SRMTHFG: Susceptible Ch. 6

Within the Super Robot, the monkeys gasped collectively. They had their bodies back.

"Antauri," Nova was the first to speak, her tone and visage pressing, "Chiro's gonna be okay, isn't he?"

Her eldest brother flashed her and the rest a sure, relieved smile. "Yes, my friends. Skeleton King's grasp on his mind is no more."

They sighed in relief as one. There was no measuring their joy in even this small fact, that their darling boy would live—fully—to see another day.

"Monkey Team, do you read?"

The monkeys started at the voice, beams breaking out on their faces. "Chiro!"

"Chiro, are you all right?" Antauri enquired immediately.

A weary breath escaped the boy before he answered, "Fine. Thanks to you."

"Kid," Sprx started, "what can we—?"

But Sprx was cut off as a brilliant green glow emitted from within the Mega Formless.

"Chiro!"

"You have to trust me, Monkey Team! We have to end this once and for all!"

The siblings smirked, nodding determinedly. Here was their boy-hero, strong and defensive as ever.

"We trust you, Chiro, infallibly! We'll be ready!" Gibson answered.

"Chiro, out!"

"This is it!" Antauri warned. "Be prepared to provide back-up, if necessary!"

But as the monkeys watched, they felt no doubt whatsoever.

No matter how the creature counterattacked and bellowed, the essence of Chiro's Power Primate fought to engulf the Mega Formless. And given several seconds, the creature was consumed at last.

Chiro, his Power Primate having carried him above it all, gave a mighty cry and used the last of his strength to destroy the devil-sent Mega Formless from the inside out, just as its creator had tried and failed to do to him.

"I know you're listening, Skeleton King!" he shouted, face tilted up toward the sky. "Consider this a warning! Don't ever threaten my family!" He sent a Chiro Spearo into the air. "You got that?"

Down below, the hiding Shuggazoomians flooded the streets and cheered, hugging and kissing in each other in their glee.

"We're saved! The Hyperforce has done it again!" they sang. "Chiro's our hero!"

Chiro beamed down at them, and then turned the grin to his Team.

"We did it, guys! We beat 'em!"

Someone answered him, a warm, deep voice he loved dearly, but there is a haze before him. He hadn't noticed it before, but his body feels like he's on fire, and blackness creeps at the edge of his vision.

"Monkey Team…" he breathed weakly, "…something…wrong…"

"Chiro, hold on!" Antauri cried. "We're coming!"

The citizens murmured worriedly as they noticed the boy's unnatural listing as his Power Primate energy began to fade. When it disappeared completely and an unconscious Chiro fell, they screamed.

But they had little to fear.

Mere seconds after the child started his downward descent, the monkeys swarmed beneath him, forming a protective net. The townspeople sighed in relief and, still anxious for the condition of their young hero, parked themselves outside the Super Robot to wait for news.

The boy had saved their lives countless times. It was only right that they should repay the favor, if solely in spirit.

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Inside the Super Robot, Antauri and Sprx carried Chiro to the sick bay while Nova and Otto helped Gibson get things ready for the examination.

"Geez!" Sprx shouted as he carried the boy's upper half. "The kid's really burnin' up, Antauri!"

The spiritual advisor did not look back as he carried Chiro's lower half, but just from his disturbed voice Sprx could tell he was frowning deeply. "Yes, Sprx, I know. This could be very dangerous, indeed."

Laying the poor child to rest on the cold examination table, Gibson half-heartedly asked everyone to leave the room while he did his work, promising to call them back in when he was finished.

About an hour later he did as promised, and the others raced back into the room.

"Is he gonna be okay, Gibson?" Otto asked, tightly clasping one of Chiro's limp hands in both of his own.

Gibson's face went dark. "I don't know, Otto. His fever is astronomically high, even by our standards. Right now, it's evened out at one hundred and eleven degrees Fahrenheit." He breathed deeply, turning away from his brothers and sister to wipe his eyes. "By all accounts, he should be dead."

The others, struck by this news, could not even gasp audibly.

"N-no wonder Chiro was so hot…" Sprx mumbled, though all of the humor was gone from him as tears filled his eyes instead.

He and the other monkeys gathered around the child's bed and prayed with all of their hearts that he would awaken, that he wouldn't leave them.

Who knew that the ill boy from this morning with a mild fever would be lying on his deathbed just hours later?

It was a long time—an eternity, they would argue—before anyone spoke.

"A-Antauri," Nova choked; she had been unabashedly crying since they'd gotten the news, "h-how is he? C-can you f-find him?"

The second-in-command (soon to be first, Power Primate forbid) had been trying for hours to get in contact with the fourteen-year-old's unconscious mind, his inner Power Primate, anything to let them know there might still be hope, but there was none.

Hesitating a moment before shaking his head wordlessly, he flinched as he heard her piercing cry.

He couldn't agree more. It couldn't end this way…it couldn't! And yet he, one who had quite literally risen from the dead, knew how dreadfully well it could.

Laying both hands on each of his weeping siblings' shoulders in turn, they clung to each other and to him as they cried for their broken Chosen One.

For once, they didn't give a flying monkey doodle about the bigger picture, about saving the universe.

They just wanted their leader back, safe and sound and as far away from death as he could get.

That's all.