Disclaimer: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go! and all characters and events related to them are not mine; they are property of Jetix Animation Concepts and Ciro Nieli.
In Response to Chapter Seven's Reviews…
Dark Fox Tailz: Actually, take another look at Mandarin's statement. "Sprx being second only to Otto at being the youngest" is translated to Otto being youngest and Sprx second youngest. But there will be some blackmail at the very end of the story. (Won't spoil any more.) As for the other projects; yes, I'm planning on at least a 4th and 5th story in my series, but my partner in the other one has a severe case of "Monkey Team writer's block" due to no 5th season, and we feel it's kinda unfair for me to be the only source of ideas in a double team effort. I'm trying to help her out of her condition.
Storm Of Sparks: Yeah, Chiro and Jiro did do a good job.
OrangeChima: Well, Myst isn't really a clone. A more appropriate word is "replica". She was made with Nova's weaknesses, designed to be her superior, even though Nova beat her. If Myst was Nova's clone, there would be two Novas, exact in appearance and abilities.
almaltiempo: (giggle) Thank you!
Emerald Shapeshifter 777: Wow! Is everyone worried about Myst? I can just hear Nova screaming in the background, "I'm the one who got seriously injured! Why have my fans abandoned me?!" But I guess that means I did my job well since she had only two scenes for her entrance.
4Evermonkeyfan: Don't worry about how fast you review. I'm currently at a point where chapters will become more difficult for me to write, because they're going to start having battles and action.
Chapter Eight
When Mandarin mentioned that the Alchemist's ghost spoke of the planet Catherie Takara, Jiro was worried. He remembered a lot of his bedtime stories taking place between the departure from Shuggazoom and the arrival on Catherie Takara. But Chiro assured him that the journey would take less than half of the expected time. When Chiro and the Monkey Team were in pursuit of the Dark One Worm, they were going from planet to planet to follow any trail it left behind; this time, they were taking the direct route while stopping only to refuel the Super Robot.
By the time Chiro had returned from clearing Mandarin's name and buying groceries and supplies, Mandarin had given Jiro the basic tour of the Super Robot's interior. Soon, Jiro could identify how to get to the engine core, to the training rooms, to the Command Center, and to the quarters' hall from anywhere else in the Robot. He was even shown the cockpit of the Torso Tank Driver One, and Jiro spent a couple of minutes sitting in the chair. And although Jiro didn't touch anything, Mandarin noticed the look of fascination on the boy's face.
The Super Robot had assumed a high orbit over Shuggazoom and began the space trek when Jiro nearly fell asleep in Chiro's command chair. It took Chiro and Mandarin a few minutes to notice this, but when they did, they both carefully took the boy out of the chair and carried him to quarters. The door to Chiro's old room (which also was Mandarin's old room once) slid open, revealing Jiro's belongings: the same bed, the same plasma TV, the same model aircrafts, the same blue notebook, the same yellow punching bag, everything.
Of course, when Jiro was told that he was going to sleep in this room, the boy objected at first. He didn't want to take away from the significance of the room, since it was the private residence of two great leaders. But Jiro was too sleepy to argue, and both Chiro and Mandarin wanted to give the best quarters to someone who needed it most. Mandarin was content to sleep in Antauri's old room, while Chiro decided to sleep in Sprx's.
Mandarin was slightly puzzled by the ritual Chiro called "tucking in", so he waited patiently just outside the open door while he set his son in the bed. Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long before Chiro lowered the light level and silently came out. The door closed behind him, and the two looked at each other. They had previously agreed that Chiro and Mandarin should alternate taking the night watch and that Chiro would go first.
But Mandarin had almost reached Antauri's old quarters when Chiro said, "Mandarin…"
The Orange Monkey stopped and hovered in mid-air, then turned to look at Chiro.
"There's something about Jiro you're not telling me, isn't there?" Chiro asked.
Mandarin hesitated and said nothing.
The silence made Chiro slightly annoyed. "This is my only child we're talking about, Mandarin. So I would appreciate your complete honesty."
"I feared that some parental instinct might spark within you, Chiro," Mandarin admitted. "But fathers will be fathers."
Chiro frowned. "You know what happened when he shouted the advance command. He thought he was making a joke for the sake of old times, but you felt the same inspiration I did."
With a small sigh, Mandarin nodded at Chiro. "Yes, I did. And perhaps what he inspired in me was stronger than what you felt. It seems the Power Primate is affecting him in more ways than I thought it would."
"What do you mean?"
"Before, Chiro, he looked a great deal alike to you. Yet now, he is even more than that. He is starting to act alike to you. And he desires to be even more alike to you, whether he is willing to admit it or not. Can you not see the commonalities?"
Chiro stood still, not quite sure what to think.
"He has the Power Primate," Mandarin continued. "And before, he didn't. His body was receptive to it, and the Power Primate always chooses who is worthy to host it."
When he heard that, an upsetting thought made Chiro sick to his stomach.
Mandarin sensed this right away. "I'm afraid that is all I know. I do not know what his destiny is. But I do know that his heart is guiding him to the path that he knows to be right. And I also know that my first duty, and now my loyalty, is ultimately to him. Therefore, I feel the need to support the process, even encourage it."
Chiro closed his eyes. Many of the best memories in his entire life came from the years of his adolescence, but so were many of the worst memories in his entire life. A great fear had seized Chiro's heart, and he had to silently tell himself to calm down.
He then opened his eyes again. "Then I suppose we'll have to start first thing in the morning."
The next several days turned out to be the some of the most exciting Jiro had ever known. He had thought he would've been in the background, quietly entertaining himself as best as he could while his father and Mandarin did the work. But as it turned out, Jiro found that he was constantly the center of attention.
As soon as breakfast was over on the first day, Chiro took him to the Command Center and showed him how to work the monitor controls and the chair controls. He showed him how to remote access the weapons from the central command chair and how to operate the targeting system on the monitor. Of course, he wasn't allowed to shoot any of the weapons; they needed to be saved in case of a big space battle.
Jiro was a remarkably quick learner; by the time lunch came around, Jiro could remember the names of every weapon on the Super Robot from the Antenna Ray to the Foot Missiles, and also remember how to aim and fire while the Super Robot was both still and in motion.
After lunch was over, Mandarin took Jiro to the training room. The Orange Monkey had permission from Chiro to be Jiro's personal instructor in combat training…as long as Mandarin wouldn't be all "learn, learn, learn" with Jiro or push Jiro too hard.
Yet, as impressed as Mandarin was with Chiro as a teenager when the he had shown him the monkey moves he knew, that didn't prepare him for Jiro's demonstration. On top of exercising in his P.E. class, Jiro has also attended a martial arts studio three times a week, which gave him the element of surprise to his advantage. Mandarin was able to teach him a great deal. The only thing he was disappointed in was Jiro's lack of understanding about how to tap into the Inner Primate. However, Mandarin took into consideration that very few truly understood the Power Primate, so he was not angry with Jiro for this failure.
The combat training lasted almost half of every day in the entire space journey. During this training, a curious thing happened. Mandarin often had relapses back to the cruel and merciless behavior that Chiro once knew too well, for that was something that is difficult to shake off when it was all your mind and soul was for a great number of years. This happened especially often during the first few days of training. But only when Mandarin was on the verge of going too far each time when the truly curious thing happened.
He would look at Jiro in the face and see the expression in his soft green eyes. The boy's soul would be hurt, nearly broken, and ready to accept any blame for failing Mandarin. And seeing Jiro's sincere sadness would remind Mandarin of how close the boy was to death. One reminder would lead to another until finally Mandarin would remember that he had pledged his loyalty to Jiro; he had sworn it in the good name of the Alchemist. He would then suggest they both take a break so that Jiro may rest his body and Mandarin may rest his mind. This happened often in one day, then less often the next day, then rarely the day after, until finally he stopped altogether.
On top of combat training, Jiro was briefed on the navigation systems, the scanners, the shields, and the neutron generator. He was told how to identify rocks that contain raw gems used for fuel. He was instructed on operations in Sick Bay, from how to use the medical scanners to how to perform basic repairs on Robot Monkeys. He was even given one of Chiro's spare communicators that he could use in case Mandarin and Chiro had to leave the Robot for whatever reason, and Jiro could keep in contact with them.
In every way that Jiro was having the best time of his life, the Monkey Team was having the worst times of theirs. Every day, and at least twice or three times a day, a Monkey was selected to take part in Brainiac's experiments, all of them very much the same as what Nova had faced.
After Nova, Otto was next in meeting his counterpart cousin: a brown Robot Monkey with mustard yellow eyes. Just like Nova described in the case with Myst, there were no pupils in those eyes. Brainiac called him Bruno. Otto's fight against him proved to be almost as difficult as Nova's. Otto relied most often on long-range attacks, which were more often than not easily blocked by the brown double-bit axes Bruno had as his weapons. Bruno didn't have the range that Otto had, but he could simulate the saws' spinning movement by pivoting the axes' handles at the joint where axe and arm connected and then spin them. Only when Otto discovered he had to attack at close range did he gain an advantage and defeat Bruno.
Sprx was up against a dark gray Robot Monkey that had cyan blue eyes. Tempest was his name, and his hands transformed into a pair of gray grapplers with four hooks on each one. Tempest's unique skill was how easily he could launch his grapplers and hook Sprx's ankles, causing him to trip and spin like a twister before he could launch any magnetic attack. Whereas Sprx preferred attacking directly, Tempest easily countered with a roundabout tactic that easily snuck up behind the Red Monkey. Sprx was the only one who didn't win his solo fight against his cousin, but to his surprise Brainiac had ordered Tempest to stand down before Sprx could be destroyed.
Gibson had the worst experience. First, he was shocked to find that his so-called cousin created from his altered technological and genetic blueprints was a female: a pink Robot Monkey with dark green eyes named Espina, the Spanish word for "thorn". And how appropriately she was named, for Gibson later described her personality as "similar to that of a rose without any of its thorns trimmed off". Secondly, her weapons were a pair of maces, the primitive and savage medieval clubs with sharp spikes all over them, and almost as if to hide how terrifying they were, the clubs themselves were pink while the spikes were dark green. Third and worst of all, she was able to fight by taking completely illogical courses of action and still throw off his flawless calculations. Only when he had completely lost his patience and took illogical actions of his own was he able to defeat Espina.
Then came the double battles. After the four solo fights, Brainiac wanted to experiment how well his creations could get along with another of his own. Thus, six similar fights were waged: two Robot Monkeys (Nova-Otto, Nova-Sprx, Nova-Gibson, Otto-Sprx, Otto-Gibson, and Sprx-Gibson) against their counterparts. This gave the heroes a slight advantage over the solo combats by helping each other against their counterparts. However, the effect wouldn't last very long because the created Monkeys were so adamant about fighting only the one they were created from, such as Myst against only Nova. All of the double battles were victories for the heroes, though Sprx and Gibson had difficulty cooperating in theirs.
After that, the triple battles were waged with rules similar to the double battles. All but one of the four would be taken away and forced to fight their opposites (Nova-Otto-Sprx, Nova-Otto-Gibson, Nova-Sprx-Gibson, and Otto-Sprx-Gibson). These dogfights turned out to be even more brutal than the double battles, for Brainiac was able to upgrade each of his created with teamwork tactics he learned from the Monkey Team. All of these battles were near defeats for the heroes, only claimed victorious near the very end of each one.
Antauri was the only one who was never taken out for any of the battles. Otto once asked why Brainiac didn't pick on him, to which the evil brain had answered, "Believe me, I would have greatly desired a replica with his strength and power. However, he is a fully mechanical being, and I dare not trust my consciousness with a fully mechanical being."
With every battle that took place, all four of them were growing weaker and weaker from severe damage and insufficient repairs. Brainiac wouldn't allow them anything to help with their healing.
Antauri would have phased through the walls and helped his teammates in a moment's notice, but he discovered after one attempt that there was a forcefield surrounding the entire cell. The click that they heard before and after the door was opened was not literally a lock but actually the deactivation and reactivation of the forcefield. This forcefield prevented Antauri from escaping. It pained his soul to see his siblings so battered and bruised, and even more that he could do nothing to help them.
The only thing that kept their spirits up now – even with the knowledge of the impending and dreaded all-out battle, where all four of them would be taken most likely to their deaths – was the hope that Chiro would come to rescue them soon.
"What's that?" Jiro suddenly asked, pointing to a corner of the monitor.
Chiro and Mandarin squinted their eyes but could see nothing except space, stars, and an occasional asteroid or comet.
Jiro approached the monitor and zoomed in the image from one corner. The two still couldn't see very well what caught Jiro's eye, but they could tell that there was something out there that wouldn't be in space naturally. Jiro enhanced the image again.
Then, Chiro recognized it. "Slingshot!" he gasped.
"Whom?" asked Mandarin.
"The last of the Prometheus Project that Professor Maezono built to try to use for his own evil work," Chiro explained. "The Super Robot was its prototype. We had helped him in a battle against the professor on Catherie Takara."
Mandarin looked at Chiro, slightly surprised. "Catherie Takara? Then this professor must be the corrupted colleague to whom Father's ghost had referred."
"Slingshot looks like he's adrift," Jiro noticed. "Let's bring him in." He was already typing in the commands on the controls. The tractor beam shot from the Super Robot's eyes and caught the mechanical body floating helplessly in space.
Chiro and Mandarin went up into the ship dock, located at the mouth of the Super Robot, ready to receive the robot as it came in. Chiro could tell by the carbon scorching and the tears in the armor that exposed many wires that Slingshot had been either in a big fight or a big explosion. And Mandarin knew at a first glance that the robot's internal computer sustained serious damage.
They met with Jiro in the workshop and began examining their new passenger.
"The damage to his circuitry is too great," Mandarin informed his human friends after they spent several minutes scrutinizing the damage. "And I'm afraid I'm not as gifted in repairs as Otto. I'm afraid we will have to wait until after we rescue our brethren."
"It does look like there's something in his memory cells, though," Jiro pointed out, looking at some of the computer chips. "It looks like some kind of…visual recording. You think we can attach a holographic projector and display the image?"
Chiro and Mandarin glanced at each other, both with a small smile. Jiro catches on fast. Mandarin turned and opened a cabinet, searching among several pieces of equipment to find the one he was looking for and the cable with which to connect them. Soon, Jiro was helping Mandarin in setting up the equipment while Chiro made the connections.
As soon as the projector displayed a 3-D image, Chiro noticed something right away. "Can we increase the volume?"
Jiro looked at the data for a moment, then shook his head. "It's visual only."
The image that had prompted Chiro's question was this: Shuggazoom was in the distance, small but recognizable, and Mandarin's clone was piloting the nearly destroyed Skeleton Droid. Unconscious and chained to the rear were five familiar figures.
"The Monkey Team," Chiro gasped. "And Jinmay."
The three watched the silent memory. Sudden movement in the stars indicated that Slingshot had just caught sight of this and was moving to intercept. Chiro recognized the color of the spherical energy that streaked into view; Slingshot had aimed for the clone with the intention to free the Monkey Team, probably in reconciliation with the fact he didn't respond to Chiro's call-to-arms. But the Mandarin clone was too fast. He piloted the droid out of the way, and the attack barely missed striking the unconscious Antauri.
Chiro gasped in shock when he saw that, and Mandarin grimaced in disgust.
The clone's mouth moved, but whatever shouts or screeches he made couldn't be deciphered. Another energy blast went past, and the clone countered with the droid's firepower. The angle of the battle would shift suddenly, showing that Slingshot was evading the shots and aiming for a counterattack. This lasted for several minutes, with some moments of static due to damage to Slingshot's memory chips, until the battle was interrupted.
It looked at first as if Shuggazoom itself had exploded into a burst of energy the same way a star would die and explode. But at a second glance, the trio discovered that Shuggazoom was still in one piece and that the energy wave coming from it was a neon shade of green.
Chiro and Mandarin's eyes widened, and Mandarin almost screeched in shock. They knew this color too well: the Power Primate, most likely the instant Chiro had slammed his fists into the ground after seeing his fallen allies.
In the hologram, the Mandarin clone turned to see the energy approaching him. With a sudden look of fright on his face, the clone spun his vessel around and shot at the energy wave as if expecting to deter it. But it kept on its path.
The instant the energy touched the Skeleton Droid, it began to short-circuit. Sudden movement in the stars and the images growing smaller indicated that Slingshot made a retreat into a temporarily safe distance. The clone shielded his face as the energy wrapped around him.
Suddenly, the droid exploded, and the clone died with it. The shockwave from the explosion destroyed the chains on the five unconscious heroes and sent them far across the expanse of space. The green energy never reached them before it depleted.
The shockwave then shook the image badly, showing that Slingshot had been hit. More static came into view. For brief moments, the image cleared enough to see that Slingshot was trying to catch up with the drifting heroes. But the last image was the shortest and the most disturbing. Although only Chiro recognized it, the three saw a space vessel that contained a large brain approaching the five heroes, and from the vessel came five claws that each grabbed one. Then, the imaged fuzzed out completely.
"So Professor Maezono has them," Chiro groaned after several minutes of silence.
"If my clone wasn't already destroyed, I would tear him apart," Mandarin snarled.
Then, a faint alarm beeped. All three immediately returned to the Command Center and looked at the monitor.
"It looks like we're arriving on Catherie Takara," Jiro noted. "Let's start scanning for a safe place to land so we don't give ourselves away."
"I like how you think, son, but I'm afraid there's no safe place on Catherie Takara," Chiro replied. "All of the robots on this planet are controlled by his brain, and he's probably repaired the damage done to his laboratory the last time we were there. He'll be expecting us to rescue them."
"So what do we do?" Jiro asked.
Mandarin hesitated. He could come up with only one idea, one that had a great stumbling block. The obstacle would be neither how to get in (for that would be the easiest part) nor how to get out (for that should be relatively easy as well) but how to connect the beginning with the end. It would require an ultimate test of trust for many, if not all.
"I have a plan." he finally said. "Though I am not certain if it will work…"
Antauri was helpless to comfort his team. His own soul was in turmoil in knowing that the next battle would almost certainly kill his teammates and in knowing that he was powerless to stop it alone. He needed help, he needed it desperately, and he knew it.
None of the other four Robot Monkeys said a word to each other, not even Sprx to Nova. The last time he tried to say his last words to his teammates, he was interrupted before he could get to the really important part. Though he was grateful for what had interrupted them, he could not count on such a stroke of luck again. He wrapped his arm across Nova's shoulder and held her close.
None of them looked up when they heard the faint whirring of an approaching robot. They dreaded this noise to be the herald of their deaths. But they did look up when they heard another sound. It was faint at first but quickly growing louder. It was a sound they had not heard for a very long time and yet sounded eerily familiar.
"That sounds like…" Otto gasped.
"It can't be!" Gibson almost exclaimed.
Almost immediately, the robot came into view through the glass wall, carrying a screeching, squirming figure in its claw. With a click and a cre-e-e-e-eak, it opened the door and extended its arm into the cell. The magnetic field holding its captive quickly reversed its polarity, sending the struggling figure flying into the cell. It crashed into the far wall and slid down while the robot retreated.
The figure came upright and flew to the robot, crashing into the door as it closed and the forcefield reactivated, then growled as the robot went out of sight. "Get back here! Are you afraid to fight me? Come, then, and feel my sword through your rusted circuitry!"
"Mandarin?" Antauri asked in a tone of genuine shock and surprise, something that was very rarely heard.
The screeching finally stopped, and Mandarin slowly turned to look at the other Robot Monkeys. The look on his face was unlike anything they ever recalled seeing on him. He looked defeated, to be expected when one was just thrown into an impenetrable prison cell, but he also looked…afraid?
Sprx scowled, and Nova cracked her knuckles.
The Orange Monkey slowly glanced from one monkey to another. This was the moment he had secretly hoped would come ever since he was exiled to the H.O.O.P. This was also the moment he had dreaded so much that he could never properly prepare for when it would come.
"Hello…?" he stuttered.
