AOE Saga:

The Reluctant Dracopyre

Chapter 1: Abandon Ship

The Ohana had recently been equipped with a new D-drive for dimensional travel. The Ohana was currently testing its new drive to cruise through the gap between the dimensions. It was a bit hazardous because you could take a wrong turn and end up in something resembling Hell, if not the actual thing. Therefore, Matt and Chip were in charge of piloting the ship.

Eventually Matt got bored and wondered what the others were doing right now. He turned to Chip and said, "Do you think you can take over while I check on the others." "No problem," said Chip. Matt switched the controls to Chip and left the bridge. He went over to the mess hall where they were. He opened the door to see Lilo, Stitch, Draco, and Morph playing poker. "Hi Matt," said everybody. "What are you guys doing?" "Poker," said Stitch dealing out a card. "Mind if I play next game?" "I don't know," said Lilo, "Morph has a really good poker face."

Matt looked at Morph to see that his face was literally a blank slate. "Even we're not sure how he does it," said Draco, "but you better stay out or you'll get wiped out." After that everyone laid their hands down. Lilo had three queens and two nines. Stitch had three jacks, an ace, and a six. Draco had two kings, two eights, and a ten. Morph had the royal flush. As Morph raked in the chips, everyone groaned and said, "That's the seventh time in a row." "Who wants ice cream?" asked Morph, "my treat."

Then Chip's voice came over the intercom, "Matt, could you give me a hand in leaving the rift?" Matt pressed the button to reply back and said, "I'll be right there." He went to the bridge along with Morph who wanted to cash in his chips. Matt sat down in the pilot's chair and took back control. "Computer," he said, "locate closest portal to the dimension we left." The computer showed a kind of diagram and highlighted a part that was coming up.

Matt steered the ship neatly through the space-time continuum and back into the dimension where they'd started. "Nice and smooth," said Matt. Morph looked out the window and yelled, "Duck!" "Don't tell me we flew into a nest of those giant space ducks again," said Chip. "No, the other meaning." Matt and Chip looked out the window and saw a kind of transport ship coming right at them. They screamed and Matt jack-knifed out of the way. The transport ship narrowly avoided them. "What was that?" asked Matt. "I don't know, but it looks in bad shape," said Chip. Matt looked out the window and saw that the engines of that ship looked worm-eaten, literally, and that there were several dents in it.

Matt thought for a minute, turned on the communicator, and contacted the ship, "This is the timeship Ohana, do you need assistance?" The ship transmitted replied, "Yes, do mind if I come on board? I'll require your largest room." Matt paused uncertainly and said, "Uh, sure, you could the cargo bay, that should be big enough." "Perfect, link up to my ship and I'll be right over." As the transmission ended, Matt asked, "What was that about?" "I don't know," said Chip, "but the voice rings a bell."

Soon afterwards, the Ohana was linked to the ship. Everyone gathered around the entrance to see who would come aboard. As the chute opened, Matt said, "Welcome to the timeship……HOLY SMEG!" He stared wide-mouthed at what was probably the largest alien lifeform Matt ever seen. It resembled a 15-foot dragon with its wings on its front legs. By the look of those double-elbowed wings, they probably had a wingspan of at least 30 feet. It was wearing a bluish-gray armor over its torso and a technological-looking choker on its 5-foot neck. It bent its large head, which had brown hair with green highlights that was parted by a frill-like spine, towards Matt who was slowly going white and said, "Are you the captain of this ship?" "Nnnngh," was all Matt could say.

Lilo, Stitch, Draco, and Chip suddenly cried, "Stephen!" Stephen looked around in surprise and said, "Stitch, Draco, Chip, what are you guys doing here? And who's she?" "I'm Lilo." Stephen shook his head in amazement and said, "I think there's a lot of explaining to do here. But while we're telling it, do you mind transporting this ship to the planter Mysthico?"

Soon everyone was in the cargo bay, slurping ice cream floats, except for Matt who was having a strong coffee to calm his nerves. Tales were told of what had happened after Stephen left Earth, about Lilo's mutation, Piton Toxico and Virustocron's unexpected reappearance as an amalgamation, NegaMorph's creation, Splicer, and the recent bout on Nocturnus-13. Matt, in turn, was told about Stephen's transformation into a Dracon because of the recently cursed Drac Omnitrix. After the lengthy storytelling, Matt said, "So you can't get if off, you can't change back into a human, and you're on your way to Mysticos to see if the Dracons there can help you?" Stephen nodded. "So did you find out who cursed you?" "Sure did," said Stephen, "it was Echidra."

Draco was drinking some of his ice cream float through his ice mouth when Stephen was saying this and suddenly spat it out. The soda hit Morph and froze him to the wall like frozen carbonite. "Echidra!" said Draco, "how can you be sure?" "Easy," said Stephen, "she met me face to face then sent out her Waste-crawlers after me." "What are Waste-crawlers?" asked Lilo. "They're large demonic worms about four feet long and bright red. They have six tusk-like mandibles in their mouths, which they can spit acid out of." "Can't be worse looking than this," said Chip, tapping Morph in his frozen state.

Suddenly there was an alert on the intercom: "Entering Mysthico atmosphere. Unidentified craft detected." "Show us a visual," said Matt. A hologram was shown of a small spaceship heading straight for the Ohana. It extended several mechanical tentacles and grabbed one of the engines. Everyone was shaken as the Ohana was stopped. Stitch was thrown to the other side of the room where he crashed into Morph and broke him out of his frozen cocoon. "We gotta get out of here," said Stephen.

Matt ran to the bridge and jumped into the controls. A screen said, "Warning. Boarding tube approaching…" Matt grabbed the controls and tried to pull the ship loose. "Warning. Power levels dropping…" said the computer. Matt looked at the screen showing the other ship. The tentacles had impaled the engines and were glowing. In addition, Waste-Crawlers, by Stephen's description, were crawling out of the ship and started eating the engine. "Ooookay, that's new," he said, "time for the usual plan." He opened a small box on the control panel, revealing a row of switches marked with skull and crossbones motives.

He finished flicking them all as everyone else came in. "What are you doing?" asked Lilo. "I'm starting the self-destruct sequence," said Matt. "Ok," said Draco, "V-627's taken over again. Chip, pass me the mallet." "No, I'm not," said Matt, "we can't get away from these things, they're latched onto the ship and we don't have enough power. We can get into the shuttle and head for Mysthico while they go out with the explosion." "But the Ohana," said Stitch. Matt looked at Stitch and said, "She's only a ship."

Around that time, Chris walked into the room. "Can't a guy get any sleep without being waked up by collisions?" Then Chris took one look at Stephen and made a scream. Then he took on a karate attack position. "Chris," said Matt, "this is our friend, Stephen." There was a brief introduction both ways and then Chris said, "Sorry about that. I hadn't been surprised like that since that time someone put a Banshee Worm in my closet."

Flashback: Chris was going into his room after a long day of training. He went over to his closet to change into different clothes on account that the clothes he was wearing right now were sweaty. Just before he opened it, he heard giggling. He paused and looked around. When he didn't see anything, he shrugged his shoulders and opened the closet door. Instantly, one of those bat-winged, tentacle creatures from the Null Void came out of the closet and attacked Chris. As Chris screamed in terror, Draco and Porkchop were sitting in the hallway, laughing their heads off. End flashback.

"Heh, heh, that was a good one," said Draco. "What did you say?" asked Chris. "Nothing," said Draco quickly. Then Chris said to Matt, "So you're telling me we have to abandon ship because a sorceress sent some mutant worm-things after us?" "Yep," said Matt as he continued working on the self-destruct program. "How can you expect me to believe that?" asked Chris. Suddenly, a couple of Waste-Crawlers burst through the floor. "I'll get it," said Morph. Then Morph activated the mallet in his TechPack and whacked all the Waste-Crawlers. The creatures turned tail and left. Chris looked at Matt and said, "You know what, I believe you."

Matt pressed the last button and the computer chimed, "Countdown duration please." Matt shrugged and typed in 5 minutes before pressing, "Engage." He looked at everyone. "Now just go. As captain, I get to go down with the ship…" An ear splitting ripping sound from the security monitor station got everyone's attention. A chainsaw and the blades of two scythes were cutting a T-shaped rip right through a meter- thick bulkhead like cardboard. Then two metal claws opened up the hole to reveal Massacrate and a swarm of Waste-Crawlers coming in. All of Matt's self-preservation reminded him that there was plenty of room on the shuttle for him as well. "Then again…there's time to be brave and there's time to be a complete coward…the shuttle's this way," he said leading the way.

Shuttle Bay

Matt opened the hatch on the 'shuttle'. An old empire mobile command center called the Harbinger that he'd 'borrowed'. He looked back at the Ohana. "See ya, old girl," he muttered. Chris said, "You ok?" Matt sighed. "Yeah. Let's go," and got into the shuttle. Chip was reading the instructions in the co-pilot seat. Matt sat down and powered up the engines. He began to turn the chip to face the closed bay door. "Er…shouldn't those be OOOPEN?" The last word was shouted as Matt unintentionally sent the ship straight through the closed door with a loud crash and out into the atmosphere. "Meh. Doors are for people with patience," said V-627 in his ear. "What about sanity?" Matt thought back. "What was that for?" asked Chip. "Sorry," said Matt, "V-627 made me do it." Chip glared at Matt and said, "I don't know what's worse about V-627, his cruelty, his bloodlust, or his insanity." Then Chris came into the cockpit and said, "Can we wait for my stomach to catch up with me?" Suddenly he gulped and said, "Never mind, it caught up, but it's not feeling good."

Bridge

The door to the deserted bridge was blown clean off its hinges and Massacrate walked inside followed by several Waste-Crawlers. "Where's the crew?" shouted Massacrate angrily. Then one of the Waste-Crawlers started chewing on the sensor console. "Don't eat it," said Massacrate, "use it to find the crew." The Waste-Crawler continued to gnaw on the console, oblivious to the countdown reading, "System lockdown. 01:32 to detonation," in Splitter.

Massacrate pulled out a small scrying glass and spoke some strange words. A second later, Echidra appeared. "What is it?" she said. "There is nobody on the ship, mistress. It is deserted." "Then they must have escaped," said Echidra, "They'll have gone to Mysthico. I don't care about the others, but bring me that Dracon." The scrying glass went blank and Massacrate put it away. Then he noticed the message on the console and asked, "What's this? It looks like Splitter. My Splitter's a bit rusty, but maybe I can translate it." He examined the console and said, "Curses," as the computer calmly said, "Detonation in 5…4…3…2…1…thank you."

The Ohana seemed to swell for a second before exploding in a giant ball of superheated plasma.

That's the first chapter. Before anyone flames me about the Ohana's destruction, it was largefish8's idea. Keep an eye out for the next chapter of this story. Please review.