Summit
of the
Dark Hero’s 2: Age of Darkness
Double Trouble pt 2Almost a week had passed since Rune, had joined the team and while things had been unusually quiet on the battlefront, a new war was brewing onboard the Triton. Things hadn’t been as calm as what some of them had expected, and Rune’s presence had restarted the feud between him and Anthony, that had been put to rest by Oni and Anthony four years earlier. Luckily, this feud hadn’t erupted into full blown fighting yet, it seemed this Rune was more content with snide and sarcastic remarks, and attacking Anthony with harsh words. For once, Oni could see first hand how much of a bitch she use to be to Anthony and wondered how he kept his cool so many times, she figured it probably had to do with guilt over everything that happened.
Oni leaned back in her chair as she looked absently at the computer monitor, there was too much on her mind to concentrate on getting any work done. Creb and Tora sitting across the room playing with their toy’s as they did a lot of the time when she was working, they seemed to have an instinct for knowing when not to disturb her. She was glad they hadn’t turned out to be complete little bastards like a lot of little kids were that she had known. She sighed a little tiredly and turned back to the computer, trying to work out some more of the kinks in her next project, one of which would be convincing the United Alliance to help fund it. Though first she was going to have to find of way of keeping the workers safe while they worked in high pressure deep. Keeping predators away such as sharks would be no problem. She had to admit that it was the sci-fi fan side of her that wanted to create this thing, rather then any scientist side of her.
“What do you want?” she asked a little hiss in her tone as Rune teleported inside her quarters, trying to be sneaky. “I told you all that I didn’t want to be disturbed unless its for something important, and I doubt you have anything important to say.”
“Why so hostile?” he asked calmly.
“Because you, are creating a bloody mess on my vessel” she told him bluntly, standing up to face him as the two of them shared an exchanged of cold glares.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m following through with part of my promise to Alex, or did getting turned into a girl cause you to forget who that was?” he asked nastily, causing her to tremble in anger.
“You son of a bitch. Alex still means a lot to mean, but, I have two children to look after and they are more important to me then trying to get my revenge, revenge that could very well get me killed and leave them without a mother” she said growled quietly, managing to keep herself from flying off the handle, mainly because Creb and Tora were in the room, and partly because she didn’t trust herself to be able to stop once she started.
“Now that you bring it up, is Anthony their father?” Rune asked without any warning at all, causing Oni to almost fall back in shock.
“What? Of course their not! Jesus Christ, what the hell would make you ask such a stupid thing you stupid moron?!” she demanded, right on the verge of pounding his face in.
“The fact that I was observing how good he is with them the other day, and the fact that you two act quiet friendly with each other too might have something to do with it. To be honest, seeing what you’ve become it wouldn’t surprise me” he hissed.
Without warning, Oni grabbed him by the throat and teleported them to the place that had once been the Shadow Blade base. She slammed him into the ground with enough force to kill a normal human and started to punch and kick the living crap out of him. By the time she was finished he was covered in his own blood and had he not had regenerating abilities, he would have been hanging on to his life by a thread. Oni looked down at him, her fists covered in blood and her face with blood splatter.
“Have you got any more remarks you want to say about me?!” she demanded.
Rune suddenly kicked up with his legs and sent her flying backwards as he jumped up and activated his unit. “As matter of fact, I do bitch” he snarled and charged towards her.
Oni was quicker though, just as he was almost on her, she activated her unit, her blast field knocking him backwards and stood up just as he gracefully landed in a crouch. They both stood there with their swords extended to full length and their silver aura flaring around them. Then they attacked each other like a pair of rabid dogs, clawing and punching at each other with full strength, driving their swords through each other’s stomachs and ripping chunks of guts out. It was a brutal fight, and it wasn’t one where one of them would find out who the better guyver was, it simply a fight to see who could inflict the most damage and pain. There was no grace, no skill at all involved in this high powered equivalent of a bar room brawl.
Finally they pulled away from each other, their clawed hands covered in blood that dripped freely from their fingers, the wounds they had inflicted on each other already healed as they circled each other the way two predators would size each other up before another rumble. Oni knew that Rune had all her training, but she had four more years experience with the Oni unit then he did, he’d only had his for a week, how much could he had already learnt about it, after all it had been almost a month or so before she had done any serious training with it, her other half couldn’t be all that much different to her.
This time Fallen leapt at her with a flying spin kick which she smoothly avoided and brought her fist up in uppercut that caught him the chin, knocking him into the air, she teleported in front of him while he was in the air and executed a more powerful spin kick that sent him flying back through the air and into the side of the mountain. When a few minutes passed she thought she must have done some serious damage to him and was about to check on him, even if he was being a jerk, when all of a sudden translucent blast of black energy fired out from where he had landed. She spun to the side just as the blast ripped past her, the residual energy of which almost caused her right arm to go numb for a few seconds before her healing abilities kicked in and made it as right as rain again.
She looked back in shock towards where the blast had come from and saw Fallen standing in the center of a blast field that had been caused by the blast, where there was literally half tree’s and a smoldering circle around him, the grass was completely gone revealing the rough hard ground beneath him. All around him residual energy crackled for a few seconds, looking like little arcs of electricity.
<What the hell was that?> she asked in shock and amazement.
<A true Gravity Cannon> he snarled. <Same as a normal Pressure Cannon, five time more dangerous then one of our own Pressure Cannon’s, I’m surprise you haven’t found out about it yet. Oh wait a minute, that’s right, you were too busy playing mother and baking cookies for your children to do any real training> he said sarcastically.
<I don’t bake cookies!> Oni growled back in irritation and teleported in front of him before delivering a power punch that caught Fallen by surprise and was sent in flying backwards again. <I bake cakes!> she snapped, breathing heavily from second nature.
Fallen leapt from the ground and flew into the air as Oni flew backwards executing rapid fire blasts of silver energy, which her male half skillfully avoided as her flew upwards and deflected the others with his shield. Just as he caught up with her and was about to hit her with his own power punch, she disappeared, he sensed her trick and teleported at the same time as she appeared behind him and attempted to deliver a power kick to his back. When she saw that he wasn’t there, she dived out of the way and a giant bolt of silver energy blasted past her. She attacked Fallen as she executed a spinning back kick and caught in him the face with her foot, but at the same time he had brought his left arm around in a knife chop and got her in the throat with the same force. Both warriors backed off to recover from the attacks.
After a second or two their heads snapped back at each other and their eyes glowed in growing frustration and they flew at each other again, this time slamming into each other with such force that a thunderous clap echoed for miles around, sending birds flying from tree’s, stray animals for cover and homeless people snapping their heads around to see where the noise had come from.
Both Fallen and Oni flew straight up into the sky almost as if they were trying to win a race, leaving a silver blur behind them. At the same time they exploded into space, firing blasts of silver energy back and forth before establish close combat tactics again, slashing and hacking at each other with their swords.
<Give it up> Oni growled at him. <I’m still better with these swords!>
<You wish bitch!> Fallen growled. <I’ll never give up!>
Fallen went to slash across her stomach, but at the same time she launched herself backwards, barely missing the tips of his swords, which she noted with startled shock were the swords that were usually completely hidden in the wrist, like her own, like the one’s that had taken her almost four years to completely master unsheathing and retracting and here he was, barely a week with his unit and he already had them unsheathed. She flipped backwards a few times before righting herself and thrusting her right arm forward, the forward blade suddenly lengthened and turned into a ten foot long whip that sliced into Fallen’s left arm and severed it from the rest of his body. Blood spurted out into floating globs of red liquid in the zero-g environment, Fallen grabbed at his wounds in pain and cried out, though Oni heard nothing she got the meaning of his head snapping back in pain.
After he recomposed himself Fallen grabbed his arm and teleport out of her reach as he reattached it to his shoulder, tendrils of bio tissue reaching out from his shoulder and hooking into the arm as it pulled it back and fused it back into place, it took a few more seconds for all the nerves and the rest of his arm to heal and become fully functional again. He turned back to his crimson colored female half and growled angrily and flew back at her, willing to face that vibrational whip of hers which he unfortunately figured out how to use yet. As soon as he got close enough she started attacking with the whip again, but this time he was ready and was able to predict where the whip was going to come at him from and dodge it before it got him, but it also kept him getting close enough as he twisted this way and that from the whip.
Finally he cupped his hands together and in mid twist he fired off a silver bolt of energy that caught Oni in the side and knocked her backwards. This distraction was all he needed and he was on her in seconds. Thrusting his forward swords into her stomach and shoulders in rapid succession until they were almost floating inside a red bubble of blood. Oni fought back, driving her sword through his throat and then her other hand punched straight into his stomach and let loose a powerful blast of silver energy that erupted from behind him in a bright flare of light.
<Never leave yourself open!> she hissed telepathically. <You should know that fool.>
<You talk too much!> Fallen growled as his body convulsed on the blades, he then fired two blasts from his head laser that blew out Oni’s vocal cords, not that she really had any need for them.
Teleporting away from each other, they reappeared more then a hundred feet from each other, letting their minor wounds heal as they studied one another to figure out what the other was going to do.
* * *
On the Ark, which hovered not that far from the battle, the computer techs analyzed the data on the screen’s in mild confusion.
“Lord Alkanphel, we’re picking up some strange bio energy reading about twenty miles south from here” a young computer tech reported to the Lord of Chronos who stood in the center of the bridge.
“Put it on screen” Alkanphel said and a few seconds later, on the big screen in front of him, appear the vast darkness of space, and after a few seconds of looking, he found two blurs of silver light flying back and forth, striking at each other. He frown for a moment as he couldn’t see what the two lights were exactly, until they both flew away from each other and stopped long enough for him to get a good look at them. He frowned when he saw the Oni Guyver and wondered what the hell she was playing at, she had to know she was in Chronos space. That was when he saw the other guyver and frowned more when he noted the fact that it was dark green, male version of the crimson red Oni Unit. “What in the hell is going on out there? Are they trying to provoke a reaction out of us?” he wondered in a low voice, dripping with suspicion.
“Do you want us to send a recon team out to get a closer look?” the same com tech asked.
“No, we’ll monitor them from here for now” he replied.
* * *
<Apologize and we can end this now!> Oni told him, breathing heavily, she was low on bio reserves, and would run out of power if this kept up.
<Why, are you getting tired?> Fallen asked, he looked no better. <Typical woman, starts something then she doesn’t want to finish it.>
<Stop trying to act like a badass you twit, at this rate we’ll kill each other by exhausting our energy!> she spat..
<That’s fine with me> he replied.
With a groan of frustration, Oni flew at him as fast as she could managed as he charged towards her, but just before they were about to smash into one another, Guyver Enzyme appeared between them and grabbed them by the throats before teleporting back down to the Earth and then dropped them to the ground, he was easily bigger then both of them and looked down on them like were little children.
“He started it!” Oni said, quickly pointing at Fallen.
Jason let out a low growl and the two of them took a step back.
“You two are acting like children for crying out loud!” Jason shouted at them, retracting his armor. “Fighting near the Ark like that, what if they had sent a mass of Elite Overlords out to kill you two, or the Zoalords themselves. In the condition you two are in, you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in a full blown battle with them, did either of you think about that?!” he demanded.
“No” they both admitted.
“What is this all about anyway?! What could be so important that you’d almost kill each other?” their brother asked in exasperation.
Oni pointed at Fallen again. “He implied that I’m a slut!” she said in anger.
Jason looked at her. “You are a slut, you’ve seduced almost every woman on the Triton at least once” he said dryly.
“Really?” Fallen asked in amazement. “Nice…”
Oni had no retort for that one, so instead she kept her mouth shut and just looked away, both proud and a little embarrassed, it was true but she still didn’t like being a called a slut, at least not the way her male half had implied. But still, now that she calmed down a bit she could see Jason’s point about taking the fight into space, she could have kept it within the atmosphere and still beat the snot out of her other half.
She turned to Fallen. “You even come close to calling me a slut again and you’ll be dead before you hit the ground you got that” she warned and then disappeared.
“There’s no way in hell she’s me” Fallen said after a few seconds and crossed his arms, all of his blades retracting to normal.
“And you” Jason said as he turned to his brother. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about Jason, I’m perfectly fine. Except for the fact that I’m apparently a duplicate of that so called me and that I’ve missed out on the last four years, I’m fine” Fallen replied a little sarcastically
“As far as I’m concerned, your still my brother, Kelly feels the same way and Oni would probably be more accepting of you as a brother too if you were bit nicer to her. She’s had to deal with a lot over the last four years since becoming the Oni Guyver and after having Creb and Tora, she realized that killing Anthony was a minor issue, most of all she realized it wasn’t going to bring Alex back. You can’t blame her for that and you can’t force her to live in the past as you’re so hell bent on doing” Jason told him.
“It’s the same story every single time” Fallen said in exasperation, turning away from his brother.
“Well maybe if you listened we wouldn’t have to repeat ourselves” Jason said coldly, then he sighed and shook his head. “Do what you want, but I’ll tell you now that if you do anything that puts Oni, Kelly or Tora and Creb in any danger of any sort, I won’t think first about making you pay, that is, if Oni doesn’t kill you first.”
With that said, Jason summoned his armor again, and disappeared, leaving Fallen standing in the middle of no where with a dry breeze blowing against him.
* * *
“Another Oni Guyver?” Rivenous said in a quiet disbelieving voice.
Alkanphel had summoned all the Zoalord to the Ark after the appearance of the two Oni Guyvers, and they were all shocked and slightly horrified at the thought of someone running around in another Oni Unit. If this guyver was allied to their enemies, then they would have four powerful warriors they would have to fight against.
“It would appear so” Alkanphel confirmed.
“We area going to need more warriors to fight them when the time comes” Imakarum pointed out calmly.
“I believe that a powerful unit may lie behind that door at the temple” Rivenous said suddenly as he sat there. “An old man at the temple though, implied that the only one who can open that door, is Oni herself, so we have to either figure out a way to get her to open the door herself or find another way to open it ourselves, which I will remind everyone present could take centuries at the rate we’ve been going.”
“Why didn’t you inform us about this?!” Cablarl Khan demanded of him.
Rivenous turned to him with a cold hard stare, his eyes flashing with anger. “Hold your tongue you traitorous snake! I informed the ones that needed to know about it and you Khan did not need to know and just because I’m no longer the Guyver Zoalord, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fear me! Now sit there and shut up!” the Prince of Chronos shouted in a booming voice that shook the old Chinese Zoalord into silence. When he was sure that the Zoalords he didn’t trust were going to be quiet and let him finish, he continued. “I have thought about this, and the more I thought about it, the our course of action became clear. With these new upgrades we have all undergone, one of us alone would be able to hold out for a while against Oni Guyver or Shadow Guyver, but together with our combined power we can force Oni to open that door without killing a single one of them or coursing unnecessary deaths, but” he paused for affect, while taking in the looks on each of the Zoalords faces, then he turned to Stephanie sitting next to him. “This plan can only work if you participate”
Stephanie stared at him with wide eyes, wishing she could shake her head no, but to do that would almost certainly be taken as a sign of betrayal by all the other Zoalords except maybe for Alkanphel and Valcus, and probably Imakarum too.
<I promise you Stephanie, that you will not have to harm a single hair on any of them> Rivenous’s voice invaded her mind.
Stephanie was silent for so long, trying to decide what it was that she could do, she didn’t want to fight Oni, or even Anthony, but she knew she had no choice either. She trusted Rivenous though and knew that if he said she wasn’t going to have to hurt anyone, then she wasn’t going to have to at all.
“What do I have to do?”
* * *
Oni sunk into the hot water that filled the hot tub to the top, sighing loudly as she felt her muscles already starting to relax, which was exactly what she needed to do right now. Her fight with Rune had gotten her all worked up and she wasn’t sure she trusted herself well enough around anyone except for her own children at the moment. She still couldn’t get over the nerve of the guy, she let him stay on her boat, gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped he wasn’t some Chronos clone sent to kill her and this was how he repaid her? By provoking her into a fight that she should have known better then to engage in, at the very least she knew shouldn’t have let the fight go into space.
“What am I doing” she thought bitterly to herself. She was smarter then this and she knew it, yet in a single moment she had let her pride get in the way.
She growled just a little at herself and then slipped under the water for a few seconds before slowly sticking her head up out of the water, laying back and trying not to think about the day’s events. She decided instead to think about other things, like upgrades for the Striker Battle Suits or about Project Aqua which she fully intended to make a reality, all she had to do was convince the leaders of the UA that it was a good idea, unless she could find some other way to get her hands on the material and the laborer’s she needed. Unlikely.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door that startled her. “Hey, can we talk?” her sister’s voice followed.
Allowing herself a few seconds to calm down, Oni told the computer to unlock the door, which promptly slid open and Kelly stood there holding a bottle of saki, causing a big grin to form on Oni’s face.
“You can’t let Rune get to you” Kelly reminded her after she sat down next to the large hot tub and getting settled in. “Remember, this is as much of a test for him as it is you. He’s testing you, trying to figure out where he stands or what he has left. Put yourself in his position and you might understand his actions a bit more.”
“I should be able to understand his actions regardless” Oni said sourly. “I was never that bad was I? I mean, I know I could be a bastard, but he’s something else!”
“No you weren’t, but you weren’t that far off” Kelly replied, getting a shocked look from her sister. “Before you go off the rocker let me finish. The reason why this Rune is worse then you is because he’s suffering from Clone Syndrome.”
“Clone Syndrome?” Oni frowned in puzzlement.
“Yeah, you know. The clone of the main character tries to deal with his creation, trying to figure out his purpose and that shit which leads them to doing some stupid or evil though they start off with good intentions in the beginning. Rune is no exception to that, at the moment he’s probably trying to figure out where his place is in our team, he doesn’t know if he’s really suppose to be our brother or not and he most certainly thinks that everyone doesn’t want him here at all. I’m not saying that his actions are forgivable, I’m just saying that if you look at it from his point of view then things start to make more sense as to why he does what he does” her sister explained calmly and then looked at her drink and frowned. “You need to invent some kind of alcohol for us Guyver’s you know, this stuff just doesn’t cut it anymore.”
“I know, I’ll come up with something eventually” Oni said idly. “Ok, so you think Rune has a bad case of Clone Syndrome right? Well how are we suppose to cure him off that? Smack him over the head, shake a finger at him and say get your act together or we’ll fucking spank you? Call me stupid but somehow, I don’t think that’s quiet going to cut it with him.”
Kelly shook her head. “You can be so crude sometimes Oni. Not everything is settled with force or verbal violence you know. For one thing, you have to stop letting yourself get provoked by him. And then maybe you could be a little less hostile towards him, you didn’t make much of a first impression when you and Anthony brought him back. Anthony is also another matter altogether as we know Rune isn’t likely let go of Alex just yet and some how I don’t think Anthony will be able to convince him the same way he did you” she said with a smile.
Oni shuddered noticeably at the memory. “That was a messed up part of my life. I think aside from him convincing me to keep Creb and Tora, Anthony convincing me to let Alex rest in peace was the best thing to come of that event. Now I would rather you didn’t bring that up again, the memory of it still caused me to feel sick on the gut. God I can’t believe I let that happen” she groaned in disgust at her lack of self control.
“And that is something you need to deal with too” Kelly told her. “It happened and there’s nothing you can do about it so get over it and push it to the back of your mind and just accept that it happened because kicking yourself over it every time you think about it is not going to make it go away, so get over it already.”
“You’d be singing a different tune if it had been you” Oni grumbled.
“True, but it didn’t happen to me, it happened to you” Kelly simply replied, then suddenly a high pitch ping echoed through the bathroom and Kelly pulled the communicator out of her pocket. “What is it?” she asked with a sigh.
“Ma’am, we’re receiving a message from General Atkins, he says he needs to speak with you and Captain Oni ma’am.”
“We’ll be there in a minute” Kelly replied and shut off her communicator and turned to Oni, who was lounging back in the hot tub pretending she hadn’t heard anything. “Oh come on, you can do better then that you lazy slug” her sister said in disgust.
Fifteen minutes later, Oni and Kelly had assembled the others on the bridge of the Triton, including Rune who stood off silently to the side, avoiding eye contact with both Oni and Anthony at all costs, a moody look still on his face. Oni was tempted briefly to take a look into his mind to see what he was thinking about, but stopped herself, that would violate her own rules, even if she was technically using her powers on herself.
She sat in her chair on the bridge as the others all took their own seats, and looked up at Atkins’s face on the large screen. “So, what was it that was so important that I had to be pulled from my nice relaxing bath?” she asked a little annoyed with him, letting it show.
“We’ve just received the exact coordinates for that temple Chronos found in the Tibetan Mountains. Satellite photos indicate that Chronos have removed their forces from the temple and we want all of you to go in and secure the area in case they left anything behind that can be of any use” he told them as he transferred the coordinates, he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the whole thing though, quiet the opposite in fact.
Oni narrowed her eyes. “You know as well as us that Chronos wouldn’t remove their forces so suddenly from a location like that, and you know that they won’t have left anything behind that we could use and if they did, they probably rigged some kind of bomb to it so they can destroy one our bases. This whole thing stinks Atkins.”
“I agree with you on that one Oni. This could be a Chronos trap, but then again, we’re not going to find out unless we actually go up there and find out, and in the event that you do find something they left behind, you are to check it for any thing that could be harmful to us” he replied calmly.
“Yeah, but this still stinks like three month old milk” Oni said, not sounding too happy, but then she sighed and replied. “Fine, we’ll go take a look, but if it turns out to be a trap and that temple gets destroyed, don’t blame me for it.”
“Good luck” Atkins told them, and then his face disappeared from the screen.
“You heard him people, lets get a move on” she told the others.
* * *
The first thing Oni, Fallen and Shadow Guyver did as they teleported to the temple was use their sensor orbs to scan the surrounding area, even going as far as to fly around the area a bit just to make sure that Chronos wasn’t around, despite knowing that the Zoalords could simply teleport to the area or have an overwhelming force of Elite Overlords appear out of nowhere in a matter of seconds.
“This doesn’t feel right” Shadow Guyver said a little quietly as he looked around at the temple grounds.
“Tell me about it” Oni replied in an anxious sort of tone.
“Hey, you guys might want to check this out” Combat Guyver called to them as he entered what appeared to be a part of the temple. They wasted no time as they quickly followed him in, and what they found appeared to be the place where monks of this temple had once eaten, but what shocked them, was that there were still quiet a few bowls filled with fresh rice.
Suddenly, alarms started to go off inside Oni’s head and she yelled to them to fall back, as just at that moment, hundreds of Elite Overlords and the Chronos Guyvers teleported around the Temple, along with all twelve Zoalords, whom all stood there looking both cautious and arrogant at the same time as they stared at the group of Guyver’s.
“I knew it!” Oni snarled, stale air venting from her rebreathers as her eyes flashed a dangerous crimson red, then she finally noticed Stephanie amongst the Zoalords, but chose not to say anything just yet. “What is it that you want! What did you do with the people from this temple god damn it!” she demanded.
“They’re in a safe place, being turned into something useful” Alkanphel assured her calmly.
Oni clenched her fists tightly, growling in a low dangerous voice as she stared menacingly at him, letting all her rage flow into her right hand, which stared to glow faintly, not yet enough to gain the attention of any of the Zoalords.
Rivenous suddenly stepped forward. “Now listen Oni, before you do anything rash. We can do this either two ways. One, you can cooperate willingly and no blood will be split, or two, we can have a big battle and then we force you to do this one thing for us. So which will it be?”
“Your nuts if you ever think I’ll willingly help you!” Oni hissed and then threw a silver ball of energy at him.
The Zoalords teleported out of the way and Alkanphel signaled to the Elite Overlords and the Chronos Guyvers to attack. Oni was immediately swarmed by Elite Overlords, punching and kicking, and throwing pisonic blasts at her. She raised a pisonic shield around herself and then she caused it to explode outward, taking most of the Elites with her, but in time at all, more of them appeared and took the place of the dead ones. Oni immediately knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep this up forever.
Fallen flew into the air, dancing around the Elite Overlords and avoiding their attacks as best he could without using any of his power attacks yet. He executed a spin kick and landed a powerful kick to one’s face, crushing its head in and turning its brain to jelly in the process and then he turned around and grabbed another, twisting its head off in a matter of seconds. But it was as he was letting go of the body that countless Elites swarmed over him and grabbed his arms and legs and drove him to the ground.
Shadow Guyver took a different approach, choosing to fight the zoa-forms on the ground instead of in the air where they were more likely to come at him from anywhere, and he was better at fighting on the ground too. He dove out of the way as an energy blast hit the ground where he had been standing and came back up in a crouch with his hands cupped at his side, and then he snapped them forward and loosed a large Pressure Cannon on the Elite Overlord that had just attacked him, the blast ripping the creature apart and sending blood and limbs flying everywhere. It wasn’t long though before he was surrounded by them, he knew he couldn’t use his Mega Smasher or Distortion Smasher without hurting one of the others. Without warning, blades slid out from inside his wrist, ones that looked very much like the hidden blades Oni possessed in her own unit, but before he could contemplate any thing more about them, they formed into twelve foot long vibrational whips. He smiled wickedly.
All anyone saw next was a bunch of Elite Overlords go flying backwards, their bodied cut in half by Shadow Guyver’s vibrational whips, then Shadow Guyver flying straight up with a bunch of Elites following after him. The other zoa-forms backed out of the reach of his blades and fired pisonic blasts at him but at the last moment he teleported out of the way and reappeared behind a group of Elites and sliced them all in half with his vibrational whips. It was while he was doing that felt a tremendous blast of pisonic power explode on his back, ripping away armor and shattering his spine and braking his control over his gravity orb, causing him to fall to the ground in a limp heap. He turned his head and saw Imakarum floating behind him with his hand outstretched.
“Shit” Shadow Guyver cursed.
Oni struggled against the mass of Elite Overlords attacking her, one was easy enough to kill, even two or three, but this was ridiculous, she couldn’t keep up with the sheer amount of attacks being thrown at her, she was taking more hits then she could block. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up for. She couldn’t help but wonder what Alkanphel was planning with all this, surely he knew that she and the others would simply teleport away when they had killed enough of Chronos forces.
Then she suddenly thought of something disturbing. “Unless of course they made it so I couldn’t teleport away!”
<Oni!! Rune!!>
Both Oni Guyver and Fallen spun around in time to see Rivenous appearing behind Female Gigantic and grab her in a head lock with one hand and move his hand just over her Control Medal as he leveled a threatening gaze at her. At the same time, Combat Guyver and Female Guyver 3 were swarmed by Elite Overlords and held in place, at which time Alkanphel signaled the rest of the Elites to stop their attack.
“You son of a bitch!!” Oni and Rune yelled.
Oni suddenly shot forth with her right wrist blade extended out to its full length, ready to impale Rivenous before he could touch Female Gigantic’s Control Medal. However it didn’t turn out that easy, as just as she was about to drive her blade forward, Stephanie appeared in front of Female Gigantic and Rivenous and then transformed into her full Zoalord battle form, causing Oni to let out a confused and startled gasp as she froze dead in her tracks as she stared at the face of whom she had considered her best friend.
“Stephanie!! What are you doing!” Oni screamed.
Stephanie shook her head a little sadly. “My name is not Stephanie in this form Oni, in this form, I am Valysai. Retract your armor and step back, our goal is not to harm you or the others, we only want you to do one thing for us and then you are all free to go, you have my word, and you know that I keep my word Oni, so please, just do as we ask” she said seriously, but reassuringly.
Oni stood there, her hand still drawn back ready to strike. She was trembling with rage and indecision. Then she lowered her arm and retracted her armor, her face a mask of betrayal and anger, the later causing her eyes to burn dangerously as she stared directly at Stephanie, her hands clenched tightly into balled fists. Stephanie looked away, unable to look her in the eyes.
“We’ll discuss this another time, Valysai!” Oni snarled dangerously cold, her voice like acid and only loud enough for Stephanie to hear her, causing the female Zoalord to flinch. “You three, deactivate your armor too!” Oni ordered Fallen, Shadow Guyver and Guyver Enzyme who all stood ready to fire at moment’s notice.
“What! No way Oni, we can take them!” Fallen snapped.
“Do it Fallen!!” Oni shouted at him, her voice booming throughout the mountains of Tibet and causing more then a few avalanches. Reluctantly, Fallen retracted his armor while he floated in the air, receiving a gasp of shock from all twelve Zoalords.
“But, how?” Stephanie asked in shock.
“You don’t need to know!” Oni spat. “What is it that you want me to do!”
Tearing himself away from Rune and recomposing himself Rivenous simply replied. “All you have to do, is open a door.”
* * *
Oni and the others were led into the chamber of the temple that housed the ‘door’ by Rivenous, Stephanie, Alkanphel, Valcus and Imakarum, while the other Zoalords and the Elite Overlords remained outside, guarding it from any sudden attack. Rivenous still had Female Gigantic in a position where he could seriously hurt her if Oni suddenly hesitated to do as she was told, of course he had promised Stephanie that he wouldn’t hurt any of them, he just knew that Oni wasn’t going to take the chance.
“What is this?” Oni asked as she was led over to the ‘door’ and the others were escorted off to the side by Guyver Athena and the other Chronos Guyvers, who didn’t seem all that easy around the more powerful Guyvers.
<Just give me the word and I’ll rip them all apart?> Rune said to Oni.
<Rune you just sit down and shut the fuck up and let me work. There’s obviously something behind, whatever this is that they want and now that they’ve really pissed me off, I’m going to steal it right from under their noses. So just sit there and look stupid until you’re actually needed ok?!> she hissed in his mind.
<Why do you have to be such a bitch?! We should teleport behind Rivenous, take his fucking head off and rescue Kelly and get the fuck out of here before he kills her! Who gives a shit what’s behind there, obviously only you or I can open it so lets blow this pop stand and come back later!” he yelled back at her.
<We’re doing this my way Rune! I’m not going to take the chance that we are the only ones who can open this thing, for all we know we could just be the quickest option!> she growled and then to end the conversation, she blocked out all incoming telepathic messages from him, knowing full well that it was a childish thing to do but she couldn’t concentrate with him talking in her mind.
“Don’t block me out!!” Rune suddenly shouted at her causing everyone to turn and look at him.
“SHUT UP YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!” Oni screamed at him.
“Ok, enough fooling around, open it” Rivenous told her, pushing her forward with his free hand.
Oni turned around with a deadly gaze. “Touch me again Zoalord scum and I’ll shove your head so far up your fucking ass that you’ll have to wear yourself as hat!!”
She turned back to the wall and examined it, there were no markings on its, but it looked ancient, older even then the temple itself, or at least what she had seen of it so far. When she went to run her hand along it the field flare violet as it usually did when Rivenous and others had tried to open it, but this time something else happened. As soon as her hand touched the field, Oni’s eyes suddenly become distant and vacant as she stared straight ahead into nothing. “Rukai” she spoke softly and in a strange voice unlike her own.
Suddenly there was a loud click and high pitch beep, followed by a violent rumble that shook the temple, and then in front of them the field that protected the door way became visible violet light which a circular opening appeared in purple light and then beyond the light, the twin doors that had just previously been blocked, started to swing inward, revealing a long black tunnel which there seemed to be no end to. When the doors swung open fully, Oni’s eyes rolled back into her head and she fell backwards unconscious.
“Oni!” Jason cried as he and the others ran forward, managing to catch her in his arms before she hit the ground. Stephanie suddenly came forward quickly to see if she was alright but Jason snapped his head around and growled. “Stay back you!!”
Stephanie stopped and took a few steps back, hanging her head in shame and then turned away, looking to the door Oni had just opened, her eyes widened in surprise though as she saw that the circular opening was slowly closing. Rivenous saw this too and threw Female Gigantic to the side and ran forward through the circular opening.
Anthony saw Rivenous running through the opening and the opening closing up even more behind the zoalord. He got up and ran for the opening, diving through the opening just as he summoned his unit, forcing the violet field open for a brief second before it snapped shut behind him. He stood up and for a brief second he looked back at the others all of them stunned.
<Rune, protect the others> he said and then turned around and went after Rivenous, running at full speed and disappearing into the darkness.
* * *
Rivenous flew down the long tunnel at full speed, well aware that Shadow Guyver wasn’t that far behind him, all he needed to do though was get to whatever laid at the end of the tunnel first and find whatever it was that was waiting for them. He glanced back and saw Shadow Guyver catching up quickly, so he pointed his hand back at the powerful guyver and fired a few winding bands of light, which Shadow Guyver skillfully dodged without slowing down.
“I’m going to get you Rivenous!” Shadow Guyver yelled after him, firing a Pressure Cannon after him, but he opened a black hole in front of it and swallowed it up. Shadow Guyver growled audibly and powered forth choosing to fly rather then run.
He flew straight at Rivenous, executing a flying spin kick, but the zoalord ducked and blasted Shadow Guyver into the side of the tunnel wall with a massive blast of energy. Shadow Guyver counted with half a dozen blasts with his head laser followed closely by three pressure cannons, but Rivenous didn’t wait long enough for him to aim properly and was already racing down the tunnel again.
Rivenous transformed into his full battle form and concentrated on trying to stay ahead of Shadow Guyver and dodging the attacks the guyver was throwing at him. He noticed though as he went deeper and deeper into the tunnel, that it was starting to widen outward and he knew then that he was getting closer. Then, he suddenly shot out of the tunnel into a giant sphere shaped cavern with a single natural pillar of earth in the middle of it. It was a perfect sphere, the walls were smooth and almost seemed polished. Veins of violet light ran rampant throughout the place and pulsed every through seconds.
“Die Rivenous!!”
Rivenous spun around and saw the Distortion Smasher blast racing towards him and teleported out of the way just in time. As he reappeared he followed the path the blast followed and saw the attack smash into the center of the pillar of earth, but instead of a massive explosion that would have wiped that piece of earth out, the blast of destructive energy disappeared into it instead and the pillar glowed a bright purple along with the whole sphere. Rivenous suddenly had a bad feeling about this and flew backwards a little nervously as Shadow Guyver shot out of the tunnel still ready to fight, but stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the cavern and the bright glow of lights.
“Whoa” he said loud enough.
Suddenly a loud humming noise filled the air, becoming almost deafening even for them as they floated there in the air. A thick fog started to bellow from the walls flooding the cavern in a matter of seconds. Rivenous looked about nervously, something didn’t feel right and the feeling was only getting stronger. It was evident from the way Shadow Guyver’s sensory orbs frantically moved backwards and forwards that something was very wrong with this place. And then on the other side of the pillar, a section of the cavern slid open and more fog poured out, followed by a roar that shook even Rivenous.
“What the hell was that?” Shadow Guyver asked when the roaring stopped.
Before Rivenous could reply a pair of very large, clawed hands grabbed the sides of the opening, from the inside and with another terrifying roar a large monstrous creature walked out, standing on hind legs, it stood only about ten or twenty feet below the cavern roof. It was huge, and appeared to be the stuff nightmares were made of. Drool ran freely down the sides of its mouth which were lined with razor sharp teeth that glittered in the light of the cavern, its yellow eyes searching as it stomped out into full view. Rivenous flinched from pure shock and amazement at such a beast, imagining the possibility of using that as a frontline soldier, but then he was brought back to reality as the beast fired a blast of bio energy from a amber colored crystal on its forehead at the two of them.
As one Rivenous and Shadow Guyver flew away from each other as the blast rocketed past the pillar of earth and shot between them, blasting the wall behind them and exploding out with enough force to send them flying forward.
“I propose a temporary truth Anthony” Rivenous said suddenly as he realized it would be much easier to kill the beast with Shadow Guyver’s help.
“For once, I totally agree with you” Shadow Guyver replied.
The two of them flew around the pillar from opposite sides, instinctively planning on using a pincer attack, hoping the beast wasn’t smart enough to know the kind of attack. Once in place Rivenous fired blast after blast from his head crystal and hands at the beast, while Shadow Guyver fired his Distortion Smasher at it from behind, the attacks hitting it with deadly force and exploding, sending a cloud of smoke to mix with the remaining fog in the cavern. But just as they thought it was safe to say they had won, all the smoke and fog dissipated and there stood the monster, surrounded by a force field.
“Interesting” Rivenous said calmly.
* * *
Back outside the cavern, Oni suddenly let out a small groan and started to open her eyes, finding Rune, Jason, Kelly and the others staring down at her. She sat up with a little bit of help from Jason and looked around in mild confusion.
“What happened?” she asked quietly, like she had just woken up from a deep sleep.
“You fell unconscious after touching that door” Sakura told her, sounding concerned. “Don’t you remember?”
Oni smiled faintly and nodded. “Don’t worry Sakura, I don’t have memory loss. I remember touching the wall and then waking up down here” she explained. She then caught sight of Stephanie standing not too far away and her guts twisted with the same pain of betrayal she had felt when Stephanie had first joined Chronos almost seven years ago. She frowned deeply and looked away from her. “What happened after I passed out?” she asked shortly.
“Some kind of opening appeared in the force field protecting that door and Rivenous went in and then Anthony went charging in after him” Rune told her calmly.
“And then the force field reappeared after he past it” Kelly finished. “Your sure your feeling ok?”
“I’m fine, just a little light headed is all” she assured them and then slowly stood up, holding on to Jason as she did. “I hope Anthony beats the living snot out of that bastard” she added as she stared at the door.
* * *
Shadow Guyver let out a startled scream as he was sent flying backwards into the wall, slamming into it with enough force to shatter his back armor and cause his sensory orbs to go haywire for a breath second before his healing abilities kicked in. He floated in the air for a few seconds and stared at the beast which had decided that Rivenous looked like a good rag doll to through around and was in the middle of chasing the Zoalord around the pillar. Shadow Guyver flew forward at the monster as it past him and shot straight through its force field and grabbed the back of its head startling the thing and causing it to grab at him aimlessly and try to shake him off, but Shadow Guyver held strong and fended off the grabs by firing his head lasers at the hands when they got too close for comfort.
“Rivenous, attack it now!” Shadow Guyver yelled.
Rivenous who had stopped and turned around to see why it had stopped chasing him, nodded and started generating a massive black hole in front of the monster, making it bigger and bigger with each passing second as the beast struggled with Shadow Guyver. Soon the black hole was almost as big as the creature and it was tugging powerfully at the monster, causing it to slide forward towards it every few inches but once it got its bearings it started to slowly move away from it, so Rivenous increased the power of the Black Hole even more.
“Just fucking die!” Shadow Guyver screamed as he pulled back one hand and then slammed it forward, his fist smashing through its skull, but not deep enough to kill it. The creature lost its footing a little bit and started to slide towards the black hole a bit faster this time, but was still managing to keep itself from being pulled in completely.
“I can’t keep this open much longer!!” Rivenous shouted.
Shadow Guyver drew his hand back and punched the creature in the head again, but this time as his hand slid through the skull into the brain, he released a pressure cannon, which exploded inside the monsters head, blowing apart its brains and taking Shadow Guyver’s hand and apart of his arm with it. Shadow Guyver fell backwards off the monster and slammed into the ground clutching his busted arm as blood gushed out of it. He stared up at the monster, which now with no way to stop itself, pitched forward and fell into the black hole, it body being crushed by the destructive attack. Then the black hole closed up behind it and the cavern went silent. Shadow Guyver slumped into the ground, breathing heavily as he let his arm regenerate, but then a few seconds later he remembered Rivenous and shot up just in time to see the Prince of Chronos disappeared into the place the monster had come from.
“Oh hell no” he growled as he pulled himself up and then flew after him with all the power he could muster he flew after Rivenous. He caught up with him seconds later finding him in a large room very similar to the one inside the relic he and Oni had gotten their units from four and half years ago. “What is this place?!” he demanded.
“If I had to guess I would say it was a secret base of sorts, but it was cleared out, there’s nothing here except whatever was keeping the creature asleep” Rivenous replied.
“So all of this was for nothing? Let me ask you something Rivenous, are you proud of what you accomplished today? Causing Stephanie to brake Oni’s trust in her? You piece of shit, I’m going to enjoy killing you” Shadow Guyver replied with a sneer.
“HA! You don’t seem to understand something, Shadow Guyver, I’m a Supreme Master Zoalord with powers beyond anything you can fathom. With the new upgrades my body has gone through, I’m still more then a match for you” the Zoalord replied dangerously as he turned to face Shadow Guyver, whose arm was only half way regenerated.
“We’ll see about that, Zoalord Scum” Shadow Guyver said coldly, extending his forward most vibrational blade on his good arm and readying himself.
“A dual is what you want?” Rivenous asked with a certain amused grin. “Very well then, I’ve been wanting to try this technique out for awhile” he said as he suddenly held his hand together, which was glowing with energy. He closed his eyes briefly as a sword made of pure energy appeared in his hands. Shadow Guyver stared at it in amazement, the energy sword looked like a double edge katana.
“Interesting” Shadow Guyver thought to himself.
Rivenous lunged at Shadow Guyver, swing his energy sword wide and forcing the black armored guyver to jump back out of its reach as he attempted to parry with his own blade. Rivenous pulled his sword back with a jerk before the end of the vibrational blade touched it and then thrust it forward again and stabbing Shadow Guyver in the chest, the armor around it cracking with light shining through it. Then as Shadow Guyver looked at Rivenous in shock, the Zoalord smiled and let go of the sword, at which point it exploded and sent Shadow flying backwards with the shock wave and sliding across the ground and into a wall, a large hole in his chest. He looked up at Rivenous in pain and saw the Zoalord already forming another energy sword.
“I may not be the Guyver Zoalord anymore” he said calmly. “But I’m still your worst nightmare come to life.”
Shadow Guyver slowly stood up, leaning against the wall for support. “Don’t me laugh Zoalord. My worst nightmare, is having to eat Oni’s cooking everyday for the rest of my life.”
Rivenous smirked a little and jumped forward again, but this time Shadow Guyver was ready and as the zoalord brought his energy sword down, the guyver released a pressure cannon in front of him that exploded between them and blasted Rivenous backwards, while Shadow Guyver jumped over the blast and attacked with his own sword. Rivenous was quick to recover though and teleported out of the way as Shadow Guyver brought his sword down and smashed the ground where Rivenous had landed before. He turned to the side as Rivenous’s sword slipped past him, missing him by mere inches. Shadow Guyver flipped backwards as he dodged another swing and found himself backed up against a wall as he came back up with Rivenous charging towards him.
At the last possible second he teleported out of the way and Rivenous’s sword slid straight into the wall, and exploded, sending chunks of whatever the wall was made of, flying everywhere.
“Take this!” Shadow Guyver snarled as he reappeared behind the Zoalord and swung downward, but much to his surprise, Rivenous turned around and pointed his free hand at him, and another sword appeared, this time spearing Shadow Guyver in the middle of the chest and holding him in mid air.
“You were saying?” Rivenous asked coldly, then let the sword explode, ripping Shadow Guyver’s chest apart and sending blood and bone and armor flying everywhere as he was sent flying backwards again, this time, the damage much more server. Rivenous watched as his opponent flew away from him and waited a few seconds for the guyver to get up, but he didn’t, he just laid there, his lungs destroyed his unit boarder lining on going into self defense mode. He shook his head a little disappointedly. “Next time perhaps Shadow Guyver” he said.
As he was about to walk away though, a new section of wall slide away and a light shone outward, almost blinding him as another part began to slide out of the wall and Rivenous walked over to it, and stared down at the two objects that laid upon it.
He gasped.