A bright flash of light erupted in the void of space as the Dark Queen's Dimensional Platform fell out of hyperspace into real space. The ship was long, flat and completely black. Or, at least, it had been originally before the events of the past two hours. Now the ship was trailing a field of debris like some misshapen comet. Along the hull, the metal glowed red in patches and was completely missing in other areas. No more explosions rocked the starship on the outside, now the violence took place deep within it.
Inside, the hallways were littered with collapsed walls, dangling wires and bodies of dead Psyko Pigs. Sirens blared, drowning out the sounds of the countless fires that ravaged the interior of the ship. The lights flickered intermittently in a confused state of not knowing whether to switch to backup power or keep draining the primaries. Deeper inside the ship, a wall collapsed as a bright green humanoid toad flew through it, having been thrown by a huge and obese rat.
"Nyahhh!" The eight foot rat hissed, as it rocked on it's haunches in amusement, "You may have bested the Dark Queens' army once more, but this time, nyahh, this time I will have toad soup!"
The bright green toad groaned and rolled over on its back only to have the rat grab it by the throat, pulling it into the air. The toad gripped the rat claw with both hands and began to struggle to breath.
"Throw the dark ones down, velvet fist, iron glove!" A brown colored toad came running in from another room and struck the rat in the back of the head causing it to drop the toad it had in its claws.
"You have signed your own death warrant, Pimple!" The rat turned toward the brown toad, Pimple, and arched its back.
Electricity arched over the rat, its paws curled into fists as it threw its arms back. The rat began to grow in size, gaining a foot in height.
"I was saving this one for you, Blag," Pimple spoke as he twisted down in a pose, curling his right arm in a flex, "Battlesword, go!"
With that, Pimples' left arm turned into a sword and immediately he was up and lunging at Blag.
"Nice to see you learned some new moves, cattleload!" Blag dodged the initial strike, wiped around and brought his spiked tail to bear on Pimple who had rolled to correct his dive.
The spiked tail missed, shattering the floor paneling under it. Blags tail found its way into the floor, twisting and warping the metal until it had become entangled, now he struggled with trying to remove it for another swing. A now standing Pimple rebounded off a nearby wall, bringing his sword arm down, slicing Blags' tail in half. Blag howled in pain as his bluish-purple blood began to spill from his ruined tail.
"My tail!" Blag roared as he racked his claws across the back of Pimple, shredding his artificially thickened skin.
"Blitzkrieg, Blag!" A third toad yelled, rushing Blag from the side with two outstretched arms that had been turned into Morningstar's.
Blag turned to counter this on impulse and ended up getting ran through by Pimples' sword-arm. Pimple twisted once then jerked his sword-arm out through Blags' chest creating a massive fountain of gore and blood.
"Sunnuvabitch, Pimple! Was that damn necessary?" The new toad said, his arms returning to normal.
"Damn straight it was, daddy-o!" Pimples' own arm returning to normal.
These were the Battletoads, a group of three beings from another dimension who had been forced into the shape of giant upright walking toads that could modify the shape of their limbs at will. They were pledged to stop the Dark Queen and her machinations whenever and wherever they appeared. The one that had just walked in was the leader, Zitz, a bluish-green colored toad. The bright green toad that had been knocked out in the initial fight was Rash, the support fighter of the group. Then there was Pimple, the tank of the group.
Zitz walked over to the facedown Rash, kneeled and then place a right hand on Rashs' right shoulder, "Rash, you ok, bro?"
Rash began to stir, coughing and choking from a now sore windpipe.
"…oh man, that damn rat nearly got me this time!" Rash spoke hoarsely as he rolled over, rubbing his throat.
"No time for that, bro," Pimple walked over, extending his hand to pull Rash up, "There is a Dark Queen to defeat."
All three toads, now standing, turned toward a door marked "VOLKMIRE LAB" and kicked it down in unison.
As the Battletoads tore through the Dark Queens defenses, she was herself rushing through the lab of her second in command, Silas Volkmire. Although the toads had destroyed Silas a few days earlier when he had confronted them with his digitally manifested monstrosities, the Queen had kept his digital reproducer going from what she had learned from him. Now she held the fruition of this act in her hands, an heir to her throne should the toads defeat her once and for all.
There was a loud crash near the front of the lab and she knew the toads had come for her. The final straw had been snapped and the camel was dead. She had killed Princess Angelica and destroyed any sense of stability the regional planetary governments had. Anarchy was finally running throughout the star systems and she was pledged to bring order to the self-created mayhem. It was her latest plot to rule the galaxy and it had been terrifyingly successful, that is, until Professor T. Bird had managed to get a hold of the Battletoads and bring them back from their search for their home dimension. Now the end was drawing near for the Dark Queen thanks to those shape shifting reptilians.
The Dark Queen took off running, clutching the artificial child to her chest, toward the escape pod bay. As she left the lab and entered the hallway, she pressed a large panic button located by the door. Immediately, another version of Robo-Manus began to be lowered from the ceiling. Robo-Manus had many manifestations, many bodies, one of which was installed in the lab just for this very reason. Her hope was that he would be able to hold off the Battletoads long enough for her to escape.
"Reactor overheating! Containment failure imminent!" The central computer boomed over the PA system
The fight was lost, the Dark Queen realized as she ran down a destroyed hallway. Fires were everywhere sucking up the life support, the structural damage done before the Battletoads had even boarded the ship was immense and now, she was sure they were doing it no favors by being inside.
Behind her, she heard a large explosion and felt the whole ship tremble. It wouldn't be long now and this whole place would go up. In front of her, she reached the door to the escape pods and began to frantically press a series of numbers into the keypad. The keypad bleeped an acceptance of her code and the door slid up.
Inside the bay, the Dark Queen saw that most of the pods were gone and the ones that weren't gone had definitely seen better days. What cowards had fled during the most epic fight yet between the Queen and the Toads? She found a pod that was still functioning and placed the artificial child inside of it.
"Talk about some gnarly action, huh, li'l girly?" The Dark Queen grimly joked as she strapped the infant in place.
As she was about to get in herself, a blast from a laser gun tore through her back and escaped through her chest, barely missing her heart. She reared her head back in a silent gasp, her eyes bulging and fell to her knees.
"Nice try Dark Queen, now it's time for you to enter the sandman!" Pimple walked in, smugly smiling and holding the laser gun, taken from Robo-manus, that had mortally wounded her.
The Dark Queen, gasping for air, slowly turned around having now sank to a sitting position but her hand still managing to reach an exterior pod control.
"I won't… give you… the pleasure…" She choked out forcefully, then pressed the pod seal button.
The pod sealed shut and immediately launched. The power supply was too weak to close the pods' escape chamber causing the whole bay to rapidly decompress. The Dark Queen was immediately sucked out into space. Pimple dropped his gun and managed to grab the door frame, keeping himself from being sucked out as well.
"Hold on, Pimple!" Rash yelled as he began to pound commands into a wall console that controlled the bulkhead trying seal off the pod bay.
"I could climb until I reach where angels reside, or drop until I reach the dark side, but I don't think I'll be getting out of this one!" Pimples hands began to slip on the door frame.
It was no use, the bulkhead came down, sealing off the pod bay. Rash began to pound the wall as Pimple was sucked out into space.
***END EPISODE ONE***