Tang Ri Shan
The Wild Krew
(Here we go again! enjoy!)
Ch 20
Ken pulled back the sheets on his bed, then arranged his pillows in the center of the bed before throwing the sheet and comforter back over them. Stepping back, he examined his work and nodded. To the casual observer, it would appear like he was sleeping. Bending over to brush a ball of lint off his black jeans, Ken laced up his hiking boots before pulling a black sweatshirt over his head. Grabbing his backpack, he slowly eased open his door and stepped into the hallway, quietly closing it. As he turned around, Jackie's door opened and his sister stepped out wearing black leggings and a large black pullover. She had tucked her hair under a black knit cap and carried a small black knapsack.
"You ready?" She whispered, looking about as nervous as Ken felt, though he was trying not to show it.
"Yeah. Let's go" Ken whispered back. The two siblings crept slowly down the stairs, stepping lightly on the squeaky boards. They heard the TV blare from the living room and peeked in to see their parents watching a comedy together. Ken heard Jackie groan behind him and couldn't blame her. That comedy was a family favorite and Ken wished for a moment that he could be in there, but they had work to do. The siblings darted into the kitchen and quietly eased open the back door. Slipping outside, they dashed over to the garage, got their bikes and pedaled out into the street. As the sun was beginning to set behind the hills in the distance, the two siblings cycled down the road as fast as they could.
"So, any ideas for what we're gonna do?" Jackie called as they cycled towards the swampland.
"Not a clue!" Ken called back over the rush of wind. "But we'll figure that out once we get there!"
"Yeah, if we can get there in time!" Jackie groaned as they reached the bottom of the hill and she eyes the rise on the other side. "It'll be midnight when we get there at this rate!"
"It will take us far longer if we stop now! Come on!" Ken started forwards when something suddenly dropped down in front of them. A giant bug! Jackie shrieked, covering her eyes, and Ken jumped backwards, which caused his legs to tangle with the frame on his bike and both cycle and rider went down in a twisted heap.
"Oops, sorry! Are you alright?" Both Ken and Jackie looked up as Allison removed the motorcycle helmet she was wearing. She was sitting on a buzz bike and was wearing black like they were.
"Allison! What are you doing here?" Jackie exclaimed.
"The Krew sent me." Allison answered as she hopped off the bike, which hovered about a foot on the ground, and 'floated' it over to a strand of trees that grew alongside the road. "They have something for the both of you" Perking up at this, Ken and Jackie wheeled their bikes over to the thick trees, which shielded them from the road. Allison had opened up the storage compartment in the 'abdomen' of the bike and was rummaging around inside of it.
"What is it?" Jackie asked.
"Just a little something to help you deal with the Zach Bots" Allison replied in a smug sort of way. She finally straightened up, holding a pair of black vests with colored markings, just like the ones that they had seen the members of the Krew wearing, only different colored. Jackie handed the cream one to Jackie and tossed the grey one to Ken. "Put these on" She instructed.
Ken hesitated "But…"
"Just do it" Allison urged and Ken complied. As he slipped the vest on, he suddenly felt a series of strange tingles, like tiny shocks spreading up and down his body. As he straightened it, his chest suddenly felt cold, like he'd swallowed a large ice cube. Glancing down, he saw that the paw-shaped emblem on his vest was now glowing with a soft grey light, like a glow stick. Ken gasped as the glow suddenly got brighter and a spread out from the paw print, quickly encasing his body in a grey halo of light. Hearing a gasp from Jackie, he glanced up to see her encased in a soft cream-colored light. She met his gaze, her mouth open and her eyes wide.
"Wh-what just happened?" She stammered.
"You Zobooan implants just activated, that's what happened" Allison replied, rummaging through the buzz bike's compartment again, this time pulling out a grey-lined helmet. "Here" She tossed the grey one to Ken, who caught it, feeling very confused.
"What do you mean our 'implants'?" Ken asked.
Allison paused and slowly turned to face them, her mouth twisted into a series of frowns, as if she was trying to work out what to say. "Do you remember when you first met the Krew? How you were knocked out for a little while?" She finally asked. Ken and Jackie nodded. "Well, while you were out, both of you were outfitted with bionic implants, just like the members of the Wild Krew"
Jackie gasped and Ken's eyes widened. "And what…exactly do these bionic implants do?" He asked.
Allison's frown melted into a smile. "They'll let you harness the powers of the animal kingdom" She replied smugly. "You've seen the Krew members transform into various animal forms, right?"
Ken nodded, then his eyes suddenly widened as realization hit him. "Wait, are you saying…?"
Allison nodded. "Now the two of you can do the same thing"
Jackie's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"
"Dead serious" Allison nodded as she stepped up to Jackie and pointed to the center of the paw symbol. "This is your activation button. Whenever you come into contact with an animal, press it and your implants will transform you into a form resembling that animal. To transform back, just press the button again" She explained. The then pointed to the three smaller buttons over the big one. "These smaller buttons control various features of the implants. Press the center button before the big one and you will shrink down to the proper size of the animal. The rightmost one will transform you into a full version of that animal, rather than a humanized version, and the leftmost one will allow you to update your implants with any new abilities that the Krew discover, 'cause there's still so much we're still learning about the world's creatures"
"Cool!" Jackie exclaimed, her eyes sparkling as she ran her fingers across the glowing paw print. Ken did the same. The glowing paw print felt warm, almost like a tiny sun in his chest. "We're like superheroes!"
Allison giggled "Yeah, you kind of are"
"So, did the Krew explain to you exactly what they wanted us to do?" He asked, glancing back up at Allison.
"No, but I've got a plan." Allison explained, pulling out her creature pod and projecting a holographic map of the swampland. Ken and Jackie could see a large cluster of red dots gathered near the center of the swampland. "These red dots are Zach-Bots, and as you can see, there's a lot of them."
"No kidding" Ken observed, trying to count how many dots there were.
"Like the Krew mentioned earlier, we don't just have to get the Zach Bots away from the Tellurium, we need to secure the Tellurium itself, or Zach will just keep coming back to get it." Allison explained. "Which means we need to harvest it from the swamp ourselves before Zach can get away with it"
"But won't we damage the swamp by doing that?" Jackie asked, suddenly looking uneasy.
Allison shook her head. "Not if you use your creature powers. There may still be some damage, but it will be localized and, more importantly, kept to a minimum, which is NOT what will happen if Zach keeps doing what he's doing.
"So what's the plan?"
"It's simple actually." Allison explained, putting her creature pod away. "One of you needs to battle the Zach-Bots in the air with peregrine falcon powers, while the other uses frog powers to deal with any Zach Bots that are under the water."
"I call the falcon powers!" Jackie shot her hand up into the air.
"I was hoping you'd say that" Allison grinned at her, then turned to Ken. "While the two of you are fighting the Zach bots, I'll try to locate as many of the Tellurium deposits as I can. Ken, I'm going to need your help getting them out, which means that most of the battling will be done by Jackie. Got it?"
"Got it" Ken and Jackie nodded.
"So, how do we activate these again?" Jackie asked, pressing the large button on her vest.
"We need to touch an animal" Ken reminded her, then he glanced up at the surrounding trees. "Which may be more difficult than expected since I don't see any falcons here" He added.
"That's the beauty of the design, it doesn't have to be the actual animal" Allison replied as she held out her hand. Clutched in her fingers was a long black feather. "As long as it contains the animal's DNA, it will work"
"Sweet" Jackie squealed, taking the feather from Allison.
"You might want to step back Ken" Allison warned as she backed away from Jackie. Ken also complied, moving to stand by Allison next to the Buzz Bike "You ready?" Allison asked Jackie.
"Oh, you know it!" Jackie exclaimed, her whole body quivering with excitement.
"Go for it sis!"
Jackie took a deep breath, clutched the feather in one shaking hand, and slapped her other hand down on the big paw print
As soon as Jackie's hand came in contact with the paw print it glowed and the image of a bird appeared in the center of the activation button. Slowly the glow spread to giver Jackie's entire body, and there was a bright flash and a series of strange buzzing noises, followed by an inhumane screech. Jackie's hands shot away from the sides of her body, and light spilled from her palms before solidifying into what looked like a pair of wings. Jackie seemed to rise a foot higher in the air and light pooled around her face and legs. As the light faded, Ken's eyes widened and his jaw dropped "Woah" He gasped.
Ken's sister was gone. In her place stood what looked like a man-shaped falcon with black-and-cream colored feathers, except it was as tall as Allison. The creature seemed to shudder and large, but narrow wings whipped from its sides, while sharp looking talons gripped the dirt it stood on. "Well, how do I look?" Jackie asked nervously, staring at them with sharp raptor eyes. A falcon beak snapped as she spoke and the cream-colored feathers on her chest suddenly flared out, making her look even bigger.
"You look like a giant falcon." Ken commented. "How do you feel?"
"I feel…kinda weird" Jackie confessed, glancing around. "Everything looks so different, and I…" Jackie paused and glanced up to the sky. "I feel like the sky is calling to me"
"That's the implant's programming." Allison explained as she hopped back onto her buzz bike and handed Ken a helmet before slipping on her own. "Can you hear me?" She said, tapping something on the base of her helmet. Jackie nodded her falcon head. "Good, now remember your job is to keep the Zack Bots occupied, keep their attention on you and not on the tellurium. Got it?"
"Yeah"
"OK, then get going. And good luck!"
"Tear 'em apart sis!" Ken cheered as Jackie spread her knew wings and pushed down hard. Ken turned his face away from the sudden rush of wind as Jackie shot into the air like a bullet.
"Ow Jackie! There's no need to scream so loud! I can hear you just fine!" Allison suddenly scolded, tapping the side of her helmet. Ken quickly strapped his on just in time to hear Jackie's voice crackle through a speaker next to his ear.
"Sorry! I didn't realize just how fast I'd be going!" Jackie squealed, sounding panicked. "And these wings are harder to work than I thought!" There was a loud rustling over the speaker, like Jackie was struggling to control her flight. Ken glanced up to see Jackie tumble in the air, her wings beading rapidly. She was already high enough that she looked really small, more like a drunken pigeon than a falcon.
"Keep it together sis!" Ken soothed, hoping that Jackie could hear him. He was rewarded when Allison shot him a thumbs up. "Just think of yourself as a baby bird learning to fly. You've seen how birds fly, they push down on the air with their wings to lift themselves up. Feel the air moving through your feathers!" Ken chuckled as he realized how corny that last part sounded.
"Easy for you to say!" Jackie's voice seemed to boom in his head. "Wooaahh!" She screamed as she suddenly dropped in altitude for several seconds, making Ken and Allison wince as what sounded like rushing wind roared through the speakers in their helmets.
"Sis, you've gotta focus! You have to be the falcon!" Ken coached, thinking to back what they had always watched the Kratt Brothers do on TV. "Remember, Nature's got know-how, but you need to stop fighting it and let Nature work for you!"
"Okay. Okay. I think I've got the hang of it now" Jackie's voice sounded more confident and up above, they could see that Jackie had pulled out of her fall and her wing beats were looking more rhythmical as she hovered about 100 ft above them. "See you at the swampland!" With that, the radio feed cut off and Jackie shot off like a bullet towards the distant marsh.
"Ok. Let's go!" Ken wrapped his arms around Allison's waist as the older girl gunned the Buzz Bike motor. The wings buzzed and the bike shot off down the road.
High in the sky above, Jackie flapped her new falcon wings hard, gaining altitude with each beat. "Wow" She breathed as she glanced around her, the clouds around her, the land below her, stretching as for as the eye would see, and her new falcon eyes could see so much farther than her human eyes ever could. She saw the swampland ahead of her, still several or so miles away and leaned towards it, spreading her wings as wide as she could. She knew that most falcon species soared while hunting, even though their wings were not designed for it. As she flew along, she also realized something else. She had always thought that soaring was gliding on an invisible zip line, but she now understood that it was more like hopping from one column of warm air to the next. She could actually feel the hot air rising from the earth catch along her wings and chest and push her up with it.
Glancing ahead, she noticed that she was veering off course, but as soon as she thought this, she felt a twitch in her new tail feathers and she drifted back onto target. "Ken's right. Nature does have know-how"
Just then, she heard static in her ear, then Ken's voice rang out. "How's it going up there, sis?"
"Ken" Jackie replied, the awe in her voice clear. "You have got to try this! This is amazing!"
Ken laughed "Oh I'm sure my turn will come soon enough. Can you see the Zach Bots?"
Jackie squinted at the swampland, then frowned at what she saw A column of at least twenty black-and-grey robots with saw-like arms were cutting through trees, while a group of others with claw-like arms were tearing up the ground . "Yeah, I can see them all right, but I don't need falcon eyes to find them. They're not even trying to hide what they're doing!"
"There's a feature on your creature pod that will let us see what you see. Just press the button." Allison instructed. Jackie glanced down at her chest. Below the glowing buttons, she spotted the outline of the pod and tapped it with her beak. Swinging her head back up, she focused on the Zach-bots again, and heard Allison and Ken exclaim in dismay.
"Those things are like floating bulldozers!" Ken sounded angry. "They're destroying everything!"
"Unfortunately, that's how corporate extraction often works. They just plow through everything to get what they're looking for" Allison replied grimly.
Jackie suddenly thought of something. "So, how exactly do I fight those bots? They've got buzz saws and pincers!"
"And you have falcon powers." Ken replied "How do falcons hunt their prey?"
Jackie felt herself grin "They stoop!"
"Exactly, they can reach speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour in a stoop"
"And the kinetic energy you'll generate on the way down, combined with your current mass..." Allison paused, making a few mental calculations. "...should generate enough force that you'll shatter those bots on impact, or at the very least disable them."
"Got it" Jackie signed off. She glanced down at the Zach-bots, feeling a surge of anger flood through her. Then a blur of movement caught her eye and she gasped as she saw a pair of goshawks scream out of one of the trees, attacking one of the Zach-bots head on, only to be swatted aside as the metal monster floated towards the tree the hawks had come from, buzz saw arm raised. The goshawks screamed as one and dive bombed the robot again and Jackie narrowed her eyes, squinting at the tree, praying the reason for the goshawk's attack was not what she thought it was. Her heart sank as she spotted the outline of a nest in the higher branches, and her blood then turned to ice as she caught movement inside the nest.
"No!" Jackie screamed and before she knew what she was doing, she had folded her wings and dived. The wind whistled through her feathers as she fell like an arrow towards the earth below. As her speed increased, the world around her blurred, but the robot, and the hawks, remained crystal clear. Suddenly, in their relentless attack of the zach-bot, both hawks veered right in her path. Jackie, now only a few seconds from impact, opened her beak and screamed as she swung her legs forward, talons out and extended. The hawks glanced up, screamed back, and somehow darted out of the way the way just as the Zach-Bot looked up and raised its saw arm.
ZIINNGGGGG! Jackie barely felt the impact as her talons sliced into the robot. Sparks of electricity filled the air and the upside-down cone-shaped bot collapsed to the wet ground, sparkign even more as water found its way through the gashes in its metal shell. Jackie beat her wings, rising quickly, glancing around. She sighed with relief as she saw the goshawks flying back towards their nest. Then an electronic beep made her look down, and her relief turned to dread. There were at least forty Zach-bots below her, and they were all gazing up at her with their eerie red eyes. Then, on some unseen signal, four of them, all with pincer arms, lifted off the floor and floated towards her, their pincers clicking menacingly. Jackie gulped. "What have I gotten myself into?" She asked herself as she climbed higher into the air.
"I hope Jackie can handle this" Ken mused as Allison set the Buzz Bike down at the very edge of the marshland.
"She'll be fine" Allison assured him as she pulled off her helmet. "We can help her best by getting our job done." She hopped off the bike and walked over to the water's edge.
"What are you doing?" Ken asked, removing his helmet and setting it on the bike. Allison didn't answer, but she suddenly lunged forward and her hands clasped around something. Rising to her feet, she turned back as Ken ran up to her and parted her fingers. A small black frog sat cupped in her hands.
"You ready to try it?" Allison asked him, a smile on her face.
Ken glanced at her, then at the frog, which gazed calmly up at him, then down at the glowing button on his chest. Taking a steadying breath, he placed his right index finger on the frog's slimy skin, feeling the animal shift slightly underneath his finger. "Yeah, I'm ready" He proclaimed, firmly pressing teh glowing button with his other finger. The button glowed, Ken heard a whir, and his vision was flooded with gray light.
And Cut!
So the battle begins! But how will it end? Will Jackie be able to keep the Zach Bots at bay? And how will Ken's frog powers help out? To find out, keep watching!
Special thanks to those reviewers who suggested frog powers, this chapter is for you guys!
And don't forget to review! Seriously, a good comment goes a long way!
Until next time!