Alpha Squad - Vecto: Voyage

Episode 1.6

(Previously: Vecto finds out that the TAC thief is Chais. He also questions who the stranger in the red and white powersuit is.)

The guy ruffled his fingers through his brown spiky hair and reached his hand out. "I'm Erich Botland. Nice to meet ya!"

Yes, it was Erich Botland, the son of Durrick Botland, the man who befriended Vic--the man whose surname Vic named Vecto after!

Vecto didn't shake his hand, so Erich retracted it. "Yeah, my dad went to school with Vic," Erich continued his story. "He said that everybody picked on him 'cause he was this short Dinishman, but not my dad. I guess using our last name was a way to thank my father." Erich ruffled through his hair again. "Ah, why am I even telling you all this?" He reached his hand out again to shake. "What's your name?"

Vecto at last shook his hand briefly before responding. "Robert Newman."

"Robert, huh?" Erich mused over the name. "How about I call you Bob--no, how about Rob? Bob's too common."

Vecto nodded.

"Crap! Where'd he go?" Erich said as he looked around to find the thief.

"Not to worry," Vecto said looking behind him to see security guards approach Chais and slam him face first into a wall.

"Hey! You got the wrong guy!" Chais pleaded.

"Save it for jail!" one of the guards said as he put Chais' hands behind his back and stuck a disk on each of his wrists. The devices embedded in his arm and magnetized together. Vecto watched the guards pat him down and pull out device after device from his trench coat. But what struck his attention the most was the glare of diamonds.

It was in the shape of a cross.

A very familiar cross.

In no time, Vecto had Chais by the throat, slamming him against the wall. "Where'd you get that?" Vecto demanded.

"Break it up, gentlemen!" a guard yelled, reaching for Vecto.

Vecto let go before the guard touched him, grasping the cross and taking it away from Chais' pocket. He couldn't give away his identity, Vecto stressed to himself, keeping himself under control.

"What? Found it lodged in the ground at some destroyed base, is all," Chais explained nonchalantly as he took breathes of air, ignoring the sting of his throat.

Seeing that Chais' trench coat was loaded with gadgets, the guards removed the whole thing, unsnapping the magnetic cuffs for a brief second. It left Chais with a muscle-fitting, black, long-sleeved shirt, matching the color of his slightly baggy pants.

"I bet you looted the place, too, didn't you?!" Vecto yelled.

One of the guards grabbed the cross in Vecto's grasp. "I'm sorry, we'll have to confiscate this," he said to Vecto. The guard jolted as something heated through his armor.

"But that's--" Vecto stopped himself short, almost saying it was Gyro's. He couldn't say it without causing an investigation. He reluctantly complied, handing the cross over to him as the guard shook his hand in the air.

The Corona guard dismissed the incident as a malfunction in his suit's thermal setting and helped the others gather Chais' items into a retractable poll box. When done, the guards shoved the thief in front of them and headed off. Vecto could do nothing as he watched them take Chais away, along with the last remembrance he had of Gyro. It was if he was being punished for his crimes, unable to act on his free will due to his disguise. But it was more than that. It was choice he had to make, as all choices have consequences.

"Don't worry about it," Erich said, patting Vecto on the shoulder, reassuring him it wasn't the end of the omniverse. "Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

(Will Vecto take him up on his offer? And will he get Gyro's cross back? Find out more in the next installment of Vecto: Voyage!)