[PSP] Guardian Sentai Roboman #8

[utsukushuu.dreamer]

>From PSP:
http://www.night-jaeger.net

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GUARDIAN SENTAI ROBOMAN #8
"Keeping Secrets"
Component 03.2
March 1st, 2010
by Adrian J. Watts



Elsewhere

Jinsei pushed open the heavy metal door to the dark cell in which he
held Nagura Scott, the former base administrator of Blizzard Base
Zero, captive. The cell was dark; its stone walls contained no windows
or other openings, and there was no source of artificial light.
Attached to one wall of the chamber was a metal bar, to which Dr.
Nagura was handcuffed.

The doctor struggled against his bonds, but despite his best efforts
to wrench the bar free from the wall, he succeeded only in sending a
loud clanging sound echoing around the room.

"Stop that, Nagura," Jinsei said. "You'll do yourself an injury."

"What do you... want?" Nagura asked.

"The master will be ready to utilise your skills soon," Jinsei
explained. "Miko is out collecting the last of the items you asked
for. At least... she will be, after she takes some 'Miko time'. It
seems she really hates you and would like to see you linger here as
long as possible."

"I'm not... her biggest fan... either."

"You're a funny man, Nagura." Jinsei stepped further into the room and
allowed the door to slam shut behind him. "There you are, locked up
and at our mercy. You know there is a control bug inside your head and
that I can make you do anything I wish as well as cause you
extraordinary pain - yet you still try to keep your dignity."

"It has nothing to do with... dignity," Nagura said. "It is...
hatred."

Jinsei raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Jinsei took a moment to consider the situation. He served a master
possessed of incredible power, but Jinsei had a number of powers of
his own, including the ability to control and speed up the evolution
of all living things. If you wanted a rabbit with wings, or a rose
with teeth, Jinsei was the person to go to.

But his powers were not without their limits; he had found that every
living thing contained certain potential evolutionary branches, which
changed only with breeding and the process of natural evolution. There
were things he simply could not create - or, if he did manage to
create them, things that would not actually work.

Despite those limits, Jinsei's powers were incredible. Still, he could
not hope to compete against his master; so he was always on the
lookout for new opportunities to advance and increase his own strength
- he was always looking for ways to evolve.

"See," he said, "I know you and Miko have a history, but I don't know
what it is. What did you do to her, Nagura?"

Dr. Nagura shook his head.

"Oh, come on," Jinsei told him. "Avoid the pain. Tell me willingly."

Dr. Nagura turned his head and spat at Jinsei's feet. For a moment,
Jinsei was filled with absolute rage. He was too 'cool' to admit it,
but he hated Nagura almost as much as Miko did - for months, in order
to carry out his master's plan, Jinsei had been forced to disguise
himself as 'Doctor Smith', an assistant to Nagura on Project: Roboman
at Blizzard Base Zero. He had struggled to maintain the facade of an
educated bioroboticist, but had struggled even more greatly
maintaining an existence in the wholly unnatural environment of the
Antarctic base.

Someone like Nagura, so determined to develop technology which could
be used in place of - or even to change - natural processes absolutely
disgusted Jinsei, and it was all he could manage not to horribly
torture the man while he had him at his mercy.

"Fine," Jinsei rolled his eyes. "We will do it the hard way. Tell me
what happened between yourself and Miko."

"N...no...!" Nagura struggled to speak. The moment Jinsei issued the
command, Dr. Nagura felt intense pressure against his right temple. He
immediately tried to resist the impulse to respond to Jinsei and ease
the pain - but the more he resisted, the stronger, the more intense,
the pain became.

"Tell me," Jinsei repeated.

"No!" Dr. Nagura shouted.

"Tell me!"

"Ack-k-!" Dr. Nagura slouched forward and started to cough violently.
He pulled hard against the handcuffs attaching him to the wall, but
had no more success than when Jinsei first entered. He continued to
cough, and in the darkness of the cell Jinsei could only hear the dark
blood spill from the prisoner's mouth and splatter on the ground.

"Hmmmm..." Jinsei rubbed his chin. "If you keep resisting, I think you
might just die. Whatever Miko did... is keeping it a secret that
important to you?"

Dr. Nagura spat again, but it was not an act of aggression. With his
mouth free of blood he swallowed loudly before speaking: "Miko... the
witch... Miko killed my son!"


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Science Island

Rose Brachis frowned as she approached the office of Satoshi Kakeru,
the director of all operations on Alpha 7. She had never been a fan of
the man, his goals, or his methods - in fact, she downright despised
him, but she could never totally escape dealing with him. As Head of
Security on the artificial island, Dr. Brachis had to report to him
every second day, and it never became any less of a struggle.

She knocked on the door to the director's office and waited for a
response. She had found that he never answered immediately, even when
she knew he had nothing else to do - and that annoyed her even more.

"Enter."

She pushed the door open, stepped through, and closed it quickly
behind her. The office was bare, decorated only with a black desk and
two chairs in its centre and one artificial light directly above the
furniture. Despite his responsibilities, Satoshi never seemed to have
a need for paperwork, files, or even a computer - but it was not
Brachis' place to question him.

"Sit down," Satoshi told her.

"I'd rather stand, sir."

Satoshi smiled. He had heard Brachis' deputy speak the exact same
words only a few minutes earlier, and he finally understood why
Brachis thought so highly of him - he was her.

"I insist," Satoshi said. Dr. Brachis nodded and took the only empty
seat in the room, facing Satoshi across the desk. "I have made my
decision regarding Operation: Guardian."

Brachis smiled. "Oh?"

Satoshi nodded. "I will be moving ahead with Damien Sinclair."

Brachis scowled. "But Sinclair has failed on every mission I have
given him! Even yesterday, in New Orleans - !"

Satoshi raised a hand to silence her.

"Don't even try it, Dr. Brachis," he said sternly. "We both know you
have deliberately set him up for failure so that you could freely
promote your deputy. I have overlooked it for this long because Senshi
has performed so well since his arrival on Alpha 7, but I can overlook
it no longer."

Brachis opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "I... admit
that I have favoured Senshi for a number of reasons... but even so,
Sinclair is not the best candidate. I am concerned that by selecting
him you are setting yourself up for failure."

"The choice is mine," Satoshi reminded her. "I agree that Sinclair is
not as ideally suited to Operation: Guardian as Senshi, either
physically or mentally, and that factored into my decision - after
all, we would not want to risk losing our superstar security
operative."

"Sir - !"

"No," Satoshi interrupted. "The decision has been made, and the Earth
Defence/Leadership Directorate notified. Sinclair will be the Guardian
operative."

Brachis did not reply.

"You may go, Dr. Brachis."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Orleans

Sei stepped through the plastic flaps separating the back rooms of
'Hey, Pizza!' from the main restaurant and returned to his friends.
Kiko sat at the counter where he had left her, slowly picking at a
pizza, while Ikku assisted the store owner, Trick, with washing dishes
in a basin within the food preparation area. He had asked Kageki to
remain by the television at the back of the store, leaving him to
speak freely:

"Miss Sato, Ian," he said. "Sorceress Miko is in New Orleans. She is
in the process of robbing a bank."

Kiko quickly slid off her stool and rushed to Sei's side. "This is our
chance! We can find her, and make her take us to Dr. Nagura!"

Sei nodded. "We will need to move quickly. Sorceress Miko has at least
two pixies with her. We will be in for a fight." He looked at Ikku,
who had not responded. "Ian?"

"Ikku!" Kiko called out. "Are you coming?"

Ian slowly put down his dishcloth and leaned against the edge of the
basin.

"Hah!" he laughed.

Kiko frowned. "Ikku...?"

Ikku turned quickly, winked, and vaulted over the shop counter to
stand beside Kiko and Sei. "Of course I'm coming! I was just waiting
for you two to get the talking out of the way. Let's go squish some
pixies!"

They ran out the front door of the pizza shop a moment before Kageki
emerged from the back room of the store and approached Trick. He saw
the front door swinging and raised an eyebrow: "Where did Sei-tachi
go?"


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Kiko and Ikku followed Sei as he led the way through the darkened city
streets. As they put some distance between themselves and the pizza
store, they began to hear the sound of police sirens and shouting
through a megaphone and knew they were heading in the right direction.
They rounded a corner and saw, at the end of the street, six police
cars parked outside a bank, where two pixies hovered in the air, one
on each side of a tall, slender woman in pink and white tights.

"That's Miko?" Kiko whispered to her allies. "I could so take her."

"We will wait for the police to make their move, then assess our
options," Sei told her.

"Hey!" Ikku protested. "Who died and made you leader?"

Sei closed his eyes, took a deep breath, turned to Ikku and opened his
eyes again. "What would you have us do, Ian?"

"Henshin, grab our weapons and hit her until she falls down!"

Sei turned away.

"I think you just made him leader," Kiko whispered.

Ahead of them, the police kept their weapons - a combination of small-
calibre handguns and shotguns - trained on Miko, who smiled
seductively at the officers as she stood, unguarded, on the steps
outside the bank. The two pixies flickered out of view momentarily,
and when they reappeared - surrounded by a dull blue glow - each
carried a beige sack bulging with money. The sacks were larger than
the pixies themselves, and Sei realised that meant they were
supernaturally strong.

One police officer raised a megaphone to his mouth and spoke loudly
into it. "Drop the money and put your hands above your heads!" he
demanded. "The Black Battalion is on its way! We will not hesitate to
fire on you!"

"We cannot wait," Sei whispered. "We will need to get to Miko before
the Black Battalion arrives."

Kiko and Ikku nodded in agreement.

"So what do we do, boss?" Ikku asked.

"We henshin and move quickly. The two of you will deal with the pixies
while I confront Miko. We will need to strike before the police have a
chance to react. I am not sure how well the robosuits will protect us
from shotgun blasts."

"Okay!" Ikku said. "Let's do it!"

"Let's go, Robo!"

Energy crackled around their bodies as the already-familiar sensation
of their transformations began. They felt the circuitry embedded
beneath their skin pulsate as it sent the signals instructing the
robosuits to allow metal shards to pierce the thin fabric and re-form
as shiny silver chestplates, gloves and boots.

They were not concerned as the same metal covered their faces and the
back of their heads to form thick but malleable helmets. Commands came
into focus on the inside of the two-way mirrored visor that opened in
the front of the helmets.

It surprised Sei how easily his two teammates had come to accept their
transformation. Only a day and a half earlier they had been simply a
developing scientist and the son of a scientist, respectively. In that
short time, they had adapted to their new powers; they certainly
weren't experts when it came to using the robosuits, but they had
learned far more than he ever imagined they would.

"Electro Blaster!" Kiko shouted. She ran forward and jumped onto the
back of a police car before the officers surrounding it could stop
her. Blue mist fell around her right hand as the handgun-sized weapon
took shape, and she lifted it quickly, aimed it at one of the two
pixies and fired. A burst of jagged yellow energy arced from the
barrel of the gun and struck the pixie's chest, causing it to freeze
in mid-air.

"Yes!" Kiko cried.

Sorceress Miko turned to her remaining pixie and began to speak. "Go,
now, bef - "

"Chaos Sword!"

Ikku pushed two police officers aside as he charged the steps of the
bank, his black-and-silver hilted, translucent-red-bladed sword in
hand. He swung it upward at the still-moving pixie, which tried to fly
to safety - but as the sword moved, it seemed to everyone present that
there were several Ikku's, each with a sword of their own, attacking
from different directions. The pixie dodged one illusory strike after
another until, finally, the true Ikku struck. The blade passed through
the pixie easily and it exploded into blue dust.

"You monster!" Miko shouted.

She turned her attention to Ikku and raised her right hand to strike -
but paused as silver-gloved fingers wrapped around her wrist. Sei
stood behind her and held her tightly; he had no intention of letting
her escape.

Miko kicked her leg backwards and struck Sei's left knee, and he
reflexively released her arm. She jumped down the remaining steps as
the police began to fire on her - yet as she fell toward the pavement
her body was consumed by the blue energy cloud Sei, Ikku and Kiko knew
preceded any attempt at teleportation, and by the time the ammunition
of the police's weapons reached where she had been standing, she was
already gone.

Sei had to think quickly. He could teleport as well; what's more, if
he moved quickly enough, he could follow Miko's trail. However, he
knew he had only enough power remaining to teleport one more time -
could he risk becoming stranded?

He rushed forward to stand where the energy left behind by Miko
continued to fall toward the ground and closed his eyes. He
concentrated, and the same blue energy poured from his hands and
washed over his entire body; a moment later, he was gone.


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Elsewhere

Sei reappeared in a dim, deserted corridor that seemed familiar. It
was deserted, and a very thin layer of dust and grime suggested it had
been for some time. Light fittings were set into the wall at regular
intervals, but the lights were switched off.

He had been there before.

I know this place, Sei thought. This is... Science Island!


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NEXT: Revelations!