CHAPTER I
In the busy city of New York, in a dark alley way, two hooded figures walked up to each other and started to talk.
"So...," one of the figures said. "I got a message saying you know where the temple is, and that you needed information on IR, now who are you?"
The other figure took his hood off revealing a face burnt to a crisp, with blood shot eyeballs. "My name is not important right now. I represent an organization called The Flames. Each and every one of us members had been hurt by flames at one point in time in our lives, and IR was never there to save us. We want revenge just like you, but for different reasons. Will you help us?"
The other figure took his hood off to reveal a bald head with huge eyebrows. "My father...," he began. "...tried his best to find out the secrets of IR, and in the end, he died. You're right that I want revenge for a different reason, but never the less I will join you. You say you know where the temple is, bring me to it." The burnt faced man started walking out of the alley, and the bald man followed him.
Two days later, they were both standing outside a temple in the middle of the jungle, looking up at the big stone doors.
"I've been looking for my father's temple for years," the bald man said. "How did you find it?" The burnt face man just grunted and opened the doors to the temple. "After you," he said to the bald man. They both walked in, and the doors closed behind them.
The temple was dusty, and was considerably dark with the candles out. The bald man walked over to a large beaded curtain, and raised his hands. Immediately the candles lit, and the beaded curtain moved away to reveal a statue.
"Now..," said the bald man. "Let's see if I posses the same powers as my dad." He stared into the eyes of the statue concentrating hard, while the burnt face man watched intriguingly. The bald man's eyes lit up, and the statues face turned bright red.
"Kyrano, I may not be my father, nor do I posses his exact powers, but I can still make you speak." His eyes turned brighter, and the statues head turned more red. "Tell me, what is International Rescue's weakness?"
Both men waited silently for a moment, nothing happened. They waited five whole minutes, and then, just as the two men thought it had been a failed attempt, and were about to leave, they heard a small whisper come out of the statue. "They're weakness is emotion. Scott has just died and...," The statue fell silent, and started to rumble. The rumble got louder, and louder, until the whole temple was shaking.
Parts of the ceiling began to fall, and the bald man was standing still, not moving at all. It was at this point the burnt faced man realized that something must have gone wrong. He quickly ran over to the bald man, avoiding a falling piece of brick, grabbed him by the arm, and started running out of the temple. When they got outside the bald man's eyes returned to normal, and he regained consciousness. He quickly realized that the temple was falling apart, and started running with the burnt faced man. They ran as far as they could into the forest, and a few moments later, the temple collapsed into a pile of rubble. The statue was destroyed.
The next morning on Tracy Island, Kyrano woke up with a headache. "What's wrong father?" Tin-Tin had asked him at breakfast. He quickly replied, "Oh nothing, I just had the strangest dream that I was telling somebody International Rescues weakness." Tin-Tin looked puzzled for a moment. "Well thank goodness it was just a dream," she said. Shortly after that, she left the table, and left her father to his thoughts.
One hour later, Brains, Gordon, and Virgil were all sitting in front of Jeff's desk. "Now listen here," Jeff began. "Virgil is going to drop Thunderbird 4 off right at the spot Scott crashed. Then Gordon and Brains inside Thunderbird 4 are going to investigate and see if there's any wreckage. Is that clear?" All three boys nodded. "Okay then," Jeff said. "...then I guess there's only one thing left to say... THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO."
CHAPTER II
Two thousand feet under the city of New York, lay a top secret facility known as THE FLAMES HQ. Inside, there was a room, with a huge table, and many people sitting around it. A picture of a flame was hanging on the wall, as well as painted on the table. All around the table hooded figures sat with the exact same picture of a flame on the backs of their hoods.
"I would like to bring this meeting to order," said someone who sat at the head of the table. "Please, would everyone kindly now remove their hoods."
One by one, all the people sitting around the table took their hoods off, revealing some sort of burnt and/or scared face. One of those people to remove their hoods was the bald man, and the last person to remove their hood was the one that requested it be done in the first place. As the hood came off his face, you could see that it was in fact, the burnt faced man.
"My name is Harold," said the burnt faced man. "...and I am the leader and founder of The Flames. I say this because tonight we have a new member joining us, his name is William. William, would you kindly stand up." Slowly the bald man stood up. "I-I-I'm William," he stuttered. Everyone gave out a big laugh. "Poor thing is nervous," Harold said. "Don't worry, we're all friends here. Now would you kindly sit back down so I can continue?" William sat down in his chair again, with his bald head reflecting a candle that had been lit in the centre of the table.
"Now," Harold started. "...let's get down to business. As you all know, fire has injured each and everyone of us in some way, except for William of course, and because fire has injured us, we call ourselves The Flames. Whenever we were in trouble, International Rescue never came to save us; they were always busy saving someone else's life. So, now that we have survived, we want revenge. We will stop at nothing until IR has fallen. Now you might be asking, well if we only let victims of fire in our group, what is this bald man who goes by the name of William doing with us? Well I will tell you. Some time ago, William's father was a mastermind who wanted to steal IR's secrets. He failed, and got shot by their machines. Now, even though his reasons are different. William also wants to see IR fall, and he's got a special power that none of us have, mind control. He can, or to be more precise, could control the mind of his half uncle with the help of a special statue. 6 months ago, I found that statue. Today, the two of us went over to it, and he established a link with his uncle. Now you might be wondering, why is his uncle so important? Well that is simply answered by saying, his uncle works for IR. Anyways, something went wrong and the statue was destroyed, but before it was destroyed, we managed to find out that one of IR's members had recently died, and IR was feeling the pain of that loss. At this point in time they are vulnerable, and if we act fast, we'll be able to bring them down with little effort."
A man across the table stood up and spoke. "So you mean that they are emotionally scared and won't be able to think straight."
"Not only that," Harold said. "...but up until this point this member who has died has been a major figure in 90% of the rescues. Without him, they won't know how to pull off a proper rescue. To be precise, they will be emotionally AND physically vulnerable to our attacks."
Millions of miles away, Thunderbird 2 was hovering over the exact spot Scott had crashed, and had just released the pod. Inside Thunderbird 4 Brains and Gordon were going to see if there was any wreckage that could be investigated. They didn't have to look far. About five meters underwater, Gordon pointed out The Zom-bites submarine with a huge hole in its side. "Would you look at that!" he exclaimed. Brains followed his gaze and saw the submarine. "G-g-g-go in closer Gordon," he said. "M-m-m-maybe this is o-o-our answer!"
A few moments later, Thunderbird 4 had entered the sub through the giant hole, and the two men saw all the dead Zom-bites around them. Then, out of the murky ocean, Brains spotted the laser. "T-t-that's it!" he said with enthusiasm. "That's the answer." Gordon immediately turned his gaze from a Zom-bite to where Brains was pointing. "What is it?" he asked Brains.
It took him a minute, but then he spoke. "Some kind of laser," Brains said. "I'm sure I-I-I-If we took a dive and I examined it closer, I-I-I could find th-th-the answer." Gordon nodded. "I'll stay here," he said. "...and you look out and examine."
Five minutes later Brains was in a scuba suite examining the broken laser. "This looks like my C-P3T laser." Gordon was listening in Thunderbird 4 through radio to what Brains was saying. "What's that?" he asked. "I-I-It's a laser I made some blue prints for, but never built. If it's anything like mine, this should in theory shut down any piece of electronics in range. That would explain why Thunderbird 1 stopped working and crashed so suddenly. If I got back to base, I could probably dig up my old blue prints and study them again for answers." Gordon was listening intriguingly. "Well I'll tell Virgil and Dad the news, now get back in here and we can go home," he said. "F.A.B," Brains responded.
Back on Tracy Island, Brains found his old blue prints and was talking to himself. "So if that laser is like mine. That would mean that the only way it could break like that is if it imploded. It would have to have to reach the extreme max. That would explain why the sub had a hole in it. Now if I take a guess I'll say that the Zom-bites tried to destroy Thunderbird 2 as well, but for some reason they had to increase pressure to the max and overload the system so it exploded. It's amazing that one of these things was actually built. I had an idea of them for years, but could never find enough power to generate the power in the laser."
At that moment Jeff walked in. "Any luck?" he asked. "Oh yes," Brains responded. "My guess is that whomever was in that sub, used that laser to make all the systems in Thunderbird 1 fail. They tried the exact same thing on Thunderbird 2, but for whatever reason it didn't work and it overloaded creating a hole in the sub." Jeff looked at his blue prints. "Well that would pose two questions. Why didn't Thunderbird 2 crash? And who were the people who operated it?"
Brains shook his head. "Those are the questions I'd like answered too, but after Gordon described the bodies to Virgil, he claims that Scott described the exact same people when he was shot down in the Sahara back when we first started operation." Jeff looked puzzled. "You mean we've seen these people before?" Brains nodded. "It w-w-would seem th-th-th-that way, but the only one who could confirm our suspicions and who had seen those people before was Scott." Immediately the door to Brains' lab opened and Virgil stepped in. "Maybe he wasn't the only one..." he said.
Meanwhile in the Amazon Jungle, two men were sitting on a rock having lunch. Those two men always had a little bit of bad chemistry between them, but had been partners for years. Those two men who were now sitting on the rock eating a sandwich had once met Scott. Not only had they met him, but they had witnessed The Zom-bites in action, and had rescued Scott in the Sahara desert from certain death. The two men on the rock sitting... were Wilson and Lindsey
CHAPTER III
It was 9:00pm London time, and a conference was being held at London Airports command centre. Sitting around the large table were various workers of London Airport, Commander Norman, the International Air Minister, and General Peters who was representing the U.S Army. The U.S Army had invented a war weapon called "AQUA" that they wanted to launch from London Airport. Both the International Air Minister and Commander Norman agreed that they wanted to find out more before they agreed.
General Peters stood up and started explaining AQUA. "Gentlemen," he started. "Allow me to introduce AQUA." He walked over to the board, and a picture appeared on it of a supersonic plane with the word AQUA printed on it. "AQUA..." General Peters continued, "...is a new supersonic plane that can break the sound barrier, but can also become a high powered, well equipped, armed submarine. Now what is so revolutionary about this craft, is while it is a submarine, no instrument of any kind in the world can track it. It also has a shield, that if activate, initializes a virtual screen covering the whole sub making it look camouflaged."
Both the International Air Minister and Commander Norman looked impressed, but worried. "Well..." Commander Norman started, "...If you want the test flight of AQUA to be launched from London Airport, you'll have to provide us with extra security. If everything goes well, this could be a pretty powerful war weapon you know."
"Already ahead of you," General Peters said. "I was thinking we would try and get International Rescue to escort AQUA on her flight. A while back, three of my men almost died in an underground pit, but those guys pulled them out and saved their lives. They've helped me on one occasion, and helped you on several, so it's worth a shot to try and reach them again."
The International Air Minister looked at Commander Norman and nodded. "Do what you have to do," he said. "You have my permission to run this operation from your end Norman, and make it a successful one." He stood up, and left the conference room.
The next day on Tracy Island, Jeff and Virgil had tracked down Wilson and Lindsey and were going to contact them. "This is Jeff Tracy calling Wilson and Lindsey in the Amazon jungle," he said. He and Virgil waited a few seconds and heard a reply. "This is Wilson speaking, who are you?" This time it was Virgil's turn to speak. "Wilson, this is International Rescue calling, we can be at your base camp at 7 hundred hours your time, to take you back to our base. We need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?" There was a small pause, and then Wilson responded. "Sure, we're pretty much finished here anyways. We'll be waiting."
5 hours later Wilson and Lindsey were sitting behind Virgil in Thunderbird 2 heading back to Tracy Island. "It's good to see you again Mr. Tracy," Wilson said. "How's Scott?" Virgil sighed. "Scott's dead," he replied. Lindsey immediately responded. "Good... I never liked that guy... besides saving our lives he always got on my nerves." Wilson gave him a dirty look. "Everybody you know gets on your nerves... and you wonder why you don't have many friends."
A little while later, when they reached Tracy Island, Virgil escorted the two men to Brains' lab. "H-h-h-have you s-s-s-seen this m-m-m-man before?" Brains asked pointing to a dead Zom-bite sitting on the table. Wilson was the first to answer. "Yeah, he looks like the man who shot down Scott." Jeff, who had just walked in a moment ago, grunted loudly. "So that confirms it," he said. "We've seen these people before, now, the question is, what do they want, and are there more of them out there?"
"With a little help from some of your machines," Wilson began. "We could help you scout the ocean nearby for anymore submarines, give you guys an extra hand." Jeff shook his head. "Sorry fellas, but that won't be necessary, but if you did want to help us, you could stay here and help our around the house." It was Lindsey this time who spoke up. "No way, I'm not doing manual labour for you guys, no matter if you saved our lives or not!" Wilson gave him another dirty look. "Stop your complaining Lindsey. Besides, you did say yourself you wanted a break from seeing only MY face every day." He turned to face Jeff again and smiled. "We would be happy to help Mr. Tracy, and if Lindsey says otherwise, just give him a good ol' smack in the face." Lindsey snarled and spoke, "Well I can tell you, I'd like to give you a smack in the face Wilson, so let's get started with whatever Mr. Tracy wants us to do."
That night, at exactly 2:00am, a loud beeping noise spread through the house. Gordon was the first to get to the lounge, and saw Alan's eyes blinking on the picture on the wall. Gordon yawned, and answered the call. "Hey Alan," he said in his sleepy voice. "What's up?"
"Sorry to wake you, but we have an emergency call. Some guys hiking in the Swiss Alpes were just lost in an avalanche. They have a pocket radio with them, and are in communication with the local Ski Patrol. They said that they managed to find an ice cave to protect themselves, but it is about to cave in, and they can't get out because their entrance to the cave has been snowed in."
By the time Alan finished speaking, everyone was up, and was sitting in the lounge. The situation was pretty clear, but everyone was wondering, could International Rescue pull off a rescue without Scott? Jeff sat in his desk, and ordered Virgil and Brains to launch Thunderbird 2.
Meanwhile, in the Swiss Alpes, the three men were sitting in the ice cave, listening to the odd crack come from above them, indicating the ice was on the verge of breaking. "What's going to happen to us?" one of the men asked the other. "I-I-I don't know," the other man replied shivering. "I-I-I heard from Ski Patrol Int-t-ternational Re-e-escue is on their way," shivered the third man. He picked up the radio and looked at its screen. "I reckon we have about 1 hour left of battery on this thing," he announced. All three of them looked grim, and were desperate for IR's help... but what if IR couldn't provide it?
THE NEXT TIME ON NEW THUNDERBIRDS
Rescue is underway, but can IR pull it off without Scott's help? The time for Scott's funeral has come... but what's shocking is what Tin-Tin has to announce on that day. The Flames are lurking in the shadows, but will soon strike. All this and more, next time on...
NEW THUNDERBIRDS
