He had read for hours, writing down key notes for Sonny to look at as soon as he had time.
Since D'Jok had arrived,Sonny had decided to tend to his son.
And from the report from Artie, D'Jok had a massive breakdown after the last intense days.
Sonny found it best to stay at his sons side for now, to make sure he was ok.
Corso knew for a fact what Sonny really worried about was any kind of psychological about the police could have subjected D'Jok to.
Finally, Sonny arrived at the ship, tired, but still checking progress. Corso handed him the list he had written down.
"How is D'Jok Sonny? You stayed longer than I expected" Corso asked carefully.
Sonny sighed as he sat down.
"Technoid just gave a few more reasons for why I want the galaxy to know what kind of scum they are" Sonny admitted.
"D'Jok is exhausted. I couldn't make him tell it all now, but when someone breaks down like that..I find they did anything at all that suggests torture, then I will personally make them pay for it. That is a promise" Sonny said, and it was clear, he was angry.
Corso nodded.
"You should get some rest yourself, you look like one punch is all it takes to knock you over. We had hand to hand combat now, I would win every round" Corso pointed out.
Sonny looked at him.
"I am considering taking some of the anger and frustration out on a boxing bag in the training room" Sonny admitted.
Corso looked at him, long and hard.
"What is really troubling you Sonny? I know you, and that expression on your face, tells me, your mind is on overdrive right now. You wont be able to sleep without help" he stated.
Sonny stood up and turned his back on Corso. But Corso could see the muscles in his neck as he had taken his jacket off.
They were tense as steel wires, and Sonny was not able to wind down on his own right now.
Maybe he could help his friend out some, a few good boxing rounds would be just what Sonny needed at this point.
"Tell you what Sonny, lets head to the training room. I know your punches when you are like this.
Rather than be your punching bag, I will let the bag take it, and after, I will makes sure to take care of those strained muscles with a good massage, It will make you sleep like an innocent baby by the time I am done" he offered.
Sonny smiled as he heard that.
" I will take you up on that Deal Corso" he said. The two headed to the training room immedeately...
Duke Maddox was not pleased that D'Jok had been let go of.
The snow kid had been his best bet to make Sonny Blackbones make a mistake and come out of hiding.
If this virus that hit the galactik kids became an epedemic, he needed Sonnys expertise in his labs. And now, he was beating himself up.
Sonny had offered to assist on the hospital, with his men, even offered them to track him, and he had turned the offer down.
Nothing suggested Sonny had not meant it, but he had pulled the offer of the table the minute he would not release his son.
Duke Maddox sighed. If Sonny had the solution to this, he was not sharing it as of yet.
And it was impossible to track him, when under the protection of the league and the flux society.
All he could do, was wait for the day Sonny Blackbones made a mistake...
At the hospital, Tommys mother looked at her son. Tommy remained in what appeared to be a comatose state.
Whatever was this virus that Stevens had spoken of? And could he really make Sonny Blackbones have a look? She hoped so, with all of her heart.
She took Tommys hand. At least, he had no fever, but seeing him with all these tubes.. She was scared nothing would ever be the same again...
The following morning started early.
Clamp assisted the snow kids with training today, so Sonny and the players from The Lightnings were alone in the lab.
Sonny looked at the mixes he and Thran had made the previous night.
The Lightnings goalie looked interested at it.
"It is a good idea, to make a flux mix in an attempt to dissolve the armor of these agressive viruses. It if is the same strain that struck Xzion.." he said.
Sonny nodded.
"I read about what happened, It was a tragic loss of lives, one that could have been avoided, if the proper medication had been in place" he said.
The Lightnings goalie nodded.
"At that time, there was several tragedies, The Xenons planet, Ascarons demise..we had a list to pick from, and the deaths was high everywhere..."
He sighed.
Sonny nodded.
"Hopefully,we learned enough from the tragedies to avoid it happening again" he said.
Sonny chose to use a different tactic this time.
Instead of the process with protective gear, he had the sealed sample placed inside a concealed compartment,and used tools that held them all at a distance from the sample, while using the flux mix from last night.
Warren stood next to him, as Sonny inserted the virus with a dose of the mix.
"Ok, lets see if the stories about the seed of shilohs healing abilities are true. Hopefully, this can penetrate the armour and make it dissolve" Sonny said.
They waited several minutes, before Warren smiled.
"Well well Sonny, it looks like you cracked it wide open. Good job Professor" he smiled.
Sonny smiled as he saw how the seeming impenetrable armour dissolved from the virus, wich was left exposed.
"Good, now we get to study it closer, see what the core is made of, and possibly, how to stop it" he said.
Now, The Lightnings defender stepped forth.
"I believe this is where my research becomes handy Sonny. When I am not playing football, I work as a scientist myself.
This particular virus has wreaked havoc on my home planet for a long time. I believe I may have an idea now, as to how to kill it and stop the progression.
You may just have shown us, how to deal with a virus that once was a deadly killer" he said and held out his hand.
Sonny took it with a smile.
"If this can save the lives of little Tommy, Micro Ice, Mei, the galactik kids and all others who Magnus May have infected, I can only feel happy.
To me personally, it makes me feel I make up for mistakes made in the past" Sonny said.
As The Lightnings continued to do their work,introducing their knowledge to the mix, Sonny felt good about telling the good news to his son.
Before he headed to the holo trainer, he decided to put on a called in his team, to give the Snow kids a surprise work out session...
The snow kids was playing with two borrowed players to take Mei and Micro Ices places.
Aliya and Zack, from the Pirates reserve team proved excellent replacements for the two stars, they were good all rounders, and played their heart out.
Rocket was pleased with the work out so far. The snow kids came across as a reinforced team now, and he liked what he saw.
D'Jok was also getting back into rythm, and as of now, he and Sinedd communicated better on the pitch than ever before.
Shots on goal that was successful was more than doubled.
"Ok Snow kids, take a half time break" Rocket said as Clamp took the holo trainer down. At that moment, the pirates walked in.
Rocket smiled as he saw Sonny and the team in tracksuits, not their team uniform.
"Want to have some fun for the next part Snow kids? The pirates feel in the helpful corner this morning" Sonny smiled.
D'Jok could not resist a tease as he heard that.
"You are asking to get a good old fashion Whooping, Snow kids style Dad" he said.
This made the pirates chuckle. Sonny looked at Rocket, whom seemed to get what the pirate was up to.
"We will see about who gets a whopping D'Jok. Remember, it is not a non flux team you are playing now" he reminded him.
Sonny grinned."Take five minutes, and then we shall see who gets a whopping" Sonny teased.
Five minutes later, The snow kids and the pirates were expending maximum levels of energy inside the holo trainer...
Shilohe..
The pirate looked at the Corso clone.
"Tell me something Corso. You have been Sonnys right hand for years, and now, all of a sudden, you decide to turn on him.
Did he do something to make you desert him?" The pirate asked, while keeping a close eye on the files of the galactik kids.
The Corso clone looked at him.
"None of your buisness" he said. That only made the other pirate more curious.
"Or did you finally have the guts to tell him, how you have felt about him all these years, and he told you no?" he asked.
"No,I never told him about that, I dont need to. As long as he is not hurt or killed, I cant do anything else for him" The corso clone said.
The other pirate was still not willing to let the matter go.
"Corso, all of us knew how you felt about him. You know what the talk around the camps was, that he slept in your bed every night.
Want to share what that was really like?" he asked.
"No, That is personal, none of yours or anyone elses buisness" The Corso clone said.
"Have it your way. It is just a matter of time before we see Sonny captured anyway.
I got nothing against him, but I trust more in Magnus to be the leader we need.
Sonny is great, I give him that, but he is not the kind of leader the pirates need. Or anyone else, he is just too sentimental.
When Magnus takes seat as a galactik emperror, things will change for the better" he said.
He failed to see the Corso clone, had activated a sender on his arm, to send a coded message to the pirates...
The lightnings goalie and his team had worked hard to counter the virus.
It had been injected with a subtance in part made of the lightnings flux, and mixed up with a little bit of the mix taken from Sonny.
Now, Warren, Sonny and all other researchers was keeping a close eye on the infected sample, to see if they had finally found a cure.
"There, looks like something is happening" said the Lightnings goalie.
"Wich sample was that?" Warren asked him.
"The pure seed of Shiloh sample. Seems we found an effective cure" Sonny said as he looked at the virus twisting in pain under the microscope.
"Give it five more hours, before we conclude. In 5 hours, we will either have completely ended the virus, or we will see it morph to the next level" he said.
The Lightnings players nodded that."In the meantime, I got a special alone time planned for my son and I" smiled Sonny.
Warren smiled too."I think D'Jok will appreciate that Sonny, you two really dont get too much time together" smiled the Lightnings striker.
Sonny smiled too."Better have it done before the shadows match. I think it will be a real boost for him, he has had a rough few days"...
D'Jok was relaxing on the bed after the hard football practice this morning.
The Pirates meant buisness now that they had a flux, in all honesty, he was not really sure they could beat them this time.
They were always stars and played fair, but now that they had a flux of their own, there was a new glow and also strenght over the team.
They were not just trying to see how far they could get, no, this time, they were going for broke.
And the two borrowed Pirates players also played hard.
D'Jok could see strenght to the two wild cards, but he also saw the changes as being a bit hard to get used to.
The pirates team that he used to know, seemed to have dissolved, and been replaced by a far more merciless team.
And with the new teams of the competition, they too, like all teams, had to reinvent their game.
Micro Ice was getting a bit bored with not being able to play, and was up to his usual antics.
"Will you calm down Micro Ice? You will thread a hole in the floor if you keep that up" he commented, lifting his head slightly from the bed.
Micro Ice was about to reply when they noticed the man in the doorway.
"Dad! What are you doing here?" D'Jok asked.
Sonny just smiled."I got some free time to kill for once, and I decided it would be a good opourtunity to spend some quality time with my son" he said.
D'Jok could not help but smile at that.
It was true that he and Sonny did not have much time together, and any chance for alone time with his father, he would take.
"Sure thing Dad, did you have something in mind?" he asked.
Sonny smiled.
"How does a snow mobile ride around the old city of Akillian sound?" he said.
D'Jok smiled. "As long as we do it Pirate style, lets hit it"...
Ok, he was never going to suggest pirate style again, when it involved driving.
Sonny knew how to cut corners as they plowed through the snow. Despite the speed,D'Jok was in seventh heaven.
He had always wished, when he grew up, that he had a dad to do these things with. As he looked, it seemed Sonny had a special location in mind.
Both father and son wore protective glasses to avoid snowblindness in the white snow.
As they reached the old city of akillian,Sonny stopped the snow mobile.
And as they got off, Sonny put on a hood and some special glasses.
He was still a wanted man, despite the immunity agreement he had through the League and the flux society, Sonny did not trust Technoid to honour that agreement of the premises of Aarch Academy.
As father and son walked through the old city, it occurred to D'Jok that Sonny had a special place in mind for this visit.
"This place is eerie, it feels abandoned" said D'Jok as he looked around.
"It was abandoned after the great catastrophe. We are not far from its epicenter either" said Sonny, and pointed to a roof top in the distance, a few miles away.
"From that rooftop, is where the entire chain reation that caused this snow and glaciation started" he said, feeling a bit sad.
D'Jok realised this was not just father and son time, this was the first time Sonny revisited this place since the catastrophe.
And it was part of his fathers healing process, and coming to terms with the past. Sonny looked a bit sad as he looked to the roof top.
"That is the last time I saw her, if I only had known those moments would be our good bye.." he whispered.
D'Jok could feel the sadness he felt. It made him place a hand silently on his fathers shoulder.
Sonny smiled, and put a glove covered hand on top of his sons. Then, he started to lead D'Jok through narrow alleyways, deeper into the old city.
D'Jok could imagine how Maya, his fostermother, had told him it once looked.
It was abandoned now, but once, it had been a thriving and buzzling city, filled with life and people.
It struck D'Jok, this city was supposed to have been his home, where he was to have lived with his mother, and his father.
His mother, he never got to know, Maya had known her too short to really be able to tell him anything about her, the only way he had to get to know his mother, was these precious moments with his father.
And it was obvious, the memories felt bittersweet for Sonny.
Not only had he accidentally caused this planet to become the frozen giant it was, in the process, he had lost his wife, the woman he loved deeply with all his heart.
And guilt had been with him ever since. D'Jok looked at him.
Sonny seemed to count the streets,and house numbers that was still,he stopped outside a small town house.
It was long since abandoned, like the rest of the old Akillian city.
"This is the home you never got to live in D'Jok.
It feels painful to see, but I wanted to give you that glimpse into what kind of life you would have had, if Helena and I, that was her name, would have been allowed to give you what we planned.
Sadly, the meta flux changed all that.
I cant promise you what kind of life you would have had, if we all had made it, it is likely we would have sought refuge with the pirates as a family.
We will never know. But to go back to Technoid after Bleylocks betrayal, his attempt to use mine and Clamps invention for war, it would not have been possible. If I had to do that part all over again, I would, except for causing the catastrophe that is" he said with a small smile.
D'Jok looked at the house. It looked like a solid structure.
"Do you think it would be dangerous to go inside Dad?" he asked.
Sonny shook his head.
"The structure is built to last. Is it something you would like to look for Son?" he asked softly.
D'Jok nodded, all of a sudden feeling very sad.
"I'd like somekind of momentum of my mom, the woman that birthed me" he said.
Sonny nodded.
"I think I may know just the thing you seek" he said.
They made their way into the abandoned house. Sonny had brought a small rucksack, in case he wanted to take some of the things with him.
D'Jok could see him go through some old pictures, wedding photoes of himself and his mother, and other photoes.
He looked at the woman, Helena, his mother. She looked so happy where she hugged Sonny, only, this was a much younger version of him.
"You and mom must have married young dad" he said.
"We did, she was 21 and I was two years older, 23 years old at this photo. It brings back memories of happier times" Sonny said as he took the photo.
D'Jok noticed, Sonny had also found some other items, photoes of fellow students that he worked with, his co workers at Technoid, and one D'Jok could tell his father was not too happy about.
He looked at it.
He recognized Sonny, dressed in a blue shirt and a baseball cap, and with his arm around his neck, a man he hoped he could sometime forget.
General Bleylock.
Sonny could tell D'Jok felt uncomfortable.
"This was before he tipped over D'Jok,Bleylock was not always a bad man. Things happened in his life that you and I will never understand.
He came from a world much different from ours" Sonny said as he looked at it.
"We were friends once he and I, I never got where it all went wrong for him, I just knew,I tried, but I could not save him" he said.
Then, as he put the picture into the rucksack, Sonny made a detour to his old bedroom.
This was where D'Jok had been made. Sonny could still recall fond memories from happier times in this room.
Laughs, playfulness and lots of tender moments. He smiled as he reached for Helenas night stand. Her jewelery box.
He opened it, and looked at them all. Some of these, there would be a day when D'Jok would possibly have a daughter himself.
Someone to pass these precious necklaces on to. Sonny put the box into his rucksack.
He would have Artie do some cleansing of it all before D'Jok could pick his momentum of his mother.
Sonny smiled as they made their way back to the snow mobile to return to Aarch Academy...
The snow kids prepared for their departure to the Shadows planet for their away match.
Aliya and Zack had each been given a folder with information about their identity by Sonny, to answer any questions that would arise during a press conferance.
The two pirates players were understandingly a bit nervous, this time they would be separated from their peers, and had no back up.
But Sonny sat them both down and talked through it with them, leaving them feeling a lot better.
As the snow kids shuttle took off, Sonny had prepared the finished antidote against Magnus Virus.
It had been tested and found to work. Micro Ice had been the first to receive the treatment.
Sonny had checked his flux samples and found the antidote to work exactly as planned.
The snow kid was now showing improvement and should be ready to play again within a few matches.
Mei had also received her antidote, and showed a full recovery,but Sonny still felt it best she pass this match, till they were absolutely sure that this worked.
As the pirates and the Lightnings were left alone, Sonny prepared to administer the antidote to Tommy.
Stevens had kept a watchful eye on the kid from his role on the hospital, but some of the staff started to get suspicious to his real identity, and he needed be pulled out.
Tommys mother was upset over that, as Stevens had been a real help to her, but she realised that for his safety, he had to go.
Someone else from the pirates would take his place. But she had no idea of who would come.
As she sat by Tommys bedside, a new apparant doctor came in. Wait..if Stevens was familiar, this was an even more familiar face.
Sonny Blackbones in person. Sonny signalled for her to be silent.
"I am here as a friend. Your son is one of my sons players. Lets see if we can help him finally get back to his normal self shall we?" he asked with a smile.
Tommys mother nodded. This pirate..his eyes were filled with calm and warmth. No man could be a hardened criminal and act like this.
It seemed to her, Technoid had spread a lot of lies about this man.
And that made it very believable that what neighbours of her, who secretly supported the pirates, had told was true.
Sonny Blackbones was not a criminal, but a hero to the galaxy, a protector. and right now, he was here to save her son.
As soon as he had given the syringe, Sonny set a timer, he only had 15 minutes before he had to leave.
To stay any longer, was not safe for anyone that was a pirate. As soon as the time was up, Sonny winked at the mother.
"I cant stay any longer. I am still wanted by Technoid and this is their turf. Please, update Warren on the status, he knows how to reach me" he said.
When she looked up again, he was gone...
Corso kept an eye out on the ventilation ducts Sonny used to make his escape.
For some reason, he had a very uneasy feeling about it all. Going into a Technoid operated hospital amounted to suicide.
And here Sonny had gotten in with no problems, getting out..was a different story.
Artie had problems getting hold of the proper plans, but after some frustrating hours, he finally succeeded.
The plans was transfered to a small pocket size computer that Sonny had on him.
And now, Sonny was following the planned escape route on the map. But something was not right. The plans did not show correctly.
Sonny ran into several obstacles on the way, that should not be there. This made Corso send Artie a glare.
"Just when I thought you could not possibly mess up anymore, you go and show the oposite. Artie, it is the wrong map!
No wonder Sonny is having trouble getting out. Find me the correct plans for the building, so he can get out, or you are on toilet scrubbing duty for two months" Corso growled.
Bennett had hacked the video cameras. He looked at all the people in the hospital.
"Corso, exactly where is Sonny now in those ducts? There is a maintenance to be carried out in the ducts...today" Bennett informed.
Corso sent him a shocked look, before he grew very pale."This cant be, we need to get him out of there, NOW!" Corso stated.
He tried to call sonny, but found the signal was jammed."Is any signal from transmitters also going down there today?" He asked.
Bennett nodded.
"It is a complete overhaul, everything is checked. Stevens had put the cameras in the vents out of commission but..." Bennett started, before Corso cut him off.
"Repeat that last sentence about Stevens Bennett, slowly" he asked. Bennett did. And to his horror, he realised what Corso was getting at.
"In Shilohs name..this is bad" he whispered.
Artie looked worried at them.
"What in the galaxy is going on" he asked.
Corso looked at Artie.
"This is bad news Artie, when those cameras are turned back on, guess what it will show?" he asked.
Artie paled when he realised what Corso meant.
"Oh No" he whispered in horror.
Thanks to your blunder, Sonny is trapped in the airvents"...
Yep, here goes the cliffhanger. What did Artie do. And how in the galaxy will Sonny get out of this. All this and more in the next chapter. Please review if you like the story.