Voyager Saga
Trials and Retributions
Chapter 1
Considering the fiasco that the gang had endured on their last mission, the vote was pretty much unanimous amongst the crew to head back to their Earth to try and recuperate. Unfortunately, getting back was easier said than done.
...
Matt winced as the North Star shook from another hit. Their pursuer, an NSC police cruiser, fired again, trying to disable the Lynches' ship.
"Is it too much to ask to be left alone while traveling?" snapped Matt.
"North Star, this is your final warning. Kill your engines and prepare to be boarded," said the voice of the police cruiser's captain, coldly
"Hey Stitch, is the hyperdrive operational?" asked Matt.
"Matt, I don't think we should warp with them so close to us," said Chloe.
"Oh, ok...it was just an idea. How far are we from GF territory?" said Matt, sounding disappointed.
"Uh, a few dozen lightyears," said Chloe, "Of course, everything is relative in outer space."
"Fine..." began Matt before another hit knocked him off his feet. "WHAT HAPPENED TO WARNING?" he yelled.
"Wasn't the last warning supposed to be the final one?" asked Kala.
"They always say that...they don't usually mean it," said Matt miserably
"Whatever idea you have, you better do it fast," said Chloe, "Those guys are taking off their kid gloves."
"Screw it...jump us outta here before we're smears!" yelled Matt into the intercom.
"Matt, are you sure that's a good-" started Techo.
"No time for second guessing!" snapped Matt, "Just hit the hyperdrive!"
The North Star glowed before shooting through into warp, leaving the security ship floundering...and emerging right into the middle of a GF security fleet.
"Great navigation, Matt," said Chloe sarcastically.
"What? The GF isn't after us," said Matt, "There's no need to worry."
Kala pointed slowly out the porthole. "Are we sure?" she said weakly, pointing to a fleet of GF police fighters.
"Relax, we just happened to stumble across one of their patrols," said Matt, "It's not like we have wanted fugitives that they'd be... NegaMorph's record has been cleared, right?"
"They're hailing us. They're here to escort us to earth...for tribunal," said a trooper, listening at the comms.
Matt smacked his head into the console. "Can this get any worse?"
Just then, NegaMorph walked in, apparently foaming at the mouth. "Ok, who's the wise guy who jumped warp without warning?" he snapped.
Matt gulped as everyone pointed at him...
...
Neilson was standing in the hanger at CPS HQ, glaring at the dragon councilors. He still didn't trust much dragons, if only because they let Matt be in their little club. It seemed the feeling was mutual judging from the glares he was getting. But he had bigger fish to tackle today. Matt's ship will escorted here any minute now. "You sure your little voodoo will keep Matt on earth?" he said rudely
"It certainly will," said one of the councilors, "Once worn, this Voodoo Anklet of Extreme Discomfort will keep Matt from leaving New York, let alone Earth."
"It'd better. Council's in arms about this. Last thing we need is Lynch skipping town," said Neilson.
"Assuming your men can get him here long enough for us to put the Voodoo Anklet on in the first place," said another councilor.
"They're not my men. They're some jokers from the Galactic Federation," said Neilson icily.
Just then, the sound of jet engines caught their ears as Matt's ship was seen flying down, flanked by two Galactic Federation ships. "Huh, least they're on time. Ok, let's get this done," said Neilson, gloomily as he landed, waving to two troopers to take position
The North Star soon landed in the hanger and its cargo door started to open up. As soon as it was open enough, Matt was suddenly flying out and landed roughly in front of the councilors. "That'll teach you to jump warp while I'm trying to use mouthwash!" snapped NegaMorph's voice.
Matt got up unsteadily to find two blaster rifles aimed at him. "Captain, a pleasure to see you again," said Neilson, coldly, "You're under arrest."
"Listen, I don't know what baloney McNeil's been trying to sell, but I haven't been doing anything wrong, except being caught snooping around his illegal genetic experimenting facility," said Matt.
Neilson sighed before saying, "Look, between you and me, I believe you, but McNeil's the council golden boy and after the Avalar massacre at the defense cannon, I'm not."
"Trust me, McNeil is up to something really nasty and you shouldn't- Whoa, whoa, whoa, did you say I was right?" asked Matt, "I mean, I tend to mishear people, especially after being thrown around and-" A sudden click and a pressure on Matt's ankle got his attention. He looked down to see what looked like a brass anklet snapped onto his leg. "Hey, what gives?" he asked.
"You under house arrest till the trial. You leave New York and there are 3 Black 13 teams with orders to terminate you if you do...and that thing'll make sure you're in no state to fight back," said Neilson.
"What? But I thought you believed me!" said Matt.
"True, but that doesn't mean I like you," said Neilson.
"So what's this do?" said Matt, icily.
"The further away you move from New York City, the more uncomfortable the Voodoo Anklet of Extreme Discomfort will become," said one of the councilors.
"You gotta be joking," said Matt skeptically
"I see a brief demonstration is in order," said the councilor before moving a hand over the anklet, which started glowing green. The dragon head on the anklet immediately came to life and started nipping him.
"What the fu? YOW...Hey...stop it!" he said helplessly.
Another wave of the hand and the anklet stopped glowing. "It can get much worse than that, especially if you try to leave Earth," said the councilor.
"How worse?" said Matt weakly.
"Your leg could snap in two," said another councilor.
Matt went white at that before noticing something, "Hey...why am I the only one wearing one?"
"Well, er, we only have one right now," said one of the councilors, "Some of them have become too tarnished to use and the rest are being used for other house arrestees. And since you're the captain if your crew, you take the most of the punishment."
Matt just sighed. "I hate my job," he muttered
"Also, we are confiscating your ship," said Neilson, "Can't take any chances that you'd chew your own leg off and try to escape."
"Oh no, you're not touching her," glared Matt before yelping as the anklet nipped him
"Standard procedure," said Neilson, "Don't worry; we won't be touching your possessions inside. They're probably too encrusted with filth to remove anyways."
"The bots won't let you aboard, will they?" said Matt smugly.
"If you're referring to those metal spiders, they've been making themselves more of a nuisance than usual," said Neilson.
Suddenly, there was a roaring sound and Morph ran out of the ship yelling, "Run for your lives! It came from beneath the refrigerator!"
Matt and Neilson watched as Morph ran by. Neilson said gloomily, "Ok, you win...but hand over the starter chip."
Matt reluctantly fished around his pockets for it. "Uh, where am I supposed to stay if I can't use my ship?" he asked.
"NSC safehouse," said Neilson, throwing a keycard over.
Matt picked up the card and said, "Why do I get the feeling it won't be as nice as the one on Paradiso?"
"Cause it won't, now get moving," said Neilson.
"Fine, fine," said Matt before getting up and making an exaggerated show of dragging his shackled leg.
...
New York hadn't changed much since the gang's last visit, though the safehouse was a nice improvement...apart from the two council guard dragons.
"Seriously, do we need this much security?" asked Matt, "It's not like we're criminally insane."
"Yeah, just heroically insane," said NegaMorph.
"Shut up, NegaMorph!" yelled Matt.
One of the guards said, "The council wants to make sure you don't leave. Someone like you might get past the anklet."
"Now what would give you such a crazy idea like that?" asked Matt.
"Probably that olive oil you bought," said Chip.
"What this?" asked Matt, holding up the bottle of olive oil, "I'm just, uh...making Italian tonight. Yeah, nice tasty pasta." Everyone paled at that, remembering the last time that Matt had cooked.
"Er, maybe we can order out," said Chloe.
"Yeah, that should be less hazardous, I mean, taxing," said Chris.
"Hypocrites," muttered Matt.
"Well, we might as well get comfortable in there," said Chloe.
"Oh, it couldn't be that bad," said Chip as the door was opened.
The room inside was pretty Spartan, resembling the barracks style room from Matt's first ship. Clearly the NSC wasn't gonna spend much on a so-called 'criminal'.
"Well...it could use a little decoration, but it could be worse," said Chip.
"Coming from someone who not need food," said Stitch, miserably.
"I do need food, just not as much as everyone else," said Chip, "Anyways, any suggestions of where to eat?"
Matt looked at the group. "You know that your disguises are on the ship, right?" he pointed out.
"So we're placing an order for delivery?" asked Morph.
One of the guards said, "Commander Neilson said you are not allowed to spend NSC currency while on world."
"No creds? No money?!" cried Draco, "What are we going to do about food?!"
"We're all gonna starve!" cried Stitch.
"We'll be fine, I can cook," said Matt, trying to calm everyone down .
Stitch and Draco glanced at Matt before Stitch said, "Correction, we're gonna die of food poisoning!"
"If they don't shut up, they'll die of plasma burns," said Matt darkly.
"Please tell me someone else here can cook," said Kala.
Chloe rolled her eyes. "I can cook a little," she admitted.
The group gave a sigh of relief. "Ok, what were you thinking of making?" asked Kala.
"Fajitas," Chloe answered. Matt just gulped; remembering the time NSC medical had been forced to come to the canteen due to 24 mercs having third degree burns in their mouths...Chloe liked her food spicy.
"Er, maybe we should have something a little more...mild," said Matt.
Chloe turned to glare. "You saying that there's something wrong with my fajitas?" she said threateningly.
"No, no, it's just that some people would say it has an acquired taste," said Matt, mentally adding, 'As in acquiring a large block of ice to go along with it.' The lightning bolt that fried Matt emphasized Chloe's lack of amusement.
Stitch turned to Chip and asked, "Can you cook?"
Chip gave him an annoyed look and said, "Do I look like a food caterer?"
"No, but I know someone who is," said Draco.
"Uh, we're under house arrest, remember?" said Matt, "They're not going to let us out."
"They're not going to be able to stop us," said Draco, "Morph, Plan 62."
"Plan 62?" said Matt suspiciously.
"Okey-dokey," said Morph before morphing into Frenchfry. "Ouila!" he said before spinning into the kitchen. The crew minus Kala all paled, remembering their last encounter, albeit with the V-Clone version of Frenchfry.
"Uh, is he gonna be fixing us supper?" asked Kala.
Draco said, "Not us, no," with an evil smirk that caused Kala to slowly inch behind Matt.
A minute later, the front door knocked. "Pizza delivery!" called Morph's voice.
"Pizza? What pizza? I didn't hear about any pizza order," said one of the guards.
"Wait...the councilor warned us about the experiments. It's probably a 'file in the cake' trick," said the other guard knowingly.
"Yeah, we better check this," said the first guard. A second later, he said, "Huh, nothing here but pizza. Really good-looking pizza."
"We, uh, better make sure it's safe," said the other guard, "Don't want anyone poisoning them, right?"
...
Inside the room, Kala said, "Erm...what are you listening for?" looking at how everyone seemed to be waiting for something before a 'flomph' was heard outside the door, closely followed by a second.
"And there's our cue. Ladies first," said Matt, grinning.
"So, what's Frenchfry supposed to do anyways?" asked Kala.
"Experiment 062 was designed to be Jumba's personal chef," said Chip before opening the door and showing two very bloated guards, "But he has a bit of a malfunction."
Kala winced. "I'll say," she said sympathetically before saying, "Matt..." angrily as Matt attempted to nick one of the guard's wallets.
"What? I don't have a cash converter," said Matt.
"You guys are so in for it once we can move," snapped one of the guards, "House arrest won't be nearly good enough for you."
"On second thought, he's about to get a pay cut anyways," said Kala.
Matt grinned and emptied the two guards' wallets, smirking at them. "Lesson one, boys. Never underestimate the CPS," he mocked.
"So where to now?" asked NegaMorph.
"To Jake's place, where else?" said Draco.
"No...we forbid it...hey...come back," said the other guard, helplessly as the gang fled.
"Don't worry, it'll wear off, in 24 hours!" called Draco.
...
"Another day of high school finished," sighed Jake as he collapsed on his bed, "Man, who would have thought freshman year could be so hard?" Still, at least he didn't have to deal with Rotwood and Haley was still comfortably seven years behind him. If she ended up skipping a few grades, he'd just scream.
At that moment his cellphone began ringing, the number not appearing on the screen. 'Weird,' thought Jake before picking up and a familiar voice saying, "Hey there Jake."
"Draco, I haven't heard from you in forever, man," said Jake.
"Yeah, well, extensive travel across the multiverse and all," said Draco, "But hey, we can catch up now. The gang's in town and we thought we could stop over for dinner."
"Sounds cool. How many are coming?" Jake said cheerfully.
He could hear Draco sounding off names under his breath before saying, "Erm...all of us."
"All of you? As in the whole crew?"
"Yeah, it's kinda short-notice, but your mom can cover for it, right?" asked Draco. After a minute, Draco said "Erm...are you still there? Helloooooo."
"Uh...this is really, really out of the blue," said Jake, "I mean, this sounds like something that takes a couple days to prepare."
"Uh, we're kinda on our way right now," said Draco, "We'll be there in an hour if the traffic's good."
Jake just stared at the phone. "Oh man," he moaned.
...
About an hour and a half later, the combine jeep pulled up in front of the Long's house. "I think you need to get a larger urban vehicle for civilian territory," said Chip.
"I didn't really plan for this to be used as a damn troop transport," said Matt, annoyed.
"Can we please move it along, I'm getting hungry," snapped Chloe.
"Wait...this isn't gonna work. What are we gonna explain to Mr. Long? Especially about that lot," said Matt, pointing at Stitch and the other experiments.
"How could they not have told him by now?" asked Draco, "I mean, Mrs. Long's been married to him for like, what, 20 years now?"
"Like how you haven't admitted to the entire of Kauai that you're aliens?" said Matt smoothly.
"Mr. Long's one man. An entire island is a lot more difficult," said Chip, "At the current rate, the galactic community will declare Earth ready for joining in about...40 years. Which is a great leap forward."
"Until that time...how do you think he'll react to, in the following order: 3-4 heavily armed half human mercenaries, and half a dozen genetic experiments from another planet?" said Matt.
"Just be glad we didn't bring Weirdwolf, Dune Runner, or the Constructicons," said Chip, "At least Gary and Megan can control themselves."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" yelled Matt, before taking a few deep breaths and trying a new approach, "Does anyone know what 'culture shock' is?" A lot of blank stares answered Matt. "Fine. He'll freak out, the cops'll be called... Let me put it another way: 'alien autopsy'," said Matt, annoyed.
"Ok, ok, we get the point," said Draco.
"Just bring back a doggy bag," said NegaMorph.
Matt looked down before tossing the guard's wallets over to them. "Try not to demolish the restaurants," he said.
"We'll be on our best behaviors," said Morph.
"And I'll be sure they'll be on better behaviors," said Chip.
"Oh boy," muttered Matt.
When the human (or mostly human) members had gotten up the Longs' doorstep, Matt said, "If I recall, Jake mentioned his dad was a bit...eccentric. So don't be put off by his behavior."
Matt carefully knocked at the door only for Haley to answer. "Oh, hi Haley," said Matt, "I'm sure Jake's told you guys we were coming."
"Sure," said Haley before turning back into the house and yelling, "Mom, Dad, the alien guys are here!"
Matt and the others winced. "Not the A word," hissed Matt before grinning desperately as Mr. Long came into view.
"Howdy ho there," said Mr. Long cheerfully, "You must be Matt, I heard so much about you. That is a sharp looking disguise. I wouldn't be able to tell you're an ET. I'm guessing that artificial human skin you're wearing."
Matt turned to stare at Haley. "No...not at all..." he said, he and the gang glaring darkly at Haley.
"Oh, of course, you're shapeshifters," said Mr. Long, "Just like Jake and Haley and Lao Shi and...well, pretty much everyone except Susan. Family dragon think skipped her. Kinda sad, but you might as well cling onto a little bit of normality, right?"
Matt's eye twitched. "Wh-wha...you know? You mean we coulda revealed everything the smegging first time?" he said in a gradually more hysterical voice.
"Now don't go passing out here," said Mr. Long, "Come into the living room. There's a nice comfy couch to pass out on there. Yeah, it's a big shock, isn't it? I remember when I first learned my family's little secret. Knocked me off my feet."
Matt just started giggling. The gang gulped at that and managed to turn Matt out into the street when he finally snapped and threw a plasma ball at a trash can.
"Wow, now that's firepower," said Mr. Long, "Don't do that in the house. I'm not sure if we're insured for that. Susan says yes, but you ever heard of magic insurance?"
Chloe winced. "I wouldn't ask him anything for a while. He sometimes leaves for a visit to Planet Basketcase sometimes," she said, guiding her brother inside.
"Well, dinner's gonna be in about five minutes so he better get back soon," said Mr. Long, "I'm just gonna go pop in and see how much more basting the turkey needs."
The gang watched as Mr. Long left before they all, minus Matt who was still absent from Planet Sanity, turned to glare at Haley. "Alright, spill the beans," said Techo, darkly.
"Well...when the Dark Dragon tried to take over the Dragon Council before he got banished, Dad kinda found out about our secret before that," said Haley, "He was pretty helpful with getting rid of the shade demons."
"Let me guess, Jake dropped the ball," said Chris.
"Actually...I did," said Haley, "He just walked in while I was in dragon form."
Chloe smirked. "You dropped the ball? To be honest, I never thought you'd be it," she said.
Techo groaned and said, "Great, now I owe Draco $40."
Haley looked embarrassed before Matt said glumly, "Did they know when we had that little...misadventure last year?"
"Well, a bit, we left a lot of the details out," said Haley, "I mean; we weren't gone for that long by their time."
"Good point," said Matt, conversationally.
"Yeah, let's keep the adventure stories at a low key," said Chris, "Magic's one thing, but we've dealt with a lot more than that."
"Yes...lots," said Matt, looing shifty for a moment.
"Since Jake's dad already knows about us, you think we can have the other guys come back?" asked Kala.
Matt thought about this. "Erm...no. Not a chance," he said finally.
"In that case, let's have dinner already," said Chloe.
...
Meanwhile, in an abandoned dock warehouse...
The warehouse had been abandoned for years. It wasn't anymore as several...creatures had set up shop. "Hurry up and get the last of the alchemy gear through," said Ghoulwyrm annoyed. He didn't want to keep the portal open longer than necessary in case the NSC spotted it. Fortunately, he was able to summon several shade demons to act as movers. Of course, since they could easily be defeated with bright enough light, he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to utilize them much in actual battle.
Omnirus yawned. "Why are we here again? If I remember correctly, half the NSC fleet is here," she said bored.
"And miss out on Lynch's punishment?" said Ghoulwyrm, "Besides, the magical creatures of this world needs to learn to fear the new Dragon of Darkness."
Omnirus yawned, "Nobody knows you're the new Dragon of Darkness...and I doubt they care."
"The news of the new Dark Dragon has to have reached here," said Ghoulwyrm, "I am one of the top 13 threats to the magical world now."
Banana's B said meekly, "Not exactly. You haven't actually done anything to threaten the magical world yet."
"I've been busy in other worlds!" snapped Ghoulwyrm, "Of course, with the original Dark Dragon gone and the Huntsclan wiped out, it'll be simple to rise up to the top of the list."
"Not so," said Bananas, "Ya gotta win the R-E-S-P-E-C-T first. You're starting from the ground bottom."
Ghoulwyrm looked blank. "I don't want their respect. I WANT THEIR FEAR!" he said, roaring the last part.
"Fear, respect, its two sides of the same coin in the villain's game," said Bananas, "Ya gotta build up a rep, make a big show."
"Whuh?" said Ghoulwyrm blankly.
Omnirus rolled her eyes, "You gotta start small. You didn't start with world domination when you started out, did you?"
"Er, I interned with those who were seeking world domination," said Ghoulwyrm, "But those days are over. I'm beholden to no one now."
Omnirus rolled her eyes. "Ok...rule one: Start small. This is the home verse of two merc companies and one NSC fleet. You get their attention too fast and you're dead...again," she said as carefully as she could
"Yeah, lots of opportunities here," said Bananas B, "Just gotta look for the best sources of mayhem." "Hmm...this may be a chance to let my more...creative nature," said Ghoulwyrm, grinning darkly.
Omnirus threw her hands in the air. "Why am I even talking to this idiot? Red? Can't you talk to this moron?" she said angrily, addressing a robotic dragon in the corner.
"When he's up to the army-building level, I may talk to him," said Red coldly, "I won't be dragged along with minor petty crimes. He can conspire with you other lowlifes."
"Speaking of lowlifes, where is Mantichrome and his miscreant machines?" demanded Ghoulwyrm, "I wanted everyone here."
Red looked thoughtful. "He said something about 'getting you some stuffing'?" he said puzzled.
Bananas laughed and said, "Yeah, Manti's the slippery one here. You better keep an eye on him, boss. He could be a bigger nasty than you are."
Ghoulwyrm span to face Bananas. "What was that?" he said dangerously.
Banana's gulped and said nervously, "I meant...well...he's kinda untrustworthy. That's why you have that control curse on him."
"True enough," said Ghoulwyrm, "But I wouldn't put it past him if he found a way to get around it or to break it somehow. Fortunately, his hatred towards our enemies exceeds his hatred towards me. Still, we should keep an eye out for any of his treachery."
Omnirus sighed. "He can't even spot an insult," she muttered to herself.
Ghoulwyrm turned towards Omnirus and said, "Don't think you're getting time off. We have plenty of work to do here. I want to know all exploitable magicks that can be used here, which villains are the highest concerns in the area, where the NSC is based and what they're doing with Matt. And above all, I want to know about the one who defeated my predecessor, this American Dragon."
At long last, another mainstream story is starting. I would have started uploading this quite some time ago, but I had to juggle quite a few other stories and I just kept procrastinating. But to make up for the long delay, this story will updated very quickly, at least for the first few chapters.
Anyways, the gang is in pretty hot water after the events of the last story. And it's not going to get any less tepid anytime soon. Not to mention Ghoulwyrm will be up to no good as usual and there's bound to be a lot of trouble. This is a very important transition story in the saga so you don't want to miss out on this. Keep an eye on this story and please review.