Chapter 7 – Failure
I awoke the next morning to a delicious smell in the air. I followed my nose down stairs to find Mira cooking eggs and sausage on the stove, (obviously taken from the magic fridge) as well she cooked some mushrooms and jalapeno skins into the eggs. Ace and Runt were already eating their meals, which were the same thing as Mira's meal. I found some scrambled eggs in a bowl for me as well. I came down the stairs, smelled it and began eating the eggs. They were delightfully tasty. Most people think that the jalapeño is naturally hot all over, but that is a misnomer. The jalapeño, as well as most other hot peppers, get there hot spicy flavor from there seeds. Since Mira had scooped the seeds out of the jalapeño husks, all she actually was able to put in, were the skins and it added a delightful tangy/zesty flavor to the eggs that complimented the mushrooms and sausage.
After eating my delicious meal, I followed Mira as she took a mug full of coffee, walked over to the computer and turned it on. She sat there watching as it powered up, she lifted the coffee to her lips and drank then shifted her eye to look at me out of its corner. She placed the mug down close to the computer and leaned over to pick me up and place me on her lap. "You probably want to know what I'm doing." She said to me. "I'm doing research. Dr. Ragnarok is still obsessed with the Genesis Project, and from what I got from reading Ace's journal some more, Ragnarok has acquired the one thing to complete his experiments." "That's right, during his struggle with Runt, Ragnarok drew blood from Ace." I remembered. "His experiments require human subjects to perform, right?" she asked me, as if she would understand my answers anyway. "I'll just do some research on the most recent missing persons cases that occurred yesterday, and do what I can to triangulate his general position." She then added. The way she said it, it sounded like it would be a cinch.
Not so... it took her approximately three weeks to accurately triangulate his coordinates. By then Ace had learned various attack spells and mastered defensive and healing spells. The Warners had come and gone so often that they had become regular baby sitters for Ace while we needed to separate for any reason. (There were five instances that I can recall that ace was baby sat by either Slappy Squirrel or by Dr. Scratchansniff, but that's another story.)
When Mira finally found Ragnarok's position, it astounded all of us. He was right under our noses. Apparently he had a hidden lab at the Warner's secret solitude spot they called the "water front". (And thus the mysterious spring that created the creek.) "I got washed away by a slues pipe?" Dot asked in disgust. However, when Mira examined the water, she came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, clean water. That wasn't the point though.
Mira peeked behind the small waterfall for any cliché waterfall entrances, no such luck. Despite nearly falling in the creek twice, there wasn't anything there that even resembled an opening. All of us split up to search the area for an entrance of any kind. We searched for hours until we heard the ground begin to tremor. It was soft at first, then as the seconds passed by, the shaking got more and more violent until the rock wall behind the little waterfall burst outward in a heap of large boulders and water sprays. As all of the rocks and water was flying outward, Mira noticed a human figure burst out with all of the debris. All of the boulders lands around and in the creak, the bursting water rained back down to the surface, and the human figure landed on one of the largest boulders in site. The human was of huge build, his muscles were uncannily big, his flaming red hair looked slicked back, but at the same time it spiked up and backward, as well as his thick flaming red eyebrows. His gray eyes simply stared at Mira and Ace, nearly piercing their souls. He was clean shaven and, even though his skin was kind of pale, he simply looked quite fetching for a human. Dot was about to say "Heloooooo nurse" and jump into his awaiting arms until Mira exclaimed, "Doctor Ragnarok?" Dot stopped before she literally jumped into danger. "WHAT?" we all exclaimed at the same time. His visage had changed so drastically from the time we last saw him. "What happened to him?" Dot asked. "He used himself for his experiments. He is the Genesis Project." Mira deduced. Ace got into a defensive position to ready himself to protect us, when Ragnarok turned and spoke, "Mira, how have you been? What do you think? Now I can cleanse the universe of these abominations." Mira was in a state of shock, I doubt she could barely think, let alone talk. Ragnarok tilted his head slightly away from her and glared at Ace from the corner of his eye. "You, you little piece of filth, will be the first of your kind to suffer my vengeance." "What do you mean 'vengeance'?" Yakko asked for Mira. "The first time I saw a creature with the powers like that blasted kitten's, I wanted to bring it in for examination only it escaped from me and ran away like a coward. Normally that wouldn't faze me, but as I approached the alien's ship, it vaporized itself and nearly vaporized me in the process. Not only that but, when I got back to the laboratory, I told of my experience, all of my comrades laughed at me cause I had no proof of the alien's existence. That alien made a fool out of me. And no one makes a fool of me."
"You went through all of this for the sake of your ego?" Yakko yelled, extremely disgusted at Ragnarok's explanation. "At first," Ragnarok responded, "However, once I acquired the means to exact my revenge, I found the power I received from it rather... intoxicating." Ace was getting more and more furious as Ragnarok spoke. His eyes and star mark began to glow brightly and he began to breathe heavily with rage. This time rather than speak words to cast a spell, lightning sprang from his glowing star mark and arced toward Ragnarok. As the lightning reached near Ragnarok, the insane human stretched his arm forward, aiming his palm at Ace. The lightning arc bent inward and struck the palm of the arm that was aimed at Ace. The lightning continued to strike Ragnarok's palm for a while until Ace stopped the spell. After the spell had stopped, we all could see a sparking ball of lightning hovering in front of Ragnarok's hand. Apparently, he was able to absorb the spells energy and gather it in front of his hand. It was a sight to see; Ragnarok had duplicated Ace's power, however Ragnarok had more control of it than Ace ever did. When Ace entered "sage mode" there was no control, almost as if he became someone else entirely. Ragnarok however, had figured out how to wield the enormous power and maintain control of his own mind and body.
"At first I sought out to reveal mankind's evolutionary potential, but now I realize I alone should have this potential!" he exclaimed. And with that, he added energy to the lightning ball in front of his hand and released it in a lightning bolt at Ace. With no control over himself in the way he was now, Ace didn't even try to dodge the spell. It struck him dead on, and he received a shocking experience from it. Ace fell to the ground nearly unconscious and smoldering slightly. The kid was a lot more resilient than any of us expected. Ace quickly regained consciousness; however he still was in his "sage mode". The same ball of light that surrounded him when he came to rescue me from Ragnarok's laboratory had surrounded him again and he began to levitate off of the ground. "Perfect." Ragnarok said to himself and surrounded himself in a crimson sphere of light. Then they both lifted themselves high into the air and began to throw all kinds of different attack spells at each other.
Ace quickly lifted himself into the air to take the fight away from the ground and keep his friends and family as safe as possible. Ragnarok followed him approximately 230 feet above the canopy of the trees. Ace curled into a fur ball and then launched a large beam of light at the crazy scientist, and he quickly placed his hands in front of him and a shield of air blocked the light and directed it towards the ground. The beam struck around 20 yards from our location and all trees and creatures that were caught in the resulting explosion simply vanished. There was nothing left of their existence other than scorch marks and a large crater covering the vicinity. "Uuuuuuhhh, I really don't think this is the safest place to be." Yakko said. He began to walk away until he smacked into air a few feet away. "What the..." he exclaimed as he instinctively placed his hands on his nose. When he realized he wasn't actually hurt, he moved his hands toward the mysterious force that blocked his way. His felt a solid wall in front of him, but he couldn't see anything. He allowed his hands to feel the invisible wall all the way around. Apparently it surrounded us from all sides and even curved into a dome shape around 10 yards wide and 16 feet high.
"Still protecting your family, eh? How cute." Ragnarok said to ace, who obviously couldn't hear him, due to him not being in control of himself in the first place. Ragnarok then held his left palm upright and fire began to circle in a spherical formation, the flame began to grow larger and larger until it was the size of a basket ball, then he threw it at Ace as hard as he could. (And judging by those muscles, it was a pretty hard throw.) Ace allowed the flaming ball to get within inches of himself then simply vanished into thin air. The fire ball continued on its path and detonated over the horizon. Ace then reappeared behind Ragnarok's back and launched spears of light at the fiend. Rather than striking Ragnarok in the back and ending the fight, Ragnarok's crimson sphere of light intensified and burst outward. None of us could see what happened next, but when we opened our eyes again, Ace was completely unconscious and falling from the sky. Yakko and I looked on with Yakko still pressing against the invisible wall until the feeling of said wall simply vanished and Yakko tumbled forward and onto his face. Dot quickly got an idea and jumped into Yakko's pocket, popped out of Ragnarok's pocket and dove toward the ground after Ace. In mid air, she caught him and turned her body toward the ground to break Ace's fall. Runt, instinctively grabbed Wakko's gag-bag and ran off with it toward the falling duo. Yakko quickly stood to his feet and followed Runt, as well did the rest of us. Yakko and Runt each held the edge of the gag-bag, Yakko quickly reached in and searched for something soft for the two to land on. He found around 6 mattresses and he stacked them one on top of the other, and then they backed away slowly. Dot and Ace both struck the mattresses with such force that four of them were destroyed upon impact and the remaining two were buried in the resulting crater. When the dust had finally settled, we could finally see Dot carrying Ace toward us, she was battered, bruised, and walking with a slight limp, but she seemed to be ok.
We could hear Ragnarok screaming at the recent turn of events, as we all looked up at him still hovering in the sky, he stopped yelling and turned to glare at our little group with even more insanity than ever. He suddenly, darted toward us at speeds only seen by Dot, while she was transformed during the Blood Star Incident, obviously intent on destroying us all in a single swoop. We all were in a state of complete shock and panic until I remembered the words Ace used to transport us from place to place. "Tes Macrinomb!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. The image of our safe magic space home appeared clearly in my mind as I shut my eyes hoping that it would work for me as well as it worked for Ace. Suddenly, our little motley crew was engulfed by shining, silver light that reached to the heavens. As it came closer to Ragnarok, he stopped his decent, thinking that it was some sort of attack spell, he avoided it completely. We were transported inside the magic space, where we were safe for now.
