I. UnexpectedMenace
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Hugo Smith was humming an old Rhapsodian tune as he rested in the MBC control room, laid back in the seat usually occupied by Chris, his legs stretched over the control panel, feet crossed above the multicoloured buttons.
The past days had been really calm for the Monster Buster Club. Unusually calm. Seemed like the naughty aliens willing to use Earth for their evil plans had unexpectedly decided to grant the MBC a little break… before attacking twice more aggressive than before ? Hopefully not.
But on the other hand, this period was getting almost boring, so a bit of action would be very welcome.
Yes, some action would indeed have been really appreciable. Goofing off is fine, but when you goof off every day… it starts to get annoying after a while. The kids sure would agree with him.
By the way, thinking of the kids… where were they ?
"Ayaaaah !" screamed Cathy.
"Wooohoooo !" shouted Danny.
"Goooo !" yelled Chris.
"Yeaaaah !" shrilled Sam.
The "Famous Four" were in their MBC spacecrafts, hovering in the underground tunnels. Since they had nothing better to do, not even homework, they had decided to race together, and the first one to reach the headquarters would get invited to the pizzeria that evening. The most motivated was Cathy, whose Top 3 favourite food included pizza (rank 2), followed close by Danny, always in for some junk food, if possible double cheeseburgers.
The spacecrafts flew like flashes of lightning in the desert tunnels and soon neared the basis. Sam was still first, but Danny was close behind, trying to overtake her unnoticed. The MBC leader did her best to keep the lead, but it was quite tricky to predict Danny's moves. Just a few minutes more to remain focused and…
"Ah ah ah, gotcha, Sammy !" howled Danny as he emerged in front of her teammate. He had sneaked under her ship, taking advantage of her neglecting to remain low in order to avoid any "attack" from below, and just rose quickly before her after stepping on the gas.
"Oh no ! Not now !" Sam shrieked. How could she have been that careless as to fly too high and leave a path underneath for that little daredevil ? It was just a godsend for him ! She had to overtake him again or he would win. But there was so little time left…
The red spacecraft reached the basis a few seconds later. The yellow one landed almost simultaneously. Danny ran to the pod, Sam imitating him on her side. He got inside his first, only 2 or 3 seconds before her. They both rose swiftly as the duct sucked them up to the control room.
"Tadaaaaa !" the Jock triumphantly let out as he landed on the ground of the headquarters. The African American girl walked in only a very short while after him and sighed : "Well, I guess I can't deny your victory, right ? Well done, Flash !
Flash ?
Yeah. You know, that guy who moves as fast as a flash of lightening. We saw the movie last week.
Ah, sure ! Remember him ! Well, eh eh… The Danny can outdo anybody. Even you, girl !
Ah, come on, stop doing the macho !"
Cathy and Chris arrived in the departure pod room just in this moment. And they smiled when they saw their teammates once again arguing. Chris couldn't help making a remark : "Eh eh, still bickering, folks ! What about, this time ?" Sam playfully made believe she was mad at Danny when she answered, in a fake outraged tone : "Oh, it's simply Mister Modest here who once again is showing off…" And she smirked at Mr Modest, who now was staring at her rival with wide open eyes. "Hey, Sam, you must admit I beat you ! Didn't I ?" His tone seemed almost scandalized. She gave a wink, whispered : "Hum, whatever…" and grinned wide.
And with that, she walked on to the automatic door leading to the main room.
"Hi, Grandpa ! How's it going ?
Hello, kids ! Well, not much to do here. No alarm. No fishy signal. Nothing.
Hum, looks like we're gonna have another of those long quiet days…" sighed Chris.
Barely had he uttered these words that the red alert launched. The four fighters suddenly turned their gazes at the supercomputer, and the freckled geek caught a seat, sat down in front of his keyboard and started typing madly. Infos rapidly scrolled down the screen and Sam narrowed her eyes at the text going by. What could it be this time ?
Just then, the full clubhouse started shaking tremendously. It seemed as if a hurricane had just wrapped the headquarters in its powerful embrace and was putting all its strength to breaking it apart. All the members felt their blood freeze in their veins. It lasted a good while then stopped. Everything was back to normal. Or so it appeared, at least. Were things really normal again ? There seemed to be a slight motion going on, somewhere.
"Well, anything that is trying to menace our city, it's gonna get busted in no time ! The sooner the better ! I don't wanna miss that pizza that you guys will reward me with tonight !" said Danny on a tone he tried to make joking, to ease up the situation a bit. But he wasn't as much self-confident as before. He all the same threw a side glance at Sam to check her reaction.
But the golden-eyed girl didn't react. She looked around the room and her eyes rolled from side to side, her position clearly a defensive and analytic one. She didn't notice what the red member was saying. The latter felt a tad disappointed that his "target" hadn't listened to him, which made his teasing fall flat. But he could understand his friend was worried, after that mini earthquake. He kind of was as well. Where did that shaking come from ?
Nevertheless, if Sam didn't answer anything, Danny still got a reaction, and that was from Chris. He had his face hypnotized by the screen… and his face had got paler, although no one had actually noticed this ! "Hum, Danny… I don't think they deliver pizza where we're heading to…"
Cathy's voice expressed sheer surprise : "Where we're heading to ? But… we're in the clubhouse, Chris ! We're heading nowhere right now !" The tech turned to her, an anguished expression plastered onto his features : "Check by yourself, Cath'…"
The Rhapsodian drew near, imitated by the Leader and the Jock, and they all watched what was displayed on the giant screen of the supercomputer. It took a few seconds for the exact meaning of the 3D animation to be fully understood, but once it was, all faces had turned as pale as Chris's. And goosebumps crawled onto their suddenly cold skins.
The movements that were taking place on the screen showed a red point moving upward and exiting a kind of round envelope. The red point symbolized the clubhouse and the round envelope… Sam's eyes sprang as wide as they could and she flinched as a flash of premonition lit up her mind.
The next minute, she ran to the window and saw exactly what she dreaded. She gulped very uneasily and the goosebumps seemed to grow more intense on her skin. She was soon joined by the other members, and all of them gasped when they saw what was outside.
Instead of the garden they used to know, where Mr. Smith kept all kinds of rare and peculiar flowers, there was an enormous ball, with blue parts, beige parts and white parts. And of course this ball was very familiar to the four kids. They had seen the same one on TV, in a documentary on rocket expeditions. As for Mr Smith, he had contemplated it as well, long ago, when he was on board of a Rhapsodian spacecraft and looked for a location where he could safely land.
This huge multicoloured sphere was usually a magnificent spectacle for humans, but today, for the MBC team, it was a terrible one, due to the implications it connected with.
That ball was the Earth, and it was becoming slowly but surely smaller, and smaller, and smaller through the window they watched from…
The clubhouse had just exited from the earthly atmosphere and was diving into the endless black ocean of outter space, dotted with innumerable sparkles which now got closer and closer !
