Chapter Ten: Escape Route D/Rendezvous
Butterflyosaurus grumbled through the caves, since turning into a butterfly she had always flown to different locations and rarely had to use her legs, but these caves restricted her movement. She had to keep her wings folded down to avoid scraping them on the walls, she slowly waded through the water logged floor as Rex and Link sat precariously on her head.
Rex was having a harder time of it, not having any thumbs meant that the only way to hold on to B's fur was to use his jaws, but that would cause him to pull out great chunks of her fur, and she would not tolerate that.
Link sat on his buddy's nose, holding on to the horn with one hand and holding his communicator in the other. The radio had crackled momentarily several times but nothing could be made from it, they were too deep in the caves to pick up any transmissions, the fish ape looked at his pal.
"How much further B?"
Butterflyosaurus growled in response, in translation she said there was a mile to go till the exit.
Link scrambled up B's face between her giant eyes to join Rex, he was shaking with nerves, it didn't seem to be just the dodgy ride, something else was the canines mind.
"What is it Fido?"
Rex whimpered quietly, his eyes showing worry, Link wasn't able to understand Rex the way he understood Butterflyosaurus, this was something Fang would be useful for right now, maybe the dino dog was just missing his friend.
"Don't worry pooch, we'll be reunited in no time, and miles away from this one-star hotel!"
Rex perked up a little; his face slowly became more visible as the cave got lighter. Butterflyosaurus roared that they were coming to the exit; Link returned to the butterfly's horned nose and looked to the growing mass of light ahead of them. Finally they emerged out of the cave from a large hole in the face of a cliff, B stretched her wings to their full width, after an hour of walking they were pretty stiff.
Link looked at a gizmo in the communicator, it pointed towards the communicators belonging to the other teams, the gizmo pointed west of their position. "The others are that way!" he pointed.
Butterflyosaurus quickly ascended into the sky and flew as fast as she could to the west and to the open grounds of Area 52. Link scoured the passing landscape, looking for the facility, "Hold on guys, we're coming!"
Esqargantua bellowed at the soldiers as they tried to fight off the 350 foot snail, their bullets either ricocheted off Esqar's spiked shell or got absorbed into his gooey slimy body, this only infuriated the monster snail more.
Last week he had been dropped off near the Nevada desert by his girlfriend Butterflyosaurus, Monger suggested that after spending months on a secluded island he could do with stretching his, er…foot? Anyway, there was plenty of room for him to move around, after two days he was supposed to be picked up by B and taken back home. But she never came; instead he got a distress signal from Monger saying that he and all other monsters had been captured in Area 52. The general had seen to it that he had an inbuilt communicator in his ear. The general relayed instructions for him to head to Area 52 and wait for his signal.
Esqargantua moved slowly, as he usually did, towards Area 52. He moved so slow that the facilities scanners couldn't detect any movement, during the night he would slowly creep closer and during the day he would hide within his shell, trying to blend in. When Monger's signal came through, Esqargantua went for it.
He slimed over tanks and swiped soldiers away with his stalk like eyes, when a large number of troops appeared they brought out strange looking weapons and managed to zap the snail right in the chest, Esqar bellowed in anger and heaved up a giant torrent of slime, the soldiers were engulfed as they were washed back into the facility silos.
A nearby lift opened and Monger, Dr Cockroach, Dr Sprocket and T.O.M stepped out, they saw hundreds of robot troopers shooting at the giant snail, Monger motioned to the others to follow him, "We have to get on to Esqargantua if we wanna avoid enemy fire!"
The monsters followed swiftly, dodging bullets and lasers flying everywhere, they caught up to the snail and climbed up his shell, taking cover behind one of the massive spikes sticking out of his shell, "You're doing good work, Esqar," Monger called to the snail, "Just keep holding them off a little longer,"
A nearby manhole cover flew off and a blue goo oozed out, followed by an eye. B.O.B took his form and looked around, taking a deep breath of fresh air, completely oblivious to the fight going on around him, "B.O.B! What's taking you so long?" yelled a voice from the hole.
"Oh right, sorry!" said the blob, extending his arm back down the hole like a rope. Whilst he was doing this, Susan, Sarah and Matt rose up from the missile silo platform, they saw Esqargantua and rushed towards him; Susan then saw B.O.B and stopped.
"B.O.B, what are you doing?"
"Fishing for snakes!"
"Very funny," came an angry voice, Fang scrambled out of the tunnel, holding onto B.O.B's arm. As he emerged, Susan noticed his tail wrapped up in soldier uniforms.
"What's with your tail?"
"We can discuss it later," groaned Fang, wincing in pain, "Can we just get to the snail now?"
Susan picked up her friends; she was still a little giddy from her weird experience with the Avenger Mk2. The group were now all huddled around Esqargantua; the troops were circling them, their tanks and choppers training weapons, the troops then stopped, the monsters looked around and saw they were completely surrounded. Ahead of them they saw a single figure emerge from the troops, it was General Crowe.
"Nice try, freaks! But as you can see you are outnumbered with nowhere to run." Smirked the general, his very appearance made Susan feel weird again.
"You're using robotic troops!" Monger stated, "What is it that you do at Sector 9 that requires you to use robots instead of real soldiers?"
"That doesn't concern you; you won't be alive for much longer anyway. President Sarkissian has ordered that if anyone attempts a breakout, they will be executed where they stand!"
"That's it, you and Sarkissian have gone too far!" bellowed Monger.
"And you will go no further," said Crowe, "Troops, take aim,"
The robot troops focused their guns, tanks and choppers on the monsters. "Goodbye monsters, and thank you for delivering this giant snail creature to us, it will save us the trouble of hunting it down."
With that Esqargantua let out a gigantic belch and threw up a ton of slime, the rapid goo engulfed Crowe and his men and washed them down the missile silo like a sink hole, Crowe screamed loudly as he fell back down into the prison facility. The troops were about to retaliate when,
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!
Butterflyosaurus swooped in; the flap of her wings blew the troops off their feet. Link waved down to his friends as Rex barked and wagged his tail. Esqargantua's eyes lit up when he saw the giant butterfly, Monger called to the butterfly, "Alright bug gal, you know what you gotta do!"
Butterflyosaurus nodded, lowering herself down, she grabbed hold of Esqargantua's shell, the snail then retreated inside his shell as the monsters climbed up the butterfly's arms and tail where they joined Rex on top of her head. The strange group now assembled, Butterflyosaurus slowly began to rise, the extra weight slowed her movements.
Matt jumped off Sarah's shoulder and looked over the edge, they were getting higher and higher but something black seemed to be getting bigger, "We've got missiles after us!" he called.
"Esqar, do your stuff!" ordered Monger.
The giant snail poked his head out of his shell, he was now dangling in mid-air and saw the missile coming, he spat a mixture of saliva and slime at it and the rocket fell back down to earth with a loud bang.
Butterflyosaurus picked up speed and headed in a south eastern direction, Sprocket checked his inbuilt scanner, "There's nothing else following us, we're free."
"Right, so now what do we do?" asked T.O.M.
"I say we get as far away from the US as possible!" suggested Link.
"No, we need to find where they took our parents!" said Susan.
"We need to go to a vet," butt in B.O.B, pointing at Fang.
"Fang, are you injured?" asked Monger.
"That's putting it mildly." groaned Fang. Unwrapping B.O.B's bandages, the others gasped when they saw the snake's tail, it was almost severed from his body.
"Oh my god," gasped Sarah behind her hands. Monger, Matt and the docs inspected the tail.
"Once we get to our destination we'll be able to treat this," said Monger, he turned to the others, "We've also managed to acquire a robot soldiers head, once we've arrived we'll be able to scan it and find out a few things about our former warden!"
"Where exactly are we going general?" asked Dr Cockroach.
"The one place where no human has ever gone, except for me and monsters!"
"And that would be?" asked Link.
"The Bermuda Triangle!"
The monsters blinked for a few seconds before the silence was broken by Sprocket, "Wait a minute. You're saying the military is responsible for the mysterious disappearances of boats and planes over the Devil's Triangle?"
"It was an area that the government created over a hundred years ago, the most secure and secluded spot on earth, they called it Area One. But as time went on even the government forgot its existence. To this day no one knows about it, except me!"
"So, what happened to the people that disappeared?" asked Sarah.
"To ensure the island remained undiscovered, any intruders were captured, had their memories modified and were sent to different parts of the globe, living new lives that we had given them. That's why these days you find a lot of people working at McDonalds!"
"Wow, talk about invading your privacy!" mumbled B.O.B.
"And right now it is the safest place for us. In the last fifty years I have remodelled the island to act as a second monster facility, but this one is different to Area 52!"
Susan frowned, "How?"
"Area 52 was to keep monsters away from humans. Area One is built to keep humans away from monsters, monsters that don't wish to be amongst the human world."
"You mean there are more monsters? Why didn't you tell us?" asked Sprocket.
"For the same reason, these monsters don't wish to be known to the outside world."
Butterflyosaurus screeched to the others, they looked over to see the dark blue sea, as the clouds cleared the monsters saw an island that seemed to be made of three different sections. The first section was all jungle and grass land, the second was a desert plain with a lagoon at the shore and the third section appeared to be a large military base which housed all the facilities in different buildings, like it was a mini city.
"It's beautiful," gasped Susan.
"Man, I could get used to this place!" said Link.
B.O.B and T.O.M pointed to the long stretch of yellow beach going all round the lagoon, "Monster Beach!" they cried.
Just then, several dark objects appeared from the facility zone, quickly they turned out to be rockets, they exploded around Butterflyosaurus making her jerk from side to side, Sarah quickly grabbed Matt as he lost his grip.
"What the hecks going on?" Dr Cockroach asked Monger.
"Not what, 'who'?" growled Monger, he raised his communicator and bellowed into it, "Warhead! For christs sake, stand down!"
A large black jet suddenly came roaring towards them, it looked nearly as big as Rex, the jet appeared almost futuristic with its black metal plating and glowing circuitry. It stopped in front of them and with a loud whir and the clanking of shifting metal, the jet started to transform. Its entire body changed from an advanced jet to some sort of super powered robot, it did not seem pleased to see them.
"What the pits going on here, Monger? I thought I made it perfectly clear that trespassers will be executed!" it growled.
If you want an idea of what Warhead looks like then look up Depth Charge from Beast Wars, same sort of body and attitude but coloured black instead of blue.