNO!" That was Akane, she felt shocked. Kuno was a jerk but he'd
never seemed evil. In fact from what he'd said she was sure Kuno had no real
idea what he'd got mixed up in.
"That's his name", Charburn said cheerfully. "Come the morning we'll be
reprogramming you as his love slaves. Of course in actual fact you'll control
him, he'll do anything for you. And guess who'll be pulling your strings?"
"You miserable bastard!" Ranma couldn't think of any obscenity that
truly described what he thought of this man.
"Look on the bright side, at least you get to live. We'll be wiping out
the rest of your household."
"'Wiping out'? That means you didn't get them yet." Akane's voice
sounded hopeful.
A shadow crossed Charburn's face. "Purely temporary, we'll get them
sooner or later. I'm told we've even got a way to take out the Guyver. In
any event", he continued, "Ranko you can forget getting out of here with
martial arts tricks. This cell is designed to hold Zoanoids. Occasionally
one of our people berserks and transforms. If they're too valuable to waste
we stick them in here where they can rampage around without breaking anything
or anyone important. When they cool down we let them out."
He turned to go. "So you've got until morning. Have fun waiting. If
you feel like it put on a show for me, I like that lesbian porn crap. It'd
make watching the monitors less boring." He walked up the corridor laughing
as Ranko called him every name she could think of.
They had until morning, Ranma tried to think. There had to be a way out.
Somehow. There just had to be.
While all this was going on the androids had been interfacing. The
dimensional shifter was temporarily out of action. The two displaced persons
would reappear at approximately 2 am Tuesday, four hours from now. A
timescoop wave was due appear at 11pm, however a margin of error of about
thirty minutes was possible. 541 was detailed to return to the Imperial
timeline to report. Everything seemed under control. So detecting a
timescoop wave an hour early was a real surprise.
Mission leader 207 assigned 673 to take his post and together with 541
headed for the scoop point. On arrival at the building site they got their
second surprise. There was a note carved into the concrete. It read "Proceed
as planned, original timescoop wave is coming. Destroy this message."
Lacking reasonable alternatives the two androids broke the slabs
containing the message into gravel. 207 moved out of scoop range and 541 took
position and waited. At 10:49:27 pm the timescoop wave manifested. 541
vanished, returning to their own time and space.
"So now what?" 207 asked rhetorically. He was a little surprised to
get an answer.
"Now we go home." Suddenly 207 detected a new Ryogoid, its transponder
identified it as 332. It was holding a spherical device in one hand. "I've
been jamming your ability to track me", 332 explained. "I appeared in the
wave you detected, to avoid a possible time paradox I didn't want to meet you
until now."
"Time paradox." Risking them was forbidden, what was this unit up to?
"Imperial order. I was dispatched from our time shortly after 541's
return. Since he hadn't met me I had to stay out of sight. I should have
arrived after he left but there was alignement trouble. In any event time for
your new orders. All Ryogoids are to report for transport home at midnight,
give or take thirty minutes."
207 relayed the order feeling confused. Why pull them out now? What had
had 541 downloaded that made the Emperor so anxious? His comrades responded
and headed for an assembly at the scoop point.
At 12:05:13 AM Tuesday all the Ryogoids departed Nerima. Not that anyone
knew they'd ever been there.
None of this was known to Nabiki Tendo. She'd have felt a lot better
knowing Ryoga and herself were unlikely to disappear again. Right now her
main worry was getting to Tempus intact. Her depth perception had been
screwed ever since she lost her left eye so she was far from the best driver
in town. She was extremely lucky and despite multiple automotive violations
went unnoticed by the police. Luckily traffic was light at three in the
morning. Just short of Tempus she stopped, time to go over her plan.
"OK, here's what we do", she said while looking down at P-chan. "I go in
the main door, using the card to bypass security. I'll be carrying you hidden
in something or other. We go down to sublevel four, you break Ranma and Akane
out, then we leave before security reacts. OK?" P-chan made a noise which
she interpreted as meaning Ryoga had severe reservations about her plan.
"It's better than nothing, OK?" P-chan made a resigned sounding grunt. "OK,
we need something to hide you." There was nothing in the car that looked
useful. "Let's check the trunk."
The key turned but the trunk didn't open, the lid seemed to be jammed.
Nabiki pounded on it with frustration. Ryoga studied the join line between
trunk lid and car body. He could see two places where the metal was crushed
together, holding the hatch down. He oinked loudly to attract Nabiki's
attention and motioned her away by waving his head. Then he popped his sonic
swords (in this form they emerged from his sides) and sliced through the
twisted metal. The trunk lid popped open. The Guyver suit filtered Ryoga's
air, Nabiki got a noseful of concentrated Grothis.
She stumbled away from the trunk gasping. Ryoga followed, bweeing in
concern. She waved him away and worked on keeping her dinner down. After a
minute she headed cautiously back to the trunk. The smell had dissipated
quickly. "What the hell was that?" Ryoga tried shrugging, it didn't show
through the armour. She examined the trunk's contents. There was a somewhat
torn and stained man's suit and shoes, that would be useful. When he regained
human form Ryoga would have to wear something. There was also a long
rainslicker, that would have to do.
She pulled the clothing out and tossed the suit on the passenger seat.
she was a little surprised when socks and underwear fell out of it. Had the
wearer disappeared inside it? It didn't matter, time to get on with it before
she lost her nerve.
She pulled the car into Tempus's parking lot. Hopefully since it had
been raining earlier no one would question an employee carrying a bundled
raincoat. She crossed to the door, her mind cataloguing all the things that
could go wrong. The cards of the fallen agents could have been cancelled,
maybe they were the wrong clearance for what she needed, maybe this was the
stupidest thing she'd done in her entire life. Perhaps she should get some
hot water, turn Ryoga human and let him smash his way in.
No, he'd never find them. Besides Kronos might kill the hosatages if the
Guyver came calling. It was time to show she was capable of more than just
creative accounting and screaming at Zoanoids. Who she was proving herself
was unclear, she just knew she had to do this.
She ran the card through the reader. After what seemed hours, but was
only a few seconds, there was a beep and the door unlocked. A single security
guard looked up from his magazine. "Trouble with the mainframe it's rejecting
the Windows '95 upgrade." She wasn't clear what she'd just babbled, hopefully
neither did the guard.
He grunted and looked back at his magazine. Goddamn techies wandering in
here at all hours, raving about stuff they expected you to care about. Smug
bastards who looked down on the guys like him who were the real heart and soul
of Kronos. Let 'em just try running this place without us, just one day and
everything would be falling apart.
So far so good. Of course this would be the public area, it would have
to look innocent in case any inspectors or cops dropped by. She walked to the
elevator and punched the only button visible. The doors opened, she stepped
inside. The doors stayed open, she saw a second cardreader attached to the
operating panel.
She inserted the card, the reader clamped onto it. There was a very cold
feeling crawling up her spine. OK, perhaps she had to punch her floor. If
she punched a floor she wasn't cleared for probably all hell would break
loose. She'd taken the card from a Kronos trooper, hopefully he'd have
clearance to visit the detention area.
She punched S4, hopefully sublevel four. The doors closed and the
elevator began playing some nonthreatening 60's hit. It descended. Nabiki
stayed composed, relaxing or whooping would be a real bad idea. There was a
camera in the corner of the elevator, doing anything like that would probably
trigger alarms. One, two, three, four. The doors began opening, it was a
hell of a time to suddenly wonder if the Zoanoid had recovered enough from his
injury to start lying. The reader spat her card out.
She was confronted by a man behind a desk who looked away from the
monitors he'd been watching. "Who the fuck are you?"
Maybe she could bluff him, "Upstairs sent me to check on the fresh meat."
"Nobody told me. Who's your supervisor?"
There was a second man at the coffee urn, he looked at her with vague
recognition. Then he snapped his fingers, "Nabiki Tendo! .... NABIKI TENDO?"
Ryoga realized it had just hit the fan. He exploded out of the coat
under Nabiki's arm. Hitting the floor he leapt upward at an angle taking him
past the seated guard's head. As he passed he unfolded the sonic sword in his
side. Ignoring the spray of blood he twisted in midair aligning his belly
with the second man. His gravity cannon punched a neat hole directly below
the chestbadge reading "Charburn". He bounced off the wall and landed at
Nabiki's feet before either body hit the floor.
She looked briefly stunned by the speed of the violence. Then shook
herself and ran over to the console. Luckily the blood didn't obscure the
monitors. One was showing a movie, two showed empty cells, the third showed
a sleeping Akane with her head cradled in the lap of a determined looking
Ranko. No sign of an unlocking mechanism, at least she knew this was the
right floor. Maybe the guards hadn't managed to signal an alarm but this room
had video cameras in the corners. Sooner or later those dead guards would be
spotted. Figure on sooner. "The hell with subtlety."
Ryoga bweed in agreement and stood on his hindlegs. The door ahead of
them exploded. Just down the corridor Akane stirred, "Wasisit?" She mumbled.
"I don't know but ..."
"AKANE!, RANMA!"
"BWEEEE!"
"Nabiki?" That was about the last person Ranma expected. But there she
was outside the cell door.
Nabiki looked it over. "Allright I can't see any way to unlock it. Get
clear of the door and P-chan'll use the Megasmasher on it."
"Bweee!"
"P-chan?" Akane figured she had to be dreaming. Ranma grabbed her and
hauled her over to the side of the cell. He covered her eyes with one hand
and shut his own tightly.
The cell was filled with a brilliant light that was blinding despite the
precautions. "Come on, move it!" Ranma pulled the dazzle Akane after him as
he stumbled toward the voice. His vision cleared enough to see he was about
to step on the molten metal than had been the doors bottom. She swung Akane
into her arms and stepped over it.
Akane's vision had cleared enough for her to see the small figure
looking up at her from the floor. "What ... what is it?"
"Guyver P-chan, we'll explain later. Come on, I bet we just set off
every alarm in the place." Her sister shut up as they headed back down the
corridor. "A fire escape. The elevator's probably a death trap and we don't
need to worry about making noise. Blow it!"
P-chan grunted and blew the sealed door. "Ranma grab the coffee urn."
Ranma did, finally hot water. Not that changing back right now was a lot of
good. Somehow Nabiki was in charge. She shouted, "RUN" and sprinted for the
stairs. P-chan bounded in front of her. Akane was pushed ahead of Ranma as
she brought up the rear.
Nabiki's shout was the last thing anyone would hear clearly for a while.
Security had registered the cell door exploding and done a scan of sublevel
four. Seeing dead guards they'd all begun shouting at once. Someone regained
enough presence of mind to hit the alarms. Sirens began screaming at ear
splitting decibels. Zoanoids boiled out of their dormitory shouting into
communicators for orders.
"... stairwell ..."
"WHAT! CAN'T HERE YOU CONTROL."
"IN THE STAIRWELL! INTERCEPT!"
A Zoanoid pounded on the stairwell door. "UNSEAL THIS BASTARD, NOW!"
P-chan saw the door vibrate and fired a burst through it about chest
height. On the other side a Zoanoid fell back, dead and burning. Two nearby
Zoanoids looked at each other. "ELEVATOR!"
"WHAT?"
"LET'S TAKE THE ELEVATOR!"
"ABSOLUTELY!"
"WHAT?"
P-chan smashed open the ground level door. The only Zoanoid in sight
must have been the lobby security guard. Cutting him in half enroute Ryoga
leapt for the lobby doors. They shattered as if ordinary glass rather than
reenforced bulletproof glass.
"I've got a car, follow me!" Ranma, Akane and P-chan ran after Nabiki
into the parking lot. As she opened the car doors she saw lots of movement in
the lobby. "Shit, time for full Guyver power. Ranma, the coffee." He
nodded, now he got it.
Before she could say anything P-chan stepped away from them and gave a
special "BWEEE!" The armour disappeared and Akane saw her pet for the first
time in ages. Ranma upended the coffee urn over the pig then stepped back
fast.
"YEOWW!" P-chan vanished and a naked Ryoga appeared. Akane's eyes
bugged out and her jaw dropped. Ryoga immediately yelled "GUYVER!" and the
familiar transformation triggered shredding the pavement. Nabiki hesitated
behind the wheel as Ranma shoved the paralysed Akane into the back seat and
followed her.
"GET GOING, I'LL CATCH UP", Ryoga yelled as he charged forward.
Nabiki nodded and the car left the parking lot at unsafe speed. About
twenty Zoanoids charged out of the building. The charge began breaking as
they saw who they were facing.
Ryoga felt the charge building inside the chestplate. NOW! He pulled
it open and the megasmasher flared. The Zoanoids disappeared in the burning
light. The front of the lobby exploded. Ryoga took a step forward and then
hesitated. No telling what was in there and his friends were on their own.
He turned and headed after the car at a speed exceeding theirs. Nabiki had
pulled over not far away. It had suddenly struck her that letting Ryoga find
them later would be a real bad idea.
"Ditch the armour and get in the passenger side."
"GUYVER!"
"Now get in and get dressed fast."
With the adrenaline high Ryoga was able to ignore his nudity instead of
being frozen by embarrassment. He dived in the car and slammed the door.
Nabiki immediately burned rubber.
"Dress fast, we don't need a ticket for lewd conduct."
Ryoga wormed into the clothing, it fit like a tent. "If you weren't
driving like a maniac this would be a lot easier."
"Nag, nag, nag." Suddenly she grinned. "WE DID IT!"
Ryoga also grinned like a pumpkin. "You said it. The team supreme!"
"You got it partner."
Then a cold voice from the back seat broke in. "Ryoga, you are P-chan?"
Nabiki stopped smiling. "Ooops."
Ryoga coughed, "Umm could we discuss this later?"
Akane's hand grabbed him by the hair and hauled his head back over the
neckrest. "Let's discuss it now!"
Ranma decided to play peacemaker. "Chill out Akane, he just saved us
from a fate almost as bad as death."
Akane glared at him. "You already knew about this or you wouldn't have
dumped the coffee on P-chan."
Ranma shut up and tried to look innocent. Should have saved some of the
coffee to turn male again.
Nabiki broke in, "You three discuss it. We don't dare return to the dojo
if Ryoga could vanish on us any time. We need a motel or something for the
night. I'll find one. Then we'll plan our next move.
The car sped off into the night.
end of part 5
Next in part 6 - The conclusion as this whole mess gets wrapped up.
Part 6 : Back From The Future.
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