[scikaiju]

Episode 6


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OP – Mercy Drive – Burn in my Light
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It had been two days since Ken was deserted by Richardson. Even though Johnny never really asked too many questions about why he was in the middle of nowhere he still ribbed him on it in a good natured way. Of course Rose and the others quickly caught on to what was going on. Making sure Jeff wasn’t in earshot he made up a quick story for them. “I ran into a guy I knew and he convinced me to head to the park top relax for a bit after what happened. Another monster showed up and he booked it before I could get in the car.”

“I don’t believe it,” Rose stated.

“What’s not to believe?”, Ken asked her.

“That you have friends outside of work. I’ve never seen you hang out with anybody else.”

“I do have a life outside of here you know.”

“You’re going to have to have a hard time proving it to me,” she told him with a grin.

The rest of the day went by pretty smoothly. Then Rose went to the door and looked back into the garage, “Hey Ken!” He looked over to her, “You have a visitor of the female persuasion.”

“What?”, he had no idea who this could be. He had an idea on who he hoped it would be, but that was a long shot. Going over he was surprised to see Richardson’s assistant standing there, what was her name, Patricia?

“Mr. Scott,” she began, “if I may have a few moments of your time?” She looked around the garage before adding, “In private?”

“Yeah sure,” he saw his boss in his office look as confused as the rest of them. “I’ll be back in a few.”

Rose started grinning, “You should have told me you liked them older.”

Pointing a finger in her face he told her, “Don’t start getting ideas.”

“Too late,” she chimed as he followed the assistant.

“They walked a few yards away from the garage to her car so they wouldn’t be overheard. Without a word she retrieved her briefcase and put it on the hood of the car. Opening it she flipped open a panel that revealed a monitor. A moment later it came on to reveal Richardson’s face. “Good day Mr. Scott, how are you today?”

Crossing his arms Ken tried not to look that disgusted, “What do you want Richardson?”

“Alright then,” Richardson said not looking impressed, “we’ll get straight to the point. “I’m asking you one more time to join the UNDF.”

Ken nearly laughed out loud, “You had me arrested, you ditched me in middle of BFE and you expect me to jump right in? You have got to work on your recruitment pitch.”

He started to leave when Richardson spoke up, “Then you leave me no choice. I’m telling you you’re joining the UNDF.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Ken told him. “Free choice and all that.”

“You haven’t seen this as of yet.” Ken watched as the image on the monitor changed. He paid a little more attention when he realized that was him on the screen. That son of a bitch recorded him the other night. “Mr. Scott!”, Richardson called out in the video. Like a patsy he looked back right at him. “Good luck, to both of you.” The he disappeared in a flash of light and Daxium was there in his place. “Let me tell you how this is going to work,” Richardson said coming back on the screen, “you don’t agree to join the UNDF this footage get’s released to every media outlet within the half hour. Everybody will know who you are and what your giant little secret is.”

Ken stood there seething for a bit. Finally he said, “You’re assuming I won’t blow my secret myself.”

“But what about your family and friends?”, Richardson asked him. “What’s going to happen to them if this gets out? Forget the media scrutiny, what if somebody, say from my organization, starts saying you may be a biohazard to those around you?”

“You mother…”

“Do we have a deal Mr. Scott?”, Richardson said cutting him off sharply.

Ken looked back at the garage, he could see Rose and Jeff hovering around the door. Damn it he didn’t have a choice. “Alright I’m in.”

“I knew you would see it my way,” he said looking a little smug. “To prove I’m not totally heartless I am well aware that you help support your family.” Patricia handed him a piece of paper. “By my estimation that should be double what you currently make a month. I’ll let you decide what to do with it, I’ll give you a few moments to decide.”

Despite how angry he was at the moment he was able to think clearly enough on what to do with it, “I want half of it into a saving account for me.”

“And the other half?”, Richardson asked.

“I want half of that to go to my mother and the other half to go into a trust fund for my niece.”

“Fair enough, a pleasure doing business with you Mr. Scott. We’ll see you soon after you put your current affairs in order.”

After the monitor was turned off he focused on Patricia, “Your boss is a real piece of shit.”

“I know,” she said calmly, closing the case, “but he gets the job done.” She pulled away leaving Ken standing there. He waited a few minutes to calm down before heading back to the garage.

Rose was there almost as soon as he entered the door looking concerned, “Ken, are you alright? What was that about?”

“Not right now,” he told her. He headed straight for the boss’s office and closed the door behind him.

“Ken what’s going on?”, he asked.

Not sure how to put it the only thing he could say was, “I’m… putting in my two weeks.”

“Why?” what was that about?”

Still unhappy about the situation it came out a little more bitter than he intended, “Your dream for me just came true.”

***
“A civilian operative?” In order to get that bastard the giant bonded with into the organization there were miles of red tape he had to get around. Richardson had Patricia look for any holes they could exploit while they were trying to discover the other half of Ultraman’s identity. It was going to be hard enough to bypass the academy, where they were going to put him was another headache just waiting in the wings. So much so he almost couldn’t believe it when the board practically dropped the solution right in his lap. And seeing where he was planning on placing Scott Hawk’s reaction was pretty much what he expected. “What kind of bullshit is this?”

“It’s something a couple members of the board cooked up without my knowledge,” Richardson explained as he sat behind his desk. “It’s supposed to make the UNDF look more relatable somehow. They explained it but it went over my head, you know how people think these days. It was already popular with roughly eighty percent of the board by the time I heard about it, otherwise I would have shut it down.” Yes it was a bold face lie, but he tried to appease the Captain a bit.

“You could still shoot it down,” Hawk insisted a bit.

“True but I thought it would make an interesting experiment.”

“So any yahoo off the street…?”

“Please Captain give me some credit,” he cut him off seeing he was trying to build up a head of steam. “Even the idiots who came up with this weren’t that stupid. In fact they pitched as a second chance program. In case some qualified person fell through the cracks somehow. As it stands,” Richardson slid a folder across the desk to Hawk, “I already have a candidate in mind.”

As he read over the file he correctly guessed the Captain’s reaction yet again. “What the hell is this? You had us bring this Scott character in now he’s signing up? Wait, he’s blackmailing you isn’t he? He doesn’t want money he wants this?”

“And we have a team of lawyers ready to ground him into dust if that was the case,” Richardson told him. “Actually he had to be convinced to take the offer. He’s almost as stubborn as you in that aspect.”

Hawk wisely didn’t take the bait, “So why him?”

“Honestly he reapplied to the academy, which tells me he wants in. Since it took some convincing he wants to do it the right way and not take a short cut.”

“So what did it take to get him to take it?”

“That’s between me and him Captain.”

“Then why did you have us bring him in?”

“I wanted to size him up personally, see how he would react to different stressful situations.” As an afterthought he added, “I know I should have told you this sooner but I wanted you and your men’s action to be authentic.”

Hawk just stared at him dumbstruck, “You wasted our time and resources…? I don’t buy it. There has to be more than to this ‘civilian operative’ business than that. What’s really going on?”

“There’s no big conspiracy Captain,” Richardson said, mainly to get some time to think. “It’s just politics mainly. They backed away when I wanted to leave Ultraman alone for the time being. So I agreed to something of theirs. Just to keep them happy more or less.” Something flashed across Hawk’s face that grabbed his attention, “Do you have a problem with what I just said Captain?”

“No,” he said slowly, “but Joe said something similar when he finally agreed to accompany you as a bodyguard. Good day sir,” with that he started to leave.

“Do you blame me for Joseph’s death,” he asked out loud.

“I’m not assigning blame to anybody,” Hawk told him without turning around. “I just want to know what the hell happened to him. He faced him, “It doesn’t matter if you think I deserve to know or not, but his teammates deserve to know.”

“I guess you’re right,” Richardson turned around in his chair. “I guess you can blame me after all. I wanted to see our soldiers in action, overriding Joseph objections in the process. Once we got there I foolishly got out of the car dragging Joseph along the way. He convinced me to stay in a spot he considered safe.” He was quiet for a moment as he relived the death of his only child. “Then a stray blast from that creature… He died because of a foolish old man Captain. You can tell Alpha Team that if you want.” There was a long uncomfortable silence after that.

“He died from a stray blast,” Hawk said after a bit. “That’s all they need to know.”

“Thank you Captain,” Richardson said. As he was leaving he spoke up again, “From the files Mr. Bridge have been downloading it seems you have been studying this Ultraman. Keep it up in case my hunch about him is wrong.” Hawk nodded before he left the office. Richardson leaned back into his chair, sometimes politics included spinning enough of the truth into a story for people to stop looking into it.

***
There were several messages on his machine as he got ready to leave. There were two that he stopped and listened to while he was packing his bags. The first was from Rose, “Hi Ken, just wanted to say goodbye one more time and good luck. I know you’re going to do great, just don’t forget about the rest of us. Otherwise I’ll have to hunt you down and hurt you. Bye.”

The other was from Jeff, “I can’t believe you’re abandoning us. You heard the boss, you’re the only reason why that dump is still open. What about the rest of us huh? What are we supposed to do? What about your niece you selfish son of a…” There was a brief argument with Janet over what he was saying before the call ended. One more time he had to ask, how was he related to him again?

While he had some sort of quarters waiting for him at UNDF headquarter, Castle he thought they called it he had the option to have a living space off base, which allowed him to keep his apartment. Which was kind of a kind of a good thing because now he wouldn’t have to explain why he kept the picture taped to his mirror if Jess accidently saw it. Slinging the bag over shoulder he locked the door behind him and went down to his car and drove away.

Pulling up to the main gate he showed the temp ID they gave him to the guard so he could get in. Looking at the main building in the day light made him relive some of the excitement from a few years ago when he first got accepted. That quickly went away when he remembered why he was here now. Finding a spot he was directed to a person who gave him a packet with the rules and regulations and such. Inside he also found two slips of papers, one was his quarters which he quickly located and threw his bag in. Because the second had where he was supposed to meet his new chief and crew. Heading toward the lower levels where all the vehicles were he tried to find the room numbers on the paper. Having no luck what so ever he walked to a guy going over something on a clipboard. “Can you give me a hand for a sec, I can’t find this room number.”

He looked at it and him strangely, “I would say so, you got to go up ten floors or so.”

“Ten floors?” Ken looked at the paper again, “That’s really far from the garage. Is management up there or something?”

“Or something,” the guy said looking really amused about something before walking away.

Finding the elevator he looked over a directory until he found the floor he was supposed to go and hit the button. Once there he was still lost as he had no idea where to go and didn’t see a “you are here” map anywhere. So he asked for some directions again. Once or twice he find somebody helpful, “You go down that corridor, take a right at the third hallway you pass…”, that sort of thing.

But mainly he got some annoyed looks and a, “Oh, it’s you,” before they walked off.

It didn’t take him long to figure out why either. “Dax from now on I decided who in the hell we trust.” Finally he found the room after about ten minutes of searching. Heading in he saw a conference room of some sort. He also saw who was waiting inside. Taking a step back into the hallway the door closed in front of him. Ken looked at the slip of paper again to make sure he read it right. Even going so far as to turn it over in case he was holding it upside down. No he had the right room all right. Stepping into the room again he saw he didn’t see things the first time. He stood there looking at Jess and her teammates as they looked right back at him. “Oh hell no.”

“Hey civilian nobody we didn’t want who’s being forced on to us,” Bill said looking really unhappy right then.

Ken returned the look, “Hey bastard who shot me in the back.”

As he walked to the back of the room a guy he hadn’t seen before with the tag Bridge on his jacket stared at him, “How long is your hair?”

“Longer than it was yesterday, shorter than what it’ll be tomorrow,” he snapped off as he leaned against the back wall. Of course Jess wouldn’t look at him, but from what he could see she didn’t look all that happy about this either.

Hawk came into the room saying, “I see our newest member finally decided to arrive. “I’ll make this quick. That man over there is Nathan Bridge, our computer expert. Bill Waters and Ryo Watanabe, our best pilots. You already know Jessica Wade, who by the way is our top marksmen. And I’m Gabriel Hawk, leader of Alpha Team. Or as they call us around here Monster Squad. Alpha Team, this is our new… civilian operative, Ken Scott.” Nobody made the attempt to even pretend to exchange pleasantries. “Well then,” Hawk coughed, “let’s get this meeting started then.”

“Wait,” Bill curt in, “not everybody is seated yet.” All eyes went to Ken who was still standing against the wall.

“There’s no other chair,” he said.

“Well get you a chair for next time,” Hawk said.

“Captain,” Ryo spoke up, “you said the meeting never starts until everybody is seated.”

“Yeah,” Bill agreed, “if the civilian wants to be part of this he better find a seat or get out of the room.” Jess shot Bill a look but said nothing.

Ken looked around the room not wanting to give them the satisfaction. Locating a waste paper basket, he picked it up, dumped the contents on top of Bill’s head then went to the end of the table and sat on top of it. “Happy?”, Ken asked.

Hawk looked real tired all of the sudden, “If you’re done hazing the new guy…”

“We haven’t begun hazing the new guy,” Bill said looking right at him as he got the trash off of him.

Ken mouthed the words, “Bring it.” Hawk still looked tired.

***
After the meeting Hawk told Ken to meet him in another room. This one turned out to be a more high tech conference room without any chairs. Hawk stood on one side of the table in the middle of the room and gestured that he should stand on the other side. Both of them stood there and sized the other man up. Hawk began with, “Obviously we started off on the wrong foot.” Ken wisely kept his mouth shut. “But we are a team. And a team has to be able to be able trust each other, that means no secrets. So I’m only going to ask you this once, what did Richardson offer to get you to agree to this?”

Ken looked at him for a long time. He apparently didn’t know the real reason why Richardson forced him to do this. Maybe if he told the Captain why he was her he might find a way to help him get out of this mess. But that wouldn’t stop Richardson from releasing the tape. Instead he said, “He’s helping me set up my paycheck to help out my mom and my niece.”

“Is that it?”, Hawk asked not looking convinced. “Because from what I’ve seen you’re not being paid what the rest of us are. In fact it’s lower than the a grunt.”

Why was he not surprised? “If he didn’t offer that I would have never agreed to this. I was waiting for my rejection letter when you guys cornered me.”

“If you were so sure you’d get rejected why reapply?”

“My boss wouldn’t get off my back about it. I figured after I got the letter he’d let it go. Obviously that didn’t work out the way I thought it would.”

Hawk nodded a bit before changing the subject, “Is there any particular reason why you headed for one of the hangers first?”

“If you were a mechanic where would you think they’d put you?”

“Good point.” Hawk put a file with his name on it on the table and slid it to him, “So how good of a mechanic are you?”

“Well I’m pretty modest, but everybody else I’ve worked with says they haven’t seen an engine I couldn’t figure out in no time.”

Hawk nodded again, slowly this time, “Makes sense, because according to your academy file there you are highly adept at all thing mechanical. I believe the term they used was ‘genius’.”

“What?”, Ken opened the file and quickly looked through it. “You have to be kidding. I’m just a just a grease jockey.”

“Scott I don’t kid about things like that,” Hawk told him. “I’ll be up front with you, that is the only reason why I’m not protesting this all that much. Hell son if it wasn’t for that thing that originally disqualified you you’d probably be running a department by now.”

Ken read the file as he listened, only to stop listening when he found the part Hawk was talking about, “A genius?”

“Scott!”, Hawk barked. Ken gave him his full attention. “I will give you a chance to prove Richardson’s hunch about you right, more than what I was going too originally. So I suggest you don’t do anything to prove either of us wrong.”

Still stunned Ken could only say, “I’ll try not to.”

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Hawk said with a little more understanding, “and you’ve been thrown into the deep end so to speak. This is Alpha Team’s war room for the lack of a better term. This is where we plan our attack strategies, in case we get sufficient warning. But mainly we use it to go over our mission, see what we did wrong or what we can improve on. What I want you to do right now is to go over the basic equipment data. The table will give you a holographic image to refresh your memory.”

“I guess this is where I say yes sir?”

“Since this your first day I’ll put that down to inexperience,” Hawk smirked as he took the file. “I’ll have somebody give you a better tour of the place and set you up with your gear. But study the things I’ve highlighted first as a refresher, but you can look at anything that doesn’t seem familiar.” Leaving the room he added, “I should tell you now there might be situations where things will rest squarely on your shoulders.”

The door closed as Ken muttered, “What else is new.” He scrolled down the list, so far a few of the names were ringing a bell or two, so he mentally put them on the back burner for the time being. Looking at the things he wasn’t familiar with something near the end of the list caught his attention, “Ultraman?” Surprisingly he had access to that file and pulled it up. Watching as the image formed over the table he was soon greeted by a familiar sight, “Oh boy.”

***
Now this was an unexpected development. Apparently his masters tried to push a monster threw decades ago. When they first discovered this world they rushed into breaking the phase and sent it in immediately. Of course they didn’t have a clue about what would happen once it crossed over. It took some doing but he finally located the remains of the creature. In fact it became sort of a local legend in the nearby town he found it in. Antlar they called it, his master had a name for it but they forgotten it. But not totally since they provided the means to revive it.

“You come to see Antlar.” An old raggedy looking man came out of the woods. The Avatar couldn’t help but to noticed that he said more of a statement than an actual question.

“What gave me away?”, he asked playing along, well aware of that rifle in his hands.

“Nobody comes up here unless they want to see it,” he spat. “And they never listen because they don’t know how lucky they are.”

“And why is that?”

“I saw that thing come out of a hole in the sky!”, he snapped. The Avatar kept quiet, could it be possible this old fool saw him emerge from a portal. “But nobody believed old Zeke. I saw the creature come out of a hole in the sky. It used some sort of beam to suck in a plane.”

“Then what happened?”

“The creature started thrashing around like God himself was trying to strike it down. It tried to dig itself back to hell. Then there was a flash then that was it. The authorities said it was a natural phe… pheo… thing. But Zeke saw, I told them. But nobody believed old Zeke, said I was sick in the head.”

“I believe you,” the Avatar told him. “In fact I’m here to bring him back to life so he can finish the job he was sent her for.”

“An animal that big will destroy the town,” Zeke exclaimed.

“That one and several others, that is the idea after all.”

The old man pointed that rifle at him. Getting a good look at it now the Avatar doubted it would even fire, not that it could harm him in any case. “Old Zeke won’t let you. I’ve seen that thing and I won’t let you.” The Avatar raised a hand that was crackling with dark energy. Zeke back away, the end of the rifle starting to shake, “What are you.”

“A superior being,” the Avatar simply said. “If it makes you feel any better I was going to kill you any way. I can’t have anybody knowing what I look like.” Old Zeke barely had time to flinch as the energy beam struck him, he didn’t have time to scream. In moments all that was left was the remains of the rifle and a charred skeleton. “Trust me Zeke I probably put you out of everybody else’s misery.”

Going up the trail he found what he was looking for, a segment of the mountain that looked a bit different from the rest. It was a very slight difference but he could see it even after all these years. He could even feel the remains of dark energy that still remained in the area. Holding his hands close together dark energy swirled between until ball of energy formed. Looking like a dark diamond it flew forward and hovered over the ground. A beam came from it as it started burrowing into the ground. Before long he felt the dark traces grew stronger and he smiled.

***
The person Hawk sent to give him the tour and gear him up turned out to be Ryo. A quick conversation revealed that it was the same guy he went to the academy with. And they were pretty friendly back then, well before the flight simulator, so Ken felt comfortable enough to say, “So you drew the short straw?”

“Bill was a little too eager to volunteer,” he said “So Jess suggested I might be a good compromise. Come on the Captain said to hook you up with the basic equipment.”

“Does it involve getting what you’re wearing?”

“Sorry civilian, but you’re going to have to earn one of these, just like everybody else.”

“Civilian? Dude that hurts.”

“The truth usually does,” Ryo told him. “Come on, the equipment and weapon bay is this way.” After that little remark small talk was kept to a bare minimum. Going down a couple of floors, and a couple of dirty looks in his direction, they hit that bay. More people saw him and turned away. Jess was in there too, she glanced at him before returning her attention to the firing range. “What you need is over here.” Walking up to a table he saw a wrist scanner.

“I recognize this from the academy,” Ken said picking one up and looking it over.

“Not a whole lot has changed since then,” Ryo explained as he strapped it around his wrist. “It still does thermal, infrared and various other scans. But they improved the radar since then, even added a link to the Scan Tracks’ sensor package.”

“Interesting,” Ken said trying to sound interested, but once he heard Scan Track he started thinking about what’s under the hood. And how fast he could get elbow deep in one. Ryo pointed to another table. Ken followed him and raised an eyebrow when he saw what was on it. “I get a gun?”

“Civilian operative or not Captain Hawk wants you to be able to defend yourself. None of us are going to babysit you out in the field.”

“I can’t get a uniform but I get a gun?”, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around that one.

Ignoring the statement Ryo continued, “Your weapon has variable power setting, stun to kill. We mainly keep it on stun since it’s not supposed to hurt.”

“You wanna bet?”, Ken asked.

Coughing a bit he went on, “They added one feature though.” Taking the gun back he tossed him a helmet, “Put it on and lower the visor. Doing so he watched Ryo press something by the trigger. A targeting reticule popped up in his vision after a moment. Ryo moved the barrel around and the reticule followed it’s movements.

“That’s cool,” Ken said as he took the helmet off.

“There’s a targeting sensor in the barrel of the gun,” Ryo explained. “There’s a bit of a lag, especially after the guns been fired, but not enough to cause any real trouble.” About then Jess took aim and fired off round of shoots at the target in front of her. They watched as all her shots hit the heart of the man shaped target. Ken let out a low whistle, praying that wasn’t him in her mind. “Of course some of us don’t need the sensor at all,” Ryo remarked. Leaning in he said, “Just a word of warning, don’t mess with that woman.”

“I used to date her,” Ken shot back, “I’m well aware of that fact.”

“Captain Hawk to Alpha team,” Ken heard over Ryo’s communicator. “Get to the war room.”

Jess and Ryo both acknowledged the call and ran out of the room. Ken followed saying, “Am I getting one of those at least?”

“We’re working on it,” Ryo called back.

***
Hawk watched them enter the room, somewhat impressed Scott decided to join them, at least he was being serious about this. But the others were still giving him a wide berth. One step at a time he reminded himself. “We had an interesting call from a town a few miles from here.” A map showed over the table highlighting the area. “For some reason airplanes have been sucked down from the sky according to witnesses.”

“How long has this been going on?”, Jess asked.

“It started a couple of hours ago,” he answered. “And the pull has been getting stronger since they first noticed it. Usually we’d send in a scout team but I volunteered us since it seemed like the perfect situation to break in Scott here. Jess you go with Bill in Razor Wing one for this one. Ryo you’re flying with Ken in Wing two.” Hawk watched as Scott blanched a bit. Jess looked at him and winced and Ryo dropped his head.

Slowly raising his hand Scott asked, “I don’t suppose I can take one of those Scan Tracks or something?”

“I already sent the Tracks out,” Hawk informed him, “they should be there by the time you arrive. And we travel as a unit Mr. Scott, no exceptions. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” he said holding his stomach.

“Keep your eyes close,” Jess told him on the way out. “Like you used to do on the Ferris Wheel.”

“This better not be the simulator all over again,” Ryo muttered. Scott said nothing as the door closed. Given his condition Hawk would have complied with his request normally. But he needed to know how much of a handicap his condition actually was.

***
In the hanger both jets were prepared. Ken hit his check list quickly trying to keep his mind off the situation. In front of him Ryo was trying not to think of the simulator as well. “It’s just a short flight Ken,” he said, “so keep it in until then. I don’t want to be wearing your barf again.”

“Short flight… right.” Ken put on his helmet, unfortunately that put his mind back on what was happening. “Ah Ryo…?”

“I had them put a couple under your seat.”

Reaching under it he found two white sealable bags, “Thanks. Ryo…?” Without a word he handed back a third one, “Thanks.”

“Razor Wing one to control, we are ready to launch,” Ken heard over the speaker.

“Oh God,” he said before squeezing his eyes shut.

In front of him Ryo tried not to sound worried as he said, “Razor Wing two to control, we are ready to launch.”

“Acknowledge Razor Wings you are go for launch.” The jets shot forward and Ken forcibly swallowed the contents of his stomach back down.

The short flight seemed to take an eternity for Ken. Finally heard Ryo speak to him, “We’re approaching the target area. Scan Tracks haven’t picked anything up yet. So we have to look for anything suspicious so I need you to open your eyes. I’ll keep the Wing as steady as I can but I need you to do your job.”

“Right,” he answered. Opening his eyes he kept them focuses on the controls in front of him. Taking several deep breaths he slowly looked out and saw the ground below. Then he promptly threw up in one of the bags.

“Two seconds longer than I thought it would take,” Ryo said attempting a joke. Ken smiled weakly as he wiped off his mouth.

“Concentrate on the task at hand,” Hawk ordered from Castle’s control center. “Bridge says you’re close.”

“You should almost be right on top of it Wing one,” Bridge said as he monitored the situation. Almost a split second later Razor Wing one was caught in a vortex that came out of nowhere.

“Holy shit!”, Bill tried to regain control as the jet just spun in the air.

“I can’t see where it’s coming from!”, Jess called out.

Ken did, “By the…,” he swallowed hard to keep down another round from escaping his stomach. “Mountains,” he lowered his head and pointed. “By the mountains!”

“I see it,” Ryo said as he brought the Wing around. “Ken I can’t I can’t keep her steady and target it at the same time. I need you to focus on the screen and block out everything else, got it?”

“Yeah,” he said trying to do just that., eyes looking at nothing else but the screen in front of him. Putting the crosshairs at the base of the vortex he fired a couple of missiles. The explosion was enough to disrupt the vortex and Bill quickly regained control and get out of there.

“Great shooting man,” Ryo told him.

“Is civilian even authorized to fire those things,” Bill asked.

Jess reached over and smacked him in the back of the head, “He just saved our asses.”

“He is now,” Hawk told him.

“We got movement,” Jess called out. Three of them watched as the ground started to break revealing a giant, dark brown head with a huge set of pinchers. The creature screamed and the vortex formed again from it’s mouth capturing both jets. And Ken lost his lunch again.

“It’s stronger now!” Bill exclaimed. “The controls are doing nothing!”

“Same here!”, Ryo said. “We’re being pulled backwards! I can’t get us loose!”

“Eject!”, Hawk ordered.

“Ken!”, Ryo called out.

“I’m looking right at it!”, he said. All of them pulled the levers and shot out of there shot out of their jets. It was enough to get them out of the vortex as the Razor Wings smashed together. The vortex stopped and the creature ignored them as it freed itself from the ground reveal an armored bipedal feature. The Scan Tracks started firing as soon as they got it in their sights.

Alpha Team and Ken hit the ground as his stomach threatened to give away again. “I just had to tell Richardson yes,” he muttered as he got it under control.

“Waters to Castle,” Bill said into his communicator. “We’re all fine, but civilian looking a little green.”

“Head to town and help with the evacuations,” Hawk told them. “Back up’s on the way.”

“Rodger,” Bill said. Then he and the others looked at Ken.

“I’m on solid ground, I’m good,” he said reading the silent question in their faces. None of them looked like they believed him. But they didn’t have time to argue and ran for the town with Ken right behind them.

***
And this was the amount of chaos Ken was expecting with that creature nearby being distracted by the Scan Tracks. Dax was yelling at him again but with Ryo right there he couldn’t get away. Of course he was having a hard enough time getting the towns people to listen to him. “Evacuation is that way!”, he told a group. They kept on doing what they’re doing. “Yo I’m talking to you!”, again they ignored him as they tried to back everything they owned in that small truck of theirs. “Hey!”

“You!”, Ryo called out pointing right at them. To him they listened. “You heard this man, take what you got and get to the evacuation area now!” They did as he said with no questions asked. Ryo looked at him before looking elsewhere.

“This would go a little easier if I had a uniform,” he told him.

“And I told you that you had to earn it first,” Ryo shot back.

“Hawk to Alpha Team and other units, Calvary is coming in about five seconds.” Ken and Ryo looked up at the sound of engines of the incoming Razor Wings. A few moments later more Scan Tracks could be seen coming into view.

“So now what?”, Ken asked.

“We keep looking for civilians,” Ryo answered. “Other than yourself.”

“Oh ha-ha,” Ken told him.

“Ryo,” Hawk spoke up. “I’m sending a Scan Track to your location. Scott can keep looking for civilians I need you to help coordinate the attack from the ground in case it uses that vortex again.”

“Understood,” Ryo replied. Taking his communicator off his jacket he handed it to Ken. “Keep in touch with this and keep looking for stragglers.”

“Right,” Ken said. A Scan Track pulled up and Ken ran off. Keeping an eye on the scanner on his arm he’d look up every so often to see how the attack was going. Like Hawk thought it tried using the vortex again against the Wings. Those not stuck in the field fired at it to try and free those that were as well as the Tracks. From where Ken was it didn’t look it was doing a lot of damage. “Look for others,” he reminded himself. Going a few blocks he wasn’t picking up any other life signs in the area that he could see. “Scott to Ryo,” he said not really sure what to do. “My area’s clear so far.”

“Scott this is Hawk,” he got in reply. “Jess and Bill reported the same thing. They jumped into a Track and went to help out with the battle. I want you to head to the evacuation area.”

“Captain…”, Ken started to protest. Maybe he didn’t want to be part of this but now that he was he wanted to do his part.

“That’s an order Scott. You’re not trained for this situation. You’ll be better off there.”

“Yes sir,” he said. Turning off the communicator he looked at the creature. He could believably be a few minutes late getting to the evacuation area. Without a second thought he reached in his jacket for the Spark Magnifier and held it over his head.

***
“Shiah!” Daxium took a fighting stance as Antlar looked in the other direction. Running in he jumped up and hit a flying kick to his back. Antlar stumbled forward a bit before looking back at his attacker Daxium ducked under those pinchers as it came at him and punched him in the stomach. He swung his head suddenly catching Daxium in the side with one of those pinchers that knocked him to the ground, The giant quickly kicked the monster back as it tried to get on top of him. They circled each other after getting on their feet. Daxium went low, grabbing the monster’s leg and knocking it to the ground. He pounded Antlar’s body but it’s hide was tougher than it looked, He was so intent on pounding the creature into submission he failed to notice those pinchers open up and the head raise up. Clamping down on his neck Daxium struggled to free himself before Antlar tossed him off.

Getting to a knee he fired off a bolt as Antlar stood. It stumbled back from the impact giving him enough time to get to his feet and jump up for another flying kick. Grabbing those pinchers he kicked away at the monster gut trying to weaken something on it. Antlar started swinging his head again. Daxium tried to hand on but he was eventually flung off. Landing with a ground shaking thud he watched as Antlar dove for the ground and burrowed in faster than he thought possible. “Where did he go?”, Jess asked from her Scan Track.

“I’m not seeing it on sensors,” Bridge said.

Daxium looked around as he cautiously moved forward. Looking down as the ground under his feet started to vibrate. Antlar’s head came up right under and knocked him to the ground. As he got back up he looked for the creature but it went underground again. Concentrating on trying to feel where the creature might be he failed to notice it emerge from the ground behind him. “Look out!” Jess shouted. Daxium looked at her but it was too late. Antlar created the vortex and caught him. He struggled as he was pulled backwards. The pinchers clamped down on him, digging into his left shoulder causing the giant to grunt in pain.

Light started pouring down his shoulder as Antlar pierced his skin while it tried to crush him. Hawk ordered for all units to assist Ultraman but it was having no effect. The jewel started to flash as he was able to free his arms enough to slam his forearms together and hold them out going into Power mode. Grabbing the pinchers he slowly started pulling them apart. Then with a deep grunt he threw Antlar over his head and away from the town. The creature felt it this time as he slammed a foot into his gut. Grabbing one of the pinchers he broke it by pounding hi other hand on it. Pounding him repeatedly on the head Daxium grabbed him, picked him up over his head and threw him. Seeing him crash he put his fist by the jewel and started drawing in energy. Scan Tracks in the area started backing up as fast as they could as he pulled the fist back and slammed it into the ground. The energy wave ripped up the ground as it slammed into Antlar. Moments later the monster exploded. Daxium took a moment to heal his wound before flying off, “Shiah!”

***
“There he is,” Bill pointed out as they got to the evacuation area. Ken sat on the hood of a truck as he waved at them. Ryo pulled up a moment later as they got out. “Hey civilian, what did you think of that warm up?”

“About the same as the first one I got caught in,” he said hopping off. “It sucked balls.”

“Ken,” Jess spoke up, “thanks for the save.”

“It was just a lucky shot,” he said trying to shrug it off. “So how are we getting back to Castle?”

“We’re taking the Tracks,” Ryo told him. “Clean up will come for what’s left of Wings one and two. Good thing you’re a mechanic, you’re going to be busy for quite a while,” he joked as he slapped Ken’s left shoulder. He fought hard to keep the pain off his face.

“I think we got room…,” Bill started to say as he pointed toward his and Jess’s Scan Track.

“Ryo got more room in his Track than we do,” Jess quickly said. “Ken can ride with him.”

“Sure,” Ken said trying to figure that reaction out. Bill and Ryo shrugged as they headed for their respected Scan Tracks. Ken took that free moment to grab his shoulder and grimace a bit from the pain. He didn’t notice Jess caught him. She was confused but didn’t say anything to the others.


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ED - Shinedown – Fly From the Inside
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