Chomper followed Tendou quickly, both still in their armor as they searched the area outside of the valley.
"So, what happened to never setting foot in the valley?" Chomper asked, wondering why Tendou suddenly helped him.
"I just thought it over carefully." Tendou responded. "I finally decided, personal issues or not, you were right…I wouldn't be much of a partner to you if I kept myself from assisting you when you needed it."
Chomper nodded again as he walked with him around a large boulder. "So, what exactly are the personal issues?"
"Later…" Tendou changed the subject as he pointed out to a small entrance. "It looks like our target went in through there…we'd better hurry."
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Tria tended to the slightly shaken Topsy, who was still recovering from his confrontation with the transformed Remo. Trica sat by her mother's side, as Cera paced a little bit around her father's line of vision.
"Dad, who is this guy?" Cera demanded to know. "How come you never said anything about him before?"
"Cera…" Tria scolded her. "Leave your father alone. He's been through enough today."
"No…not quite yet." Topsy slowly shook his head. "After all this time, I think I do owe my daughter an explanation."
Tria just nodded as Cera sat down in front of her father's face, and waited expectantly.
"Remo…" Topsy began. "Used to be a member of my herd. We knew each other ever since we were younger, and I regarded him as my best friend."
Cera's eyes widened a bit. "Really? He sure wasn't acting like your best friend a moment ago."
Topsy sighed as he stretched out along the ground. "Yes…well, we had a bit of a falling out, you could say…see, when we were separated by that earthshake in our old home, Remo and his mate, Dina, started to preach understanding and interaction with all the other herds as a means of survival. But much of the old guard in my herd, including my mate, your mother, would not stand for such radical changes."
Tria continued to comfort him as he sighed long once more. "Then one day, your mother caught Remo and Dina interacting with a pair of elderly longnecks, helping them find food. We confronted Remo, and were about to shun him forever from the herd…until sharpteeth suddenly came out and attacked us."
Cera listened to her father intently as he continued. "Your mother fought valiantly, but the sharpteeth were too strong for her. They killed her right in the middle of a clearing. I mourned her while Remo and Dina tried to fight them off, both of them looking to me, yelling at me to go get others and help them…but I was blinded by my anger and sadness…I believed it was their fault my mate had died." He closed his eyes in guilt. "I left them, without calling for help…I left them both to be killed."
Tria leaned down and nudged her mate a bit. "Topsy…you have to remember, that was the old you that abandoned Remo…you've changed since then, I've seen it…if there were just some way you could show that to him, it might make him stop what he's doing."
"These longnecks…" Cera spoke up. "Would they have been anyone I knew?"
"As a matter of fact…" Topsy nodded. "They were your friend Littlefoot's grandparents…"
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Remo walked slowly onto the meadows, seeing the tracks of longnecks. He spotted Littlefoot's mother, asleep, and curled around a nest filled with eggs. He smiled lightly, before he came upon a shock. There were two mounds of stone, obviously erected in memorial of two longnecks that had recently passed on…and Remo figured out pretty quickly who they were.
"Well…" He sighed as he lowered his head. "I can see I came a little too late…" He kneeled by the makeshift monuments, and looked straight ahead at them both. "If only I could have seen the looks on your faces one more time…but, I can see that'll never happen now."
"Can I help you?" He heard a male voice call to him. He turned around, seeing Bron standing behind him, with Littlefoot and Ali, along with Shorty, approaching from behind. Ayla woke slowly as she raised her head quizzically, looking towards the three-horn in the form of a humanoid.
"My goodness…" Remo rose slowly, walking over to Bron. "You look just like him…your father."
"What?" Bron furrowed his brow. "Did you…know my parents?"
"I did…both Dina and I." He sighed and rubbed his head a little. "She'd pay her respects as well, had the sharpteeth not taken her."
Littlefoot immediately stepped forward, sensing something off about this fellow. "Who are you?" He asked. "And why do you have impactor symbols all over your body?" His sharp memory helped him to recognize him.
Remo smiled a bit as he looked over his body. "You wouldn't believe it…I mean, there I was, an abandoned, pathetic excuse for a three-horn, just wandering around the mysterious beyond, clutching onto any pleasant memories I had left…then boom, this two-legged fellow finds me, and zaps me with something, and I fall under his persuasion, before I finally transform."
"Another Impactor?" Ali's eyes went wide as she stayed behind Littlefoot.
Littlefoot looked over Remo's body and back up at his face. "Are there others like you?"
Remo nodded and smiled. "Yes…slowly but surely, we are growing in number. Sharptooth and leaf-eater, four-foot and two-foot…the boundaries are disappearing between all our kind…we are uniting!"
"Uniting?" Littlefoot shook his head. "Under the banner of the Impactors?"
"Lord Kevran is a visionary, my friend." Remo looked to the whole family now, and extended his large hand. "And I invite you all, as descendents of my old friends, to be the first to share in his new vision. You can all join, and become dinopactors, just like me!"
"No…" Bron stood right in front of Remo now. "I don't know what this lord Kevran has been telling you, but the Impactors are a very troublesome and twisted bunch, and they've caused enough pain to our family!" He shouted, remembering Logia. "We do NOT associate with their kind!"
Littlefoot watched closely, getting ready to warn his father about how he talked to Remo, before the Dinopactor scowled at him slowly.
"Just as intolerant, I see…" He slowly responded. "You're no better than Topsy!"
"Get out of here…" Bron lowered his head towards Remo's face. "Leave right now, before I do something I might regret…"
Remo looked right up at him. "You, my friend, are in no position to make threats to me!" He then suddenly pushed Bron's head down a bit with a strong left hand, before letting him have it with a hard right uppercut.
"Dad!" Littlefoot shouted as he ran to Bron's side. The angered Remo then set his sights on Ayla and her nest. The mother longneck stood her ground, growling a bit as Remo reached in back of him, and extracted his large axe.
Before he could make any moves, however, he suddenly heard a voice yelling "Nooooooo!" He turned to see Tendou in his armor, running far ahead of Chomper with his right arm extended.
Littlefoot and Ali looked up from tending to the dazed Bron, marveling at the two armored figures as they ran onto the scene. Remo simply reached into his pocket in response, pulling out a small globe and throwing it onto the ground. A squadron of giga-fighters suddenly emerged from it in a shaft of light, running towards Tendou and Chomper, and forcing them to fight.
Chomper quickly took out the blades on his shoulders and slashed away, taking the face off one in a spark, as he then spun, and nearly sliced another one in half from his momentum. Tendou fought furiously, slashing his own dagger right and left, kicking one giga-fighter away with his right leg before jabbing the weapon into the single glowing eye of another.
But they just weren't acting quickly enough, as Remo approached the nest, slowly and ominously. Ayla stood and growled, her tail ready to strike, not knowing what she could do with it though, after seeing what happened to Bron.
Tendou then thought of something else. He pulled the horn of the beetle on his belt back to the original position. "PUT ON!" The computer spoke, as his heavy armor came back over his form, his gunaxe returning to his side.
He left Chomper to deal with the giga-fighters, which he was doing very well, as he aimed for Remo's back and fired. The shote peppered the dinopactor's back, and made him jump a little. He turned his attention to the fully armored Tendou, before Ayla saw an opening, and brought her tail down, giving him a hard thwack.
The blow was hard enough to send Remo flying away from the nest. Tendou moved in quickly, and yelled as he raised the blade section of his gunaxe. He brought it down towards Remo, but missed as it smacked the ground. Remo took advantage, and rammed his right shoulder into Tendou, knocking him away from his weapon.
Remo then moved quickly towards Tendou, slashing at him sideways, and making him duck. He then slashed with his axe in the opposite direction as Tendou strafed out of the way, making the axe strike a large tree nearby.
Splinters flew everywhere as the axe was now stuck in the tree's side. Remo grunted, and slowly pulled the blade out, allowing Tendou to go pick up his weapon. Tendou ran towards Remo and slashed for his head with the gunaxe, only to be met with a clash from Remo's, as he pulled his axe out just in time.
The clashing sounds of the axes could be heard for miles, as Remo swung the weapon all around, angrily trying to manhandle his opponent with it. Tendou slashed back every so often, but was mindful to dodge at other times. The got back to the other side of the same tree, as Remo swung again, missed, and buried the axe into the tree once more.
Tendou reacted quickly, grabbing Remo by his still present horns as he dropped his weapon. He strongly held Remo in place as the tree slowly began to fall down. Remo struggled, trying to get out of the way, until the tree finally came down, smacking him in the back of his head and pinning him down.
Meanwhile, Chomper made short work of the Giga-fighters, spinning and twirling his blades as he cut open the chests of two of them at the same time. They sparked and fell over as he ran over to the last one in the group, crossing his blades as he brought them up, and promptly decapitating the robot.
Before Tendou could think of what else to do with the downed Remo, Kevran suddenly teleported in from out of nowhere.
Tendou got into fighting position once more, before Kevran showed total disinterest in fighting at the moment. He and two other giga-fighters helped to roll the tree off of Remo.
"If I had known you were going to be such a discipline case…" Kevran grunted. "I would have never bothered with giving you Symbiosis…" He helped Remo back onto his feet.
Tendou quickly brought up his gunaxe, but they all transported away from the scene before he could even fire.
Littlefoot and Ali, along with Bron, all went rushing over to the nest, making sure everything was ok. Littlefoot then turned his attention to Chomper, who stepped forward while still in his Gattack armor.
He then slowly detached the stag beetle on his belt, letting it fly away as he shifted back into his normal form.
"Miss me?" The teen sharptooth grinned.
"Chomper!" Littlefoot and Ali ran to greet their old friend.
"Ah…" Ayla smiled as she looked on with Bron. "So this is the famous Chomper we've heard all about."
Littlefoot grinned and nodded. "Yeah, it's him all right…" His mind then turned to something else. "But where did the suit come from? Is the neo-spirit back in business?"
Chomper's eyes went wide. "How do you know about that thing?"
Ali blinked a little. "Well…didn't it tell you about us at all?"
Chomper shook his head. "Uhhh no…I've mostly been getting help from my new friend, Tendou…" He then looked around for him, suddenly unable to see him around.
"Tendou?…Tendou?" He called out to his friend, before looking back at the Longnecks, puzzled. "Now where did he go?…"
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Petrie walked slowly up the slopes of the massive "Smokey Mountain". He was still in his Kaixa armor as he strolled up the side of this large volcano, smoke billowing out from the hot lava below.
His mind was now awash in pure guilt and utter shame. All this time, he had been killing, and maiming…and for what? All for one big lie that he believed in…coupled with a deep-seated lust for power and vengeance.
He realized he was at a crossroads as he got to the very top of Smokey Mountain, and looked down into the lava. He withdrew the Kaixa driver and changed back one last time. He placed the driver into his belt, and held out his winged arms, preparing to dive into the mountain and end it all…
That was until he remembered his Mother…and his uncle. He then thought it over, and how devastating it would be to hear of his death…especially if he died without even trying to set things right with himself and others.
It was then that he slowly brought his wings down, and looked at the belt. He saw the mission memory device glowing, gaining knowledge from his actions all the time, just as Kevran had programmed it to do. Deep down he could feel the evil in this device, and how it was somehow feeding his rage, his hate, his lust for power. The same rage and hate that eventually brought Kusaka to his end…
He decided right there, that it was time for him and the Kaixa gear to go their separate ways.
He reached down, and attempted to finally pull the belt off of his body. Unfortunately, the belt was especially designed to never let go of its owner. The presence of a rare, compatible body was much too valuable for it. Multiple metal clamps came out from the sides, and dug into Petrie's flesh.
Petrie grunted, and pulled harder, even as the pain grew greater and greater. The clamps began to tear parts of his flesh as he yelled and screamed in pain at the top of the volcano. But he was determined, bent on starting a new life, no matter how much it hurt, as he pulled and pulled.
Eventually, through much torn flesh around the waist, and determined strength, Petrie finally got the belt off him. He quickly tossed it into the volcano, as he tumbled down the side, clutching at his wounds. He did not notice that the belt had landed on a wide ledge just above the lava, unharmed.
Petrie came down from the mountain all the way, still clutching his wounds, The Neo-Organisms ship floating by soon after, having detected him. The teen flyer looked up at the vessel, before collapsing on the ground, exhausted. The ship took advantage of this, and beamed him aboard, before flying away.
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Time passed as the belt sat, without its owner, feeling the heat of the lava below as it sizzled just a little, sparking. The tiny screen on the Kaixa driver fizzled to life as white text appeared on the black backround.
STAUS REPORT…
30 MINUTE LIMIT EXCEEDED…
KAIXA HOST MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD.
New data was pumped into the driver from the mission memory device on the belt, taking emergency protocol measures especially built in by Kevran…
BEGIN DNA REPLICATION
The belt quickly began to work, using genetic information left by the little bits of flesh left on the belt's clamps. The belt was still sparking, being affected by the intense heat below, which was in turn affecting the replication work.
A pool of muck, mostly proteins and other chemicals intended for the creation of organic life began to form under the belt. The mission memory helped in the process, adding to the design all the knowledge it had of Petrie's body…and augmenting it with the hatred and aggression he had deep down during his time with the belt.
The pool bubbled as a solid form came into being around it. It was slowly taking the shape of a male teen flyer. His face and form were scarred, just as Petrie's had been, but his beak was also menacing and jagged, his eyes almost glowing a little. One was red, and the other was black.
The creature slowly began to breathe, the belt firmly around his waist. He rolled onto his stomach in the muck that had created him, and looked up from the lava below…before letting loose a distorted, ear-shattering, rage-consumed scream…