Well here we are, the chapter we've all been wanting to see, anyone excited to finally see Team Terraforce fight Shellshock?
*there is no one in the audience*
...I need to get more reviewers here...anyway here's the chapter you want.
Chapter 9: Act 1- Avenger Tournament (Just like old times)
An alarm blared in my room as I went to turn it off, my god I hate mornings…I turned and saw Luna sleeping in the bed and smiled, she looked cute when she was asleep. Oh god I feel like a pervert or a stalker...ok I need to get up, I went to the bathroom and took a nice shower, which was a good way to start the day actually, what with us about to fight Shellshock later. I got out, dried off and put some clothes on, then brushed my teeth and got out of the bathroom.
"Shower's all yours Luna," I told her as she got up and stretched like my dog, Angel, did in the morning.
"Okay," she yawned and went in. I went downstairs to the others and found Joseph working on something.
"I take it you never get any sleep huh?" I asked and sat down next to him, trying to see what he was making.
"Not really, so sleep well?" he asked, still tinkering with his...whatever it was.
"Yeah, I did, you?"
"Alright I guess, decided to tinker on a few things while I was awake…been down here for…" Joseph checked his watch, "three hours…I think"
"You were down here for three hours? Dude you need some rest" I stated with one of my trademark smirks.
"Yeah, Yeah, so you talk to your folks yet?" he asked.
Truth be honest, I didn't, or couldn't for fear of Blackwell listening in on my conversations, still…even if I could, I don't know what to talk about, like 'oh hey grandpa, I'm ok, and how is everyone and what happened to my mom?' yeah…it didn't work out that well in my head. Plus, I couldn't figure out anything to say to him, I didn't want to hear any bad news of my folks.
"Not really…" I admitted shyly.
"You might wanna, never know when you can talk to them or when it'll be your last chance" he said in a sagely tone.
"Who are you, my dad?" I asked, lightly punching his shoulder.
We both laughed until the gang came down, well Luna and a few others, my bro was probably still sleeping…lazy shmuck…
"Come on we better go eat" I said, getting up, "my belly is hungry" I grinned and rubbed my belly to reiterate as it growled loudly.
"No duh," most of us said as we went to the mess hall. We managed to beat the traffic and got a large enough table for us and ate before the other contestants came in…well some, most were killed and a few looked like fresh recruits, those poor fools, we were here for a week, or was it months? Ah well, the point was we're here and already I miss our home Earth…yet I wondered if anyone would miss us, especially after what my brother did to Animo…doubt it.
"Oi, Mark, you there?" Joseph asked as he snapped his fingers in my face.
"Huh?" I snapped back to reality when he did that.
"Dude, you've been zoning out since Azara, what's going on in that head of yours…on second thought don't answer that," Joseph stated as he took a bite of his pancakes.
"If you were Will and you said that, I'd kill you," I said modestly but bluntly.
"…You know, usually I'd be okay with that since you'd be kidding…but now I'm concerned if you're kidding or being serious," he said.
"Funny, I thought the same thing too…wonder how everyone on Earth is taking on what happened to Harangue?" I wondered aloud.
"Well I checked online and turns out Dr. Animo's body was taken back to Earth, was going to be given a funeral but the body mysteriously vanished the day before the funeral, and also NASA made contact with those guys from Nabrillloth and negotiations are being made…with the Plumbers acting as security," Frankie said from reading a holotablet.
"Wow...we're missing out…" I muttered.
"Wait Animo's body vanished?" Joseph asked, "great...ten bucks says that psycho is gonna come back a zombie" I spat out bitterly, drinking my iced tea down to help swallow my pancakes.
"Or someone is gonna burn the body" Joseph suggested as he finished his breakfast.
"Here's hoping," I reply and finished my breakfast as well. We headed back to the suite in time to get word on the challenge called the "Tower of Power" where we had to fight out way up the large tower in the stadium and face waves of enemies, then fight Shellshock.
"Man, this is gonna be so fun," I grinned as the shuttle came in.
Meanwhile, Alistair was busy with the Avenger Tournament when he got an email. He opened it and a black box appeared, then soon some white text appeared:
He is ready…
Alistair looked at the message and looked at the mechanical arm he had on and pressed some buttons on it. The holographic image of a robot appeared as it saluted.
"Orders sir?" it asked.
"Release him…I wanna test him out a bit," Alistair said as he lay back in his chair. The robot nodded and the hologram faded. Alistair turned his chair to the Battledome as the shuttle landed and Team Terraforce came onto the stage. He pressed a button and a camera bot came in, ready to record.
Mark's POV
We stepped off the shuttle and saw the rest of the team assembled in a floating observer platform. We could only take three people with us, it was me, Joseph and John again, but we were eligible to switch out whenever we wanted during the fight.
"Well it looks like the humans actually managed to get this far," Josh commented as he and the other two looked at us from their podium.
"Surprised?" I asked him aloud.
"Nah, but I'm down a few credits now," Josh mumbled.
"Heh, wait I thought bolts were the currency here?" Joanne asked looking at her announcer.
"Alistair recently changed it to allow credits and also added a cash conversion machine for it," Ethan explained looking down at them.
"Finally! Been waiting for that for a while…" John stated, almost eagerly.
"You just woke up dude…calm down" I told him.
"Focus you two!" Joseph stated.
"Sorry,"
"Hold up folks, it looks like the big man himself has an important announcement to Team Terraforce," Josh said as a Holovision appeared in front of us. We saw the image of Alistair appear on the monitor with his hands folded together.
"I must say I'm impressed in you humans…well some humans…" Alistair remarked to us, I flipped him the bird, but he just smirked and chuckled, amused by my attempt to make him angry. "I have a proposition for you, I just recently acquired a new…how should I put this? …Investment from some friends and I wished to test it out here once you reach the top of the Tower of Power, if you manage to last enough time against it, alongside Shellshock, you shall win not only the Avenger armor and a medal for the next round, but also this!" Alistair said and the screen changed to show a beach resort on a planet. The planet was itself an island looking planet, and one of the screens was of a beautiful resort you'd see in those commercials advertising it.
"The beautiful resort planet of Capo Luna, should you win this you and your team will be entitled for a week of relaxation, along with vaccinations if you got anything during your stay here. But you will still wear the collar," Alistair said to us as we saw pictures of the landscape of Capo Luna. the resorts, the beautiful sandy beaches, the smoking hot alien chicks (and dudes for the ladies) at the resort, hell it was something like those beach scenes you'd see in anime or real life.
Ok normally I would never buy for this, but hey, if he's actually serious, then we can at least enjoy a good week away from this nightmare, plus, Luna in a bikini was something I did not wanna miss out on seeing.
"We're in!" we all said unanimously.
"Good, now, onto the challenge!" Alistair declared as the Holovision showed a large platform rising from the floor with smaller towers rising up and other stuff rising with it.
"Holy…" I muttered.
"Let's go!" John said and charged ahead of us.
"Wait up!" Joseph said as he ran after him. I looked at the monitor, noticing someone standing there….hang on…
"Jack of blades?" I wondered aloud with confusion. The figure was hard to see clearly but it had the figure of Jack of Blades from Fable 1. It disappeared, and then when I heard my collar beeping, I was suddenly teleported to the guys.
"Guys, did you see that guy on the monitor?" I asked them.
"Who?" Joseph asked.
"This might sound crazy…but it was Jack of Blades from Fable 1," I told them.
"Isn't he dead?" John asked.
"Yeah…it looked kinda like him…maybe I'm losing it…" I muttered.
"As If you had anything!" someone called from the audience.
"You really want to mess with a guy who can kill?"
"…Never mind,"
"Thank you!"
"Still…I wonder…maybe that's who we gotta fight?" John asked. A bunch of robots firing at us stopped us from thinking as I got ready to fight. John got his Fusion rifle and fired some headshots at the robots.
"Right….now how the hell are we gonna get up there?" I wondered as we looked at the pedestals.
"Hmm…" Joseph thought as he tapped his foot on the ground. Suddenly he got an idea and soon smirked, "Jetray!" he called, the green light enveloping and shifting him as he soon transformed into his Jetray form, flying around and shooting the robots with his lasers. After a few minutes of him flying around and shooting up the robot he soon was on the other pedestal, landing on a switch that allowed a laser floor to come online.
"Thanks!" I call as we made our way up. Suddenly the floor started flickering and we realized it wouldn't hold, so we ran as fast as we could, but due to some…asthma problem or exhaustion, whatever it was, I panted for breath and when the floor gave way I barely managed to grab the ledge.
"How'd that happen? "Ethan asked.
"Beats me," Joanne said as she hid the controls for the laser floors from the other two men.
"That was close, good thing Mark grabbed the ledge, otherwise he'd be burned and cooked in that acid below, and we've seen some good competitors lose their lives that way huh Joanne?" Josh asked her.
"Yes, yes, I did like that one man who got burnt into toast…he sure was tasty," Joanne grinned.
The two males scooted away from her and watched the fighting. Right now we were on our way to the top of the tower, which was easier said than done due to "failures" in the system, so we got laser bridge malfunctioning, flying robots that tried to shoot us up, and one thing I remember was dodging spinning blades and artificial lightning…they really went all out with this stuff huh?
Had Joseph not had the Omnitrix, we'd be toast, but with it he was able to help us a lot...until a stray lightning bolt shocked him back to normal. When he attempted to use it again, shouting 'Big Chill' out loud, nothing happened.
OMNITRIX MALFUNCTION DETECTED, DNA TRANSFORMATION TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE
"Oh are you shitting me?!" Joseph called out in frustration.
"Calm down!" I yelled, "look we're right there..." I gestured to the top of the tower, as if it was a gift from God.
After getting zapped, barbequed, shot at, and nearly roasted alive, we made it to the top…and fell to the floor in charred smoking heaps of metal and flesh.
"They…they must love this…" I moaned.
"My butt…it hurts…" Joseph said.
"Pain…" John replied.
"Huh, I thought they'd be dead by now…" Joanne said as the commentators looked at the team while eating wings.
"Never underestimate a human," Ethan stated with a grin on his face as he ate another wing.
We got up, cracking our backs as we did, then saw who was in front of us. I guess I was right about me seeing Jack of Blades, because that was who we saw standing before us right now. It was the same Jack of Blades from fable 1…well actually he looked like him, but with different colors…and he didn't have the masks on his belt and his armor looked more high-tech like ours compared to the Jack's leather armor, and he had a dagger-tail thing on his left arm and only one mask on his face with two red lines going down the eye-sockets, it looked like bloody tears actually, not to mention the dark blue, almost black cloak he had on his shoulder was much longer and more ragged and torn than the original's, now I was confused…was this the same Jack of Blades? Or was it someone posing as him.
"Jack of Blades?" Joseph and John both asked at the same time.
"No, something worse than him…" he said in a techno-organic voice and got up to look at us. I noticed he seemed to be around our age and his voice sounded…familiar…but…where did I hear that voice before?
"I look like Jack of Blades…yet at the same time I am not him," the man said.
"Then…who are you?" I asked him but already I was making various plans how to fight him and who he was. His head turned to me and I thought he was smirking under that mask.
"You're opponent…" he said as he was suddenly standing right in front of my face. I managed to dodge in time to miss his dagger-tail about to stab me, but soon a crack on my visor showed just how close I was to death.
"Holy crap folks, did anyone see that?!" Josh said as he was on the edge of his seat watching what happened.
"I didn't even see him move!" Joanne stated.
"What is this guy?" Ethan mumbled.
I managed to dodge some attack as John and Joseph tried to attack Jack of Blades or whatever he was. He charged at us and we dodged, there was something weird with his move, they were fluid, emotionless, void of anything, only wanting to kill. A sliver of blood from a cut on my cheek reminded me of what I was facing and I soon attacked him.
He dodged my attack and his dagger-tail whipped close to my neck, ready to slice it. Thankfully I stopped in my tracks to barely manage to see it slip by, then attacked him while his back was turned. He turned slightly in my direction as his dagger-tail lashed in the air. Although the attack cut my arm pretty bad, I managed to use my left arm to shoot a bullet at the masked man's face.
The masked man stumbled to the ground as the mask flew off near him. I held my hand to stop the bleeding as best as I could, but then stopped and looked at the scar. I saw that it was suddenly being healed using high-speed regeneration; soon it was back to normal. I looked at the arm then to Jack as Joseph and John stood over him. There was…some black crap coming out of the area I shot him, it looked kinda like oil.
"Looks kinda like oil…" John muttered.
"No fucking shit Sherlock…' I thought mentally as I turned Jack's head to the side. Instantly I felt something tear my shoulder and saw the dagger-tail embedded into my left shoulder. I yelled in pain and held my bleeding shoulder as Jack stood before me. One of his eyes was glowing red from under the hood…wait a minute…
"Conner?" I asked in stunned shock. the man let his hood fall down and it was indeed Conner…only…different, I had expected to see some scratches or nothing at all, as it was said he got vaporized, yet here he was, but though he bore the face of my former friend, before me was something entirely different. His left eye was mechanical, glowing red, not to mention he had some scars on that side of his face, and a bullet hole where I shot him. Plus his hair was much blonder than before more leaning towards platinum blonde or white, and he really looked all torn up, even had that empty soulless look in his eyes like a zombie.
Was...this really my friend?
"Damn...what happened to you?" Joseph asked him, still holding his shoulder but still shocked.
"Nabrillloth…you and the others abandoned me to die there, were it not for someone who happened to find me, battered and in pieces, I would've died…" Conner said as a flashback occurred.
Flashback
Conner looked weakly as his vision faded and refocused, he watches his friends get onboard a medical shuttle, no one even noticing him as they all passed him to worry about other injured and now felt angry. Did they leave him behind? He soon saw someone coming towards him and he blacked out before seeing the faded image of a male figure, the only thing he saw was a pair of red eyes.
When Conner woke up next, he was in an unfamiliar area, it was all dark and there were sounds of gears grinding and steam puffed out of pipes. Conner realized he was on an operating table and looked around, he saw faint images of people in the darkness, glowing eyes staring at Conner. He heard something large coming towards the table and looked to see bright red eyes gleaming at him.
"You're awake…good…" the voice said. "My associate found you barely alive…how do you feel now? Sad? Angry? Betrayed?" the voice asked again calmly. Conner tried to speak but couldn't, so he nodded.
"Would you like another chance…to get vengeance on the people who did this to you?" it asked. Conner nodded as the figure lifted its head to a control panel. "Close your eyes…this will all be over soon…" was the last things it said before he slept.
"Doctor, you may proceed" was the last thing he heard before the darkness enclosed him.
End Flashback
"That was how I got this…new body…and my hatred for you…and for the people who abandoned me…" Conner told us, looking from his arm to us again.
"That's it huh? Join the club…I got enough heat on me as is…" I muttered.
"Tch, you don't even realize what's going on do you?" Conner asked me.
"No but I bet you'll tell us" I smirked.
"Stupid mark, never changing, always so...stubborn...letting people get to you, letting your demons grow in power over the eyars...I wonder how long you can keep it up before it destroys you?" Conner inquired.
"Hey least I'm not going emo over the fact you got blown to bits by Shellshock!" I shouted at him.
"Because of you! It's your fault I became this!"
"How is it my fault? you were the one who snuck onboard in the first place, dumbass!"
"He's got a point, you only have to blame yourself, instead you're just blaming Mark like we usually do" Joseph pointed out.
"So? he's always been our butt monkey, that'll never change and neither will he...well not until I kill him" Conner spoke with a grin.
I hated that, memories bubbled to the surface, but I forced them all down and focused solely on Conner. He was lost, now I guess its time I finished this.
"Well...there's one thing that will change" Joseph spoke and glanced at me. Conner just cocked an eyebrow at us, but I smirked.
"Yeah…me kicking Conner's ass!" I yelled and fired at Conner. Conner just stepped to the side and slammed his foot on my wounded shoulder. I couldn't help but yell in pain from that and I swear I thought I heard a bone crack.
"Man…this is just too easy…" Conner said smugly. A gunshot from John caused him to let his foot off my shoulder and turned to them. Soon as he did I was surrounded in a bright gold light and suddenly was in the stand with my other team mates, clutching my broken shoulder in pain.
"You ok?" Luna's voice asked me through the pain.
"Y-yeah, never b-better," I winced from the pain from my shoulder.
"Want me to go down and teach him a lesson?" she asked as Frankie helped me up.
"Uh…no actually…look," I said and pointed a finger to the battle.
"Huh, that was rather easy…" Conner said as Joseph and John were on their knees, scratched from the dagger tail. "I'd play with you two some more, but I'm kinda bored right now…" Conner said as he went to pick up his mask, then stalled and coughed a bit, some blood coming out of his mouth.
"Damn…over-exerted myself…" Conner grumbled as he wiped off the blood from the corner of his mouth. "Looks like I'll have to leave, but don't worry, we'll see each other real soon…" Conner picked up his mask as he said this and grinned at us, the camera showing his grinning face as well as his mechanical left eye glowed brightly. "…Besides, with what's about to go down, we're gonna be seeing each other a lot, won't we?" he asked as his shadow suddenly started to circle around him, tendrils appearing and wrapping themselves around him and soon he was gone.
No one spoke after that, which was good, since I felt a burning sensation on my shoulder and saw that it was all fixed, good thing no one saw. Wait, since when could my wounds heal that fast?
"Well…that was….disturbing…" Josh said first.
"Yeah…but looks like Team Terraforce is going to fight Shellshock now!" Joanne said to pick up the mood. Soon everyone was cheering again as Joseph, John, and I, were soon transported to the next arena for our little "date" with Shellshock.
Conner soon emerged from the shadows and rolled his shoulder, coughing as he soon found an operating table and laid down on it, looking up at the surgical equipment looming over him.
"So...how'd the battle go?" a voice called from the other room.
"Good, I...had to leave early...though" Conner spat bitterly.
"Got you ass whipped?"
"Fuck no! I would've kicked their asses if you didn't do such a shitty job at repairing me" Conner spat to the voice.
"Hey, you were just hunks of meat when Blackwell wheeled you in, I had to really splice you up with metal so sorry if you're still clunky. I told him it would take some time for you to be done completely, but Blackwell wanted you to have a field test" the voice spoke however this time louder as footsteps were heard.
"Just patch me up doc..." Conner spat as he put some blindfold over his eyes.
"As you command...miserable little shit" the voice spoke as the whirling of machine and the screams from Conner's mouth were heard echoing through the halls.
Well, was anyone expecting Conner? well I added him for a lot of reasons, which you will learn soon enough. anyway tune in next time for the fight between Team Terraforce and Shellshock. Until then, R&R please!