Sneak Peek: Preparations (Part II)

[Azaar]

Disclaimer: This is a fan-fic based on characters created by Yoshiki Takaya and contains violent situations with adult language. All other characters are created by Brian O’Sullivan, et al for the Warrior Guyver fan-fiction website.

August 1, 2010 – Three days after Cori’s kidnapping

ACTF Main Headquarters – The Pentagon

The last three days had been a blur: one moment, he was looking up at the early morning sky to see a red four-armed Guyver-like being flying up and away with Cori, and the next moment, he was being pulled back by several ACTF military, a couple of them pointing at the prone figure of Guyver US, near the far end of the hall from where Sean’s and Cori’s room had been and yelling for him to do something – anything to get him back up again.

But Sean had needed several hours to regenerate the damage, even though it was already starting to do so when Gabe, in a daze, managed to make his way over. The torso had sustained the brunt of the damage, and it looked as if his heart was completely gone, blasted out by the alien being. But he knew the Guyver unit had regenerative capabilities; Sean had said as much during the earliest interviews, recounting the events at Chronos LA and Fulton Balcus from his perspective as well as that of his ex-girlfriend, Mizky.

He managed to make his way from there to the R&D labs, which were the only things set up to try and hold Guyver US down while the unit regenerated the damage. But afterwards, he had stepped back along with the team who had helped cart him in, and then turned around, silently departing. Part of him would have been fascinated to observe the regeneration process, but Dr. Drake was filming it for further study and analysis, and Gabe could watch it happen later.

Right now, he had something more pressing to do, something that a much greater part of him wanted – no, needed to do: he needed to run until he had nothing left.

It was either that, or punch something repeatedly. And at the moment, Gabe didn’t trust himself to be able to control his emotions and keep from winding up doing something incredibly stupid.

Dr. Drake had said nothing for nearly three days following Cori’s abduction by the unknown four-armed Guyver-like assailants. He knew that Gabe was suffering from it, just as much as Sean was in some ways. But the fourth day, he finally decided he had to step in, and he went to Dave Shulman for help.

Shulman had begun training Gabe in Krav Maga more than two years earlier, and had managed to convince Gabe that there was a necessity for defending himself; as a result, Gabe became one of his most apt pupils. Even Shulman knew that something was wrong, because Gabe had skipped on practice for the first time, on the day Cori was abducted. Both men were concerned, but Shulman convinced Dr. Drake that he would find Gabe and get things sorted out.

Gabe wasn’t in his office still; for that matter, he wasn’t in his room. But a short time later, Shulman found Gabe in the gym, working a body-double mannequin for all he was worth. To Gabe’s credit, the mannequin looked pretty solidly beat up, and finally it gave up the ghost when Gabe launched himself into a series of body blows that culminated with a hard roundhouse kick that took the mannequin’s wooden head cleanly off.

“Well, that’s a way to work out your frustrations,” said Shulman from the doorway.

Gabe whirled around, his expression one that Shulman had never seen from the twenty-seven-year-old man before. There was a mixture of emotions that Shulman could discern: anger, fear, sadness and regret, all swirling around into a mixture that he knew he had to defuse.

“You know,” Shulman continued as he walked towards Gabe and the mannequin, “I can understand all too well what you’re feeling; I lost family and friends to Chronos. I can even understand trying to sort things out on your own.” He paused, looking more closely at the mannequin and seeing its poor condition. “You haven’t been doing this behind everyone’s back for the last few days, have you?”

“No.” Gabe’s voice was tired, drained of all vitality, and yet it was clipped short. “I ran first. Ran my ass off until I couldn’t run anymore and collapsed to the ground.”

“But it wasn’t enough?”

Gabe looked at the mannequin, then back at Shulman again. “I think the answer’s pretty obvious.”

“Gabe, you aren’t a superhero. Even if you had been a Guyver, you saw what happened to Sean. Those four-armed Guyvers that attacked us are strong – strong enough to even give the Gigantic Guyver problems.” Shulman shook his head. “You’re beating yourself up for something you had no control over, and couldn’t possibly have stopped.”

“I know that already, Dave. But I have to get it out some way, and…” Gabe sighed quietly. “This was the only way to get it out. It’s cathartic, really.” He looked off into the distance. “Besides, the last thing you’d want me to have right now is access to an unbounded Guyver unit. If you think what Sean and Sho can do is awful, you would probably cringe at what I might be doing right now.”

Shulman ****ed his head at an angle. “Revenge on your mind, huh?”

Gabe nodded silently after a moment.

“Then be thankful you don’t have one, Gabe. But you need to quit beating yourself up over this.” Shulman looked back at the mannequin once more. “I can understand why you did this – I’d have ripped you a new one if you’d pulled anything like this in class, because the idea of training isn’t to hurt people. So I’m not going to judge you.” He laid a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “Is the worst over, at least?”

Gabe nodded again. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Dr. Drake is worried about you.” Shulman smiled slightly. “You might want to let him know your days as a whirling dervish are over now.”

*************************

A couple of hours and a fresh shower and clothing change later, Gabe approached Lacey's desk. “Doc’s in, I take it?”

Lacey looked up, smiling. “Hey! Yes, Dr. Drake’s in his office. I’ll let him know you’re here.” She hit a button on her telephone. “Gabe Kelso’s here, Doctor.”

“Send him in.”

“Yes, sir,” Lacey answered, looking up at Gabe again. “It’s good to see you back.”

“Thanks, Lace.”

A slow blush crept up Lacey’s cheeks as Gabe moved past, opening the door to Dr. Drake’s office.

“Sent the cavalry after me, I noticed,” he said as he entered, closing the door behind him. “Dave said you had him hunting for me.”

“I was worried, Gabe. So were several others.” Dr. Drake smiled faintly, gazing at Gabe. “It's nice to see you back again.” He paused briefly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, now that I’ve run myself ragged for three days and beaten the absolute hell out of a wooden mannequin.”

“Fair enough, Gabe.” Dr. Drake leaned back. “The General and I were talking a few days ago. He has an idea that I’m loathe to implement, but he wants some people for it.”

“What does upper management want this time?” Gabe never really hid his disdain for the military brass that controlled the base, even now that he was able to leave the base for several hours or more.

“Carter wants some combat-trained technicians. If he thought the self-defense stuff being forced on the techs was a smart idea, then he should know better than to expect any volunteers for it. But he wants more techs in the field, not just to maintain the exo-armors but also be trained like military--”

“I’m in.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t even mention it to you, but…” Dr. Drake stopped suddenly as Gabe’s reply belatedly sunk in. “Gabe, wait a minute.”

“Doc, I’ve been locked in base for more than five years. I need some way to deal with the current circumstances, and this is the best chance I’ve seen to do it. I’ll take combat training, so long as I choose what I want to learn. If Carter doesn’t like it, then he can have fun trying to vet the techs for this, and I know how that’s going to turn out.”

“But Gabe, with Cori…” Dr. Drake sighed quietly. “With Cori gone, you’re the only one we have left who has any idea about the Guyver unit and its technology. We can’t afford to lose you.”

“You can’t, Doc, and I respect that. But at this point, you have Scot Matthew helping you more than I am here in the lab. Most of my work has been computer programming, and you’ve got techs by the dozen for that now. The fact that I know something about the Guyver units should make me more than suitable.” Gabe paused briefly. “Besides, the fact that I’m also a computer hacker will likely score points and help me get the training I want for this. I can be the Swiss army knife of combat techs.”

Dr. Drake leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “I don’t like this, Gabe,” he confessed. “I really don’t. At least take some time to think about this before you let yourself get drafted. As much as you don't like the military--”

“Doc, this is what I want. I need a new challenge, and this is as perfect an opportunity as I can get. I was going stir-crazy already, and that was before all this mess with Cori happened.” Gabe was quiet for a couple of seconds, and then smiled. “This gives me a chance to more constructively vent my frustrations, if nothing else. Carter knows I won't accept rank or anything like that, not right now. Just give me a chance.”

Dr. Drake twitched his lips. “If you insist,” he finally acquiesced.

========================================================================================================================================

Just in case people were afraid I had dropped off the face of the Earth, I am still around and kicking. I'm waiting for confirmation from Sully about whether I've emailed Preparations (Part I) to him or not -- I've gone ahead and sent it, just to be sure. But I figured perhaps folks might like to get another glimpse of what's going on... which admittedly gives everyone an idea of where Part I cuts off and where Gabe fits in. Hope you all enjoy the read.

[jedi-guyver]

I really like it. It fits in perfectly as an aside to the main story before Gabe joins the guyver ranks. Kudos.

[Azaar]

Thanks. I still have a long ways to go, though -- without spoiling anything, the end of Part II and a fair bit of Part III of Preparations will have some intrigue, and Parts IV and V are still on the drawing board. My plan right now, though, is for Part V to end right about the end of Seven Days Part VII, if not perhaps the end of Story 9 (depending on where Sully goes there in the time between Seven Days and Story 10, when Gabe bonds with the Stellar Unit). I've made a few minor tweaks (thanks, btw, zeo, for catching me on that stuff) in the process to fix things up.

I might slow down a bit, though, but it's because I'm starting my first full-time (if you will) job in over six years within the next few days, so my time to write will be trimmed back some. However, I'm still diligently brainstorming things, and I've actually made some changes to my original plans for Preparations to account for the new ideas (which merits another thank you to zeo, because he and I have been back and forth some on those ideas and what they could mean for the fanfic as a whole -- once I get things more finalized, I'll be passing it by Sully to see if he approves).

[Azaar]

A quick update: the writing proceeds apace (albeit slowly), but I am also working with zeo1234 to get together a data file for Stellar Warrior Guyver with the new data file format that the data files will be rewritten to.

As an aside, mostly because I'm interested to see what people think: I'm idly tossing about the prospect of perhaps bringing in a few secondary characters from the live-action Guyver movies to play with, at least over the course of Preparations. And before anyone asks: no, Jimmie Walker's Zoanoid character is not going to be one of them, because I know Sully has every intention of killing him off, when the time comes for him to re-write the live-action movies as prequel stories for the website. Thoughts?

[jedi-guyver]

The guy who talks to Jimmy at the end of the movie? The one who was one of the cops working for Chronos.

[Azaar]

Colonel Castle (that was apparently the character's name; from what I've seen, he was supposedly Max Reed's partner, but under Chronos control) -- yes, he is one of the ones I'm looking at. I'm also seriously considering Mizky (Sean's ex-girlfriend) as well. Not sure if I'll add in Sean's aikido class "nemesis", who was part of that street gang that attacked him when he first activated the Guyver -- I think Sully had planned for those street gang goons to get killed off, but I can't recall for certain. I'm also idly considering some of the survivors of the Utah dig team from Dark Hero as well.

[Azaar]

I've been somewhat scarce the last little bit, I admit, but for good reason: I spent the last couple of months job-hunting, and came away with a new job -- in fact, I'm finishing up my second week of work tomorrow. But I've not forgotten things here -- I'm admittedly a trifle stuck on something I'm writing right now for Preparations (Part III), but it's one of those writer's block things. Once I can get past that part, I think I can get it wrapped up and get a Sneak Peek topic for it posted before too much longer.

Edit: I just found this, and it seems so fitting... and right up my alley with my humor!

Word Crimes --

[Azaar]

So, good news! I'm finally getting my own Internet come Monday, so I'll be able to be around more often. I'm still working on Part III of Preparations, and hopefully once I get everything set up, I can then try and get Skype so that I can chat some with Sully and others about where to go with Gabe and all that fun stuff.