WARNING: This is an OC-centric plotty fic. If that's not your thing, back out now.
This idea came to my head last summer and wouldn't leave. I've been working on it on and off, and have about seven chapters to show for my effort. I'm going to post about once or twice a week, and will hopefully write more before I reach the end of what I've got!
I hope you guys enjoy :D
the cycle starts again
Lady Cravenheart
1.
Charlene runs through the forest. Her breath comes in sharp pants and branches tear at her arms and face. Only her goggles keep them from tearing at her eyes too. Her heart beats frantically in her chest. The cuts on her body sting with every step forward but she ignores them. She has to keep pressing on. She can't—won't—stop.
The formless soldiers—creatures which Shuggazoom thought they saw the last of long ago—are on her tail and closing fast.
Come on…
Come on…
Just a little further now… You can do it, Charlie!
Tears form in the corners of her eyes as she speeds up. Her muscles cry out for relief but she has to keep going. She has to. She has to get somewhere safe… somewhere she can defend herself. If she doesn't…
Well. Best not to think about what will happen if she doesn't.
Just a little further and—
Shit!
Charlie barely manages to stop herself before she goes tumbling off the edge of a canyon and into the darkness below. Given everything else that lurks in this forest she can only imagine what type of creatures wait for her there! The crashing behind her grows louder as the formless draw nearer. She glances left, then right.
A-ha! A bridge!
She turns right and runs with everything in her. She's in for it when the adrenaline fades, she knows. She'll be lucky if she doesn't pass out right then and there. Even though she knows the crash is inevitable, though, she can't help but be grateful for the extra boost of energy.
It's all that's keeping her out of their clutches.
Unbidden, her hand reaches up to her chest; gripping the datachip hanging around her necklace. She has to get this off of Shuggazoom and away from the new Chosen of the Dark Ones.
She reaches the bridge. It's a stable, sturdy thing. She's torn between gratitude and disappointment. She was hoping that, once she made it across, the formless would plummet to their deaths. No such luck. However, her passage is safe, which is a very good thing, as far as she's concerned.
She doesn't have time to take in a lot of details as she races across it, but she notices a few things—first of all, the bridge is white. Pristinely so. Second, it's old. The forest has already begun to retake it; vines wrapping around it in some twisted form of an embrace. Probably built within the last two decades, then. Maybe during the War of the Living and the Dead? The Savage Lands were visited an awful lot back then.
Her feet hit dirt and she takes off into the trees again.
It doesn't really matter, she supposes. What matters is that the bridge was there, and stable enough that she could use it to cross the canyon. Hopefully she can find a ship or some kind of weapon at the lab. Though… honestly? She doubts it. There's no way that place hasn't been picked clean by scavengers or scientists looking for an easy way to make it big. The War of the Living and the Dead left it famous, for better or worse.
But maybe she'd get lucky. She has an awful lot of luck, after all. Mostly for small things—like passing tests she never studied for and finding spare change on the ground just when she needed an extra quarter or another dollar. But sometimes… sometimes she got big things.
Maybe this would be one of these days.
The lab comes into view and Charlie feels as if she could collapse with relief. As it is, she just runs faster. As she clears the treeline, more of the lab comes into view and—
Ho-ly shit.
Is that the Super Robot?!
No way. I thought they said it disappeared?
But what better place to hide it than the place it started? According to all the stories that Charlie has heard—and she's heard quite a few—the Super Robot first woke here; when the monkeys were still asleep, when Mandarin was still their leader.
No time to freak out, girl. Find yourself a weapon—play explorer later.
If this really is the Super Robot, then the monkeys are sleeping inside it—locked in cryogenic stasis until the right person comes along to wake them up. As long as they're in that state, they're of no use to Charlie. She doesn't have time to figure out how to wake them up—or to mess with getting inside. But once these formless are dead…
Well.
That's a different story.
She throws the doors of the lab open—which is harder than she thought it would be. She didn't think the doors would be that heavy. She takes the time to shut them behind her. Maybe that will buy her an extra second or two.
Of course, she didn't count on how dark it would be. There's still the glow of machinery, but none of it is enough to see by. Well, except the tubes off in the corner; but their light doesn't extend that far. And as curious as she is to see where the monkeys originated, she has bigger problems on her hands right now.
She reaches up to her goggles and taps the sides. Night-vision mode activates; the interior of the lab comes into view. She scans the room.
There—a weapon rack in the corner.
She jogs over to it. The formless outside begin to slam on the door; dust shakes to the ground as the doors rattle in their frames. She scans the available weapons and picks one at random—a gun, with a rolling mechanism that seems to switch between different kinds of ammo. She has no idea if it works. She ducks behind a large hunk of machinery and hopes for the best.
She cocks the gun and grins as it spins to life; the plasma in the side lights up and shoots into the nozzle. She places her finger by the trigger and braces the gun. She takes a deep breath.
The doors slam open; hitting the walls with a thunderous sound. The formless stalk in. Their bodies drip sticky ooze to the floor. Their eyes glow red; their bodies the same zombie-like bones of before.
Charlie licks her lips and sticks her head out from behind the machine. She glances down at the plasma. Blue. Thick. She only gets one guess as to what it is. She takes a deep breath, aims at one of their heads, and fires.
The gun is near silent when it fires. The blue bolt sticks to the side the formless's head and immediately begins to grow. It expands and grows heavier and heavier, before the formless flops to the floor. The plasma glows brighter for a second before, with a resounding pop!, explodes, splattering blue and black all across the lab. The resulting explosion picks off two more formless.
She grins.
Cool.
She lines the gun up again and hits another. Then one more. And then the final formless. All four land on the ground. She ducks behind the machine to avoid the inevitable explosion. She strokes the barrel of the gun adoringly.
"Well," she whispers, "I suppose I did need a new gun. You'll do in a pinch, won't'cha, baby?" She un-cocks the gun and makes sure that the plasma flows back into the chamber before she straps it to her back—it even came with a neat holster, how nice is that? She reaches up and clicks her goggles until they show life readouts. It took about a year and a half, but together, she and her father managed to fix them so that they'd pick up formless.
She stands up and takes a careful look around.
Nothing. She turns them off and pushes her goggles up on her head, just to make sure. Not even the slightest hint of movement catches her gaze. She slumps.
Finally in the clear.
For the moment, anyway. She's not completely free yet—more formless will be on her tail soon, if they aren't already. She needs to get out of here, and fast. But first…
She returns to the weapon rack and looks at the desk. Her uncanny luck rears its head once more—the blueprints for her gun are hidden just beneath blueprints for a modified jetpack. (Closer inspection reveals that it's a prototype for the ones they use today. How neat!)
Charlie rolls the blueprints up. She jogs out of the lab and over to the Robot. If she can get this thing open, it might be her best chance at getting out of here. She might not be able to fly it—or awaken its inhabitants—but she can get to the hangar and borrow one of the ships there.
Was it the right foot… or the left? Charlie frowns. She shrugs and walks over to a foot at random—it's not like this choice is end-be-all, now is it? She can always walk over to the other foot if this doesn't work. Unless the Super Robot comes to life and squishes her… which. Not gonna happen.
The first foot is a bust. She does everything she can think of to try and bring up the holopad, but nothing works. She even kicks it! Disappointed, she trots over to the second one.
Maybe the rumors are right, she thinks. Maybe you can only open it if you're possessed of the Power Primate. The remaining Mystics—the ones who hadn't been corrupted under Master Xan's influence—seemed to think she had the potential… but no amount of training had ever brought it out of her. 'Potential' wasn't going to get this door open. ('Potential' didn't do much of anything except disappoint starry-eyed little girls ready to be the next Chosen One.)
She runs her hand along the side. Too her delight, she finds the magic spot—a yellow holopad jumps to life beneath her fingers. She grins. Now… what would the passcode be?
The grin slips from her face in favor of a contemplative frown. She thinks, brain spinning in rapid circles before a number jumps out of her. She beams and types it in, each press decisive. The keypad disappears in favor of a circle, endlessly spinning as it processes her input. In a matter of seconds, the door whooshes open and Charlie fights the urge to whoop. She steps through the threshold, positively buzzing with excitement. The door slides shut behind her.
For a moment, she's trapped in darkness. But then, the overhead lights come on. The room is bathed in bright white light; the silver of the walls glaringly bright. She grimaces and pulls her goggles down. She turns the shade feature on.
Ah. Much better.
She stands in a short hallway. At the end of the hall are six multi-colored tubes—orange, purple, blue, green, red, and yellow. She approaches the orange one. She steps inside it, keeping the blueprints close to her chest. The second she's in it, another holopad pops up at the right of the door. A diagram of the Super Robot is shown. It looks a little bit like the diagrams of the inside of humans that they displayed in anatomy class. Charlie knows she shouldn't waste any time. She should click on the hangar, find a ship, and be done with this place.
But she can't resist her curiosity.
Dad can wait a little longer, she tells herself. It's been a shit day. I need a pick-me-up. One peek at the monkeys, and then I'll be on my way.
She clicks the bridge. The door slides shut, and the floor under her feet comes to life. A slight buzzing sound is the only warning she gets before she's propelled into the air. Though she knows she's safely ensconced inside a bubble, she can't help but let out a muffled scream.
The noise barely escapes her lips before the elevator slows to a halt. The overhead light comes on. This light is just as bright as the ones downstairs—if not brighter. It illuminates what could almost be a living room; six chairs placed in a circle in a slightly lowered portion of the room. In the center is an indentation. Charlie is willing to bet that, if the right buttons were pressed, a table would elevate. On one of the wall is the symbol of the monkey team; only a slight crevice in the wall reveals that it's a little bit more than it seems. To her left, there are two larger domes. Instead of concealing chairs, these conceal rooms.
She exits the pod. If the monkeys are sleeping anywhere, they have to be in the medbay. And, after extensive study of the maps, she knows that one of these hulking orbs holds the medbay.
Charlie crosses the room with determined strides. A click of the holopad opens the door—no passcode required.
The lighting in the lab is dimmer than the lights on the bridge. It glows with a soft blue light. She can just imagine what it must have been like in active use—tubes of brightly colored chemicals, the smell of antiseptic, bandages and science equipment at every corner. The lab seems dreadfully empty in comparison to her imaginings.
She enters the lab and goes right. The flooring changes; the lighting is different. Once again, the same sterile white light fills the room, but it's softer than the lights outside. Two neat, orderly rows of medical tables took up most of the space in the room. On the back wall were two suspension pods used to accelerate healing—their invention had greatly improved human lifespan.
But no monkeys.
She turns away from the medical bay and instead surveys the lab. No stasis pods here either.
She frowns. If the monkeys aren't here… where would they be? Maybe their sleeper pods. If Charlie had to put herself into a deep sleep for who-knew-how-long, she would definitely want to do it in her own bed. But she's delayed her departure long enough. She needs to get going.
Her father might not be worrying about her—poor man still thinks she's safely at boarding school—but that doesn't mean she can afford to dally. This information needs to get to him and it needs to get to him now. For the safety of the cosmos.
She exits the lab and tries not to be too disappointed. The second the lab door closes behind her, she wants to smack herself in the face. There they are, right in front of her—hanging suspended in their elevator pods. Cryogenic fluid fills the bubbles with the lifts on them; the doors tightly shut to keep any from escaping.
She swallows and slowly approaches the tubes. She's sure it's her imagination, but the overhead light seems to dim; the shadows in the room increasing dramatically as she approaches. The famous heroes of tales whispered throughout the cosmos; carried by word of mouth. Shuggazoom was one of the most popular tourist sites for most of her childhood, until the danger started to ratchet up again. Half a dozen monuments had been erected in their honor.
They had a chapter in the history book dedicated to them; all the information that they had been able to extract from their various allies and former leader recorded religiously and taught to young minds.
She extends her hand; her fingers brushing against the glass. Her mind is quiet.
Charlie doesn't know how long she stands there. She finally shakes herself from her trance and turns away from the pod. She's just about to head over to the orange one and—finally—make her way to the hanger when she spots it. A switch, sitting innocuously in a corner. Her brow furrows. She wonders… could it wake the monkeys? Her fingers twitch at her sides. She wants to pull it.
She looks between it and the orange pod. If she leaves now, she can get going with the datachip and reach her father before the month is up. But if she waits… if she pulls the switch… if she wakes the monkeys…
She can bring them back with her. It will finally give people the hope they've been looking for. The hope that they're going to win this war; against the Dark Ones' Chosen.
She bites her lip. She strides over to the switch. The worst that can happen is that you're wrong, and this is just the light switch or something, she tells herself. Its five seconds out of your way. Pull it. If it doesn't work, you can leave.
She wraps her hand around the knob of the lever and yanks. It slides toward her with ease. The second it clicks into place green lightning shoots up her arm. She goes to yank her hand away but finds that she can't. The electricity spreads through her body; the hair on the back of her neck stands on end. Her eyes widen and her lips part.
She doesn't even have a chance to scream before it overtakes her vision. For a moment, all she can see is bright, green light. A sudden, throbbing pain overtakes her body… and then… she knows nothing.
On the other side of the room, the fluid begins to drain from the pods, traveling back into its holding area. And in each monkey's optics; a light blinks.
Charlie wakes to voices. She forces herself to stay calm and still; taking deep, even breaths. They cannot know she is awake; not until she's evaluated her situation.
She evaluates herself first. A pulsing energy hums through her body. It fills her with energy even as her limbs throb with pain. The worst is in her head. She can feel her pulse pounding behind her eyes. Her fingers tingle. Cold metal presses into her back—she's likely laying on a table of some kind. Presumably in a med-bay. She isn't restrained. Either the voices she hears aren't threats… or the enemies who have her didn't expect her to wake so soon.
For safety's sake, best to assume the latter.
She tunes into the conversation.
"—by my calculation, it's been about twenty-one years since we entered stasis." Posh. Accented. Male.
"Gee, thanks, Brainstrain. Never would have figured that out without you." Unaccented. Deeply sarcastic. Male.
The sarcastic voice was punctuated by the sharp clang of metal on metal.
"Ow!"
"Are you really going to start picking fights now?" Female. Irritated.
Muttered cursing, and then. "Hey, twenty-one years… do you think that means the Kid is still around?"
Kid?
"Hey, d'ya think we'll get ta see him?" Male. Deep, yet childish. Bright.
"If the cosmos see fit for our paths to cross… then yes, I don't see why we couldn't. But don't get your hopes up, Otto. I do not believe he'll be happy to see us." Male. Deep. Wise. Sad.
Otto… she knows that name. Where does she know that name from?
"I didn't think the universe was gonna need us again so soon, Antauri." The sarcastic one from earlier. Sarcasm has left; replaced by bitterness. "And why'd they send us another teenager? Don't they get that our job is too dangerous for kids?"
"This one's older," the female sooths. "And judging by that gun she had, I'm gonna assume she already knows how to fight."
"Well, that's somethin', at least."
"And hey… we'll finally have another girl on the team! For a little while, anyway."
"I don't want to leave another one behind," the deep child voice says. "It was hard enough the last time."
The pieces begin to connect in her brain. Otto. Antauri. 'Kid.'
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
Ho-ly shit.
That's the monkey team. The freakin' monkey team is standing around, having a conversation. They're awake. But… how is that possible?
The last thing she remembers is… bright… green… light.
How did that old interview go again? Kicking a can, mysterious statue that turns out to be a robot-slash-spaceship, a mysterious switch... which, when touched, summoned a bright green light. The monkeys awoke, and the rest is history.
Literally.
So. Green light.
Guess Master Xala was right about her powers needing a trigger. Though, Charlie is pretty sure this is not exactly what she had in mind when she said that.
Still, though. Cool.
Well. Sort of. Explaining this to her dad is not going to be fun. Or cool.
"Uh… guys. I think she's awake." Deep and childish—er, Otto—said.
Charlie opened her eyes.
"Yeah, I think Otto's on the money on this one." …Sprx? said.
Charlie pushed herself into a sitting position and swung her legs over the side. She didn't try to move any more than that, though. "Hi," she said.
"Who are you?" The question was asked by a silver monkey with bright blue eyes. Antauri, she assumed.
"Name's Charlene. Most people call me Charlie. Nice to meet'cha." Charlie wiggled her fingers.
"What were you doing in the Super Robot?" Yellow fur. Pink eyes. Female. Nova.
She shrugged. "I needed a ship. Figured I'd borrow one from the hangar—after checking out the fabled monkey team, of course. You guys are legends around here."
"Why did you need a ship?" Blue fur. Accented voice. Gibson.
"To get off Shuggazzom. Duh."
"And you couldn't get one from the shipyard because…?"
Charlie rolled her eyes. "Because I had four formless on my tail! And they don't let you bring weapons to school, no matter how much of a hotspot Shuggazoom is for attacks. So, I had no gun, no powers, and no way of defending myself. Well, I mean, there's hand-to-hand… but who wants to go hand-to-hand with formless in a school uniform?" Her face twisted. "Yuck. No thanks. I'd rather skip the injuries and the goo. So I led them here, to the Savage Lands. I figured there had to be some way to take them down here. And I was right! Found a nifty gun in the Alchemist's lab—which, I want back by the way—and used it to take 'em out. Then I figured my best chance for a working ship was here." She shrugged. "But, like I said, I wanted to see you guys first."
She was met by blank faces and blinks, as they finished processing the fast-paced tirade.
"How did you wake us up?" Antauri asked. He was scrutinizing her a little too heavily for her liking.
"Switch in the corner. I wasn't really sure it would work, but hey. If I'm leaving Shuggazoom on the run from formless, then I'm at least gonna bring something of use back with me. Or, in this case, someone's. That's why I grabbed the blueprints at the lab. And, like I said, you guys are legends. If anyone can help us… it's you. We have some of your old teammates with us, and they've been a great help. I can only imagine what we can do if we have everyone here."
"Old teammates… Is Chiro with you, by chance?" Otto's eyes were large and filled with hope.
Charlie laughs. "Yeah. He's one of our leaders. He's a pretty gruff, no-nonsense kind of guy. He tends to run us pretty ragged… but he also knows what he's doing. He's one of the biggest reasons our movement has managed to survive this long." She frowns. "This Chosen is a lot harder to fight than Skeleton King was. Or, that's what I hear, anyway." She sighs and waves a hand. "I'm sure someone else can give you a better overview of the situation."
"Why were the formless after you in the first place?" Gibson examines something on a datapad—likely her medical results.
She shrugs. "My dad's pretty high up in the army. It's not the first time they've attacked me… though it's the first time they've done it while school is in session. They're always trying to use me to get to him. Someday they'll learn it's not gonna work."
"Does your dad work with Chiro?" Otto asks.
She grins. "Yeah, he does. And it's the coolest freakin' thing, lemme tell you. Chiro doesn't tell war stories a lot—not like the Sun Riders and Quint—but when he does… it's always worth getting a front row seat."
"You're close to him, then?" Antauri asks.
She nods. "One of the privileged few. I've known him since I was four."
The monkeys trade worried glances. "This war… it's been going on for a while then?"
She grimaces. "Unfortunately. We've done everything we can to hold them back—we've found a ton of people with access to the Power Primate, though none of them have the power that Chiro does. We've got some of the brightest minds in the universe working on offensive and defensive measures. But even with the leaps and bounds they've made in technology… even with the edge we have with the power primate users…" She shakes her head. "We're not losing, but we're not winning either. It's a tough situation, and we need whatever edge we can get."
"There's something I don't understand."
She looks at Sprx. "Yes?"
"Why leave Shuggazoom? Why not return to the city? Surely your army has an outpost here, if it's such a hotspot for attacks."
Charlie fights back a grimace. Shit. She knew that was going to come up. "I'd really like to answer that question… but I can't. Being the daughter of one of the marshals means I have access to classified information other people don't. I trust you guys—I do. But it's not my trust that matters. For now… let's just say I have my reasons, and I need to get back to the main base—to my father—as soon as possible."
Sprx frowns and crosses his arms. "You were out in the Blasted Lands for a reason, weren't you? Not just because you were running from formless."
Charlie can't quite hold back the grimace this time. "Yes," she admits begrudgingly.
"What was so important that they needed to send a seventeen-year-old after it?"
"How d'you know my age?" she asks, frowning.
"Lucky guess on my part," Gibson says.
"Ah."
Sprx shifts his stance; his gaze bores holes into her head.
"Look… they didn't send me after it, okay? I… Flipping that switch isn't the first sign of powers I've had. I can't—couldn't?—call on them actively and I certainly couldn't use them in combat… but sometimes… I have these dreams. Or feelings. And… they sort of… guide me? I knew I needed to get to that place and recover something from it… and then I knew it needed to go straight to my father. I can't trust anyone else with this. Now—stop asking questions."
"Or what?" Sprx raises an eyebrow. Eye ridge?
"Or nothing." Charlie shrugs. "I mean, I can't stop you, I guess. But I can stop answering."
He inclines his head. "Point."
Nova claps her hands once. "Okay. That settled… if you give us the coordinates to your base, we can get you there."
"We can?" Gibson and Sprx turn to her in shock.
"Of course we can!" Otto chirps. "And maybe while we're there, we can see Chiro again!"
They turn to Antauri.
"It's as sound a plan as any. If this data is as important as you believe it is, Charlie, then it needs to get to your superiors as soon as possible. And on the way there, we can talk about what your awakening of us means."
Charlie's stomach drops. Uh-oh. She hadn't actually considered that part of this whole ordeal.
Her father was going to kill her.
I hope you enjoyed! If you spot any mistakes, please let me know. You can find me on Tumblr as ladycravenheart or livvywrites! (There are some handy-dandy links on my profile ;) )