Guyver AU - A Tale of What Wasn't

Madness

Year 518 18th July, Uranus Homeworld Blockade, Chronos Ark, Cry Havoc

"Are you ready?" Aptom asked.

Fukamachi nodded. "Have you located several Uranus?" he returned his own question.

The hyper-zoanoid grinned. "I think I've found them all!" he replied.

"Then let us begin." Fukamachi's voice changed as he morphed into his Zoalord form.

Aptom nodded and with a practised move he let himself dissolve to flow over the polished floor to Fukamachi before he began wrapping the zoalord's naked form with himself. Off to the side, a small amount of his biological material waited. It would remain there against need though Aptom fully expected to return for that part of himself.

They had spent the last few months hauling bodies. Hardly the most glamorous pastime for a Zoalord but a necessary one. He had taken over each body and they had released them back into space, this time in a slowly decaying orbit so that the bodies disintegrated into the clouds of the Uranus homeworld. The most challenging part had been ensuring that no one caught them at it, but Fukamachi was a zoalord, when he commanded zoanoids to look the other way that's exactly what they did.

Now the clouds were properly seeded and Aptom could feel himself there and it was time to strike. He would be the eyes and ears and the touch, taste and smell and Fukamachi would be... well he would be the hammer that drove the Uranus into the ground.

"Shō, why didn't you let the others know?" Aptom asked the question suddenly before the guyver-zoalord called his unit.

Even with the relatively expressionless face of a zoalord Aptom could see the pensive expression. Wrapped around Fukamachi as he was he could feel the subtle changes in his body that spoke the truth.

"You know why," came the softly spoken response.

"They would not have blamed you." It might have been more than five hundred years since Aptom had met Shō, and the boy might now be the Second in Command of Chronos but on some things he had not changed. He still protected his underlings, even from the potential of false hope.

"No, but they might have stopped me."

The hyper-zoanoid felt a wave of shock. Shō's first reply had contained the desire to protect, this one was far more dark but he reluctantly admitted it was the truth. Alkanphel, Tetsuro... Mizuki, they would have stopped this. They wouldn't have let one man take on the death... No they would, they would not let Shō do it. The war had already caused him to embrace the darkness in his soul... this would make him wallow in it, and that might be the death of him. He looked again at the Zoalord, allowing himself to feel everything and he could see that Shō was almost lost... This would most likely tip him over and in the silence of his mind Aptom prayed for forgiveness. But this one action, the good man that was Fukamachi might be forever lost...

"They would have been right."

"So why have you not stopped me?" Shō returned the challenge.

"Because this must be done."

"And that is why this must be." Fukamachi paused for a moment. "I know what they fear. I can feel it growing within," he said with amazing candour. "But this must be done and even if Mizuki does not, I have faith."

"Faith?"

"She believes in me... she believes in us."

Aptom nodded, understanding. "Hold on to that faith," he whispered as he allowed himself to completely envelop Fukamachi's zoalord form. The man he had known for so long said nothing and then the relay of information began and Shō could see what he could see, feel what he could see from the planet. The locations of the Uranus shone brightly and the Zoalord nodded before summoning his armour.