Previously…

"I'm detecting multiple strong Tenebrus signals coming from the floors above," HUE informed them, "The pulses of dark energy present are converging, making them even stronger." Gary wasted no time in activating his power pack again, blowing away the smoke obscuring whatever was above them.

Above was a roaring wall of pulsing, living dark energy, appearing in all its void-like nebulous glory. In front of it stood three tall figures clad in threatening armor.

Everyone in the Crimson Light were collectively taken aback, with most bar HUE, AVA, and KVN gasping simultaneously as they quickly came to realize who exactly was there right now.

"That is not good," HUE spoke first. "Everyone be careful. It is the Mad Tenebri."

"Mad Tenebri?" said Fox. "You talking about the dark-matter terrorists?"

HUE went on, "That is correct. Most of them have already been detained and incarcerated, but their leader and both top lieutenants continued to evade authorities."

"Gary, Little Cato, listen," Quinn called to both of them, "The whole galaxy's been after the Mad Tenebri for the last 30 years. They're the spearhead for Tenebrus crimes everywhere. Now we're looking at their leader." Neither of them said anything while she was talking, their eyes still fixated on the purple figure sitting high above them. "The gear you got isn't equipped for dealing with someone that dangerous. Wait for backup!"

Little Cato's eyes narrowed. "So that's their leader, huh?"

"Little Cato!" Quinn exclaimed in a reprimanding tone.

"Quinn, just get these people out of here," Gary cut in calmly. "Their safety's our top priority. I'll look after Little Cato." Quinn looked at him for a moment and then sighed with an exasperated growl. She closed the shuttle gate and began moving the Hawk away from the site, all the civilians still safe inside.

"Just don't do anything crazy!" Quinn warned over the comms.

Tribore happened to butt in on their comm link too. "You know telling 'em that's just gonna make 'em do exactly that, right?"

"Darn right!" Little Cato declared daringly, pointing an arm with a mounted anti-matter blaster at the three Mad Tenebri standing above. "A little puff of dark matter isn't gonna scare me off! I'm gonna get these guys, and I'm gonna get 'em so good! Come get some, you dark space demons!"

No later had Little Cato yelled that, the teal and turquoise figures on their vehicles immediately streaked off and down towards him and Gary. Gary fired at the armor-clad pair with his own anti-matter blasters, quickly accompanied by Little Cato's. The two Tenebri on their vehicles each lifted a clawed hand to shoot out blasts of dark energy. The collision between the beams shot from both sides caused a black cloud to explode between them, to which the armored figures then blew through as though it were another wall to crash down. They were both getting awfully close and awfully fast, which was why Little Cato just kept on shooting. However, all of his blasts were swiftly knocked away with a few dark matter-charged slashes of the two adversaries swinging their claws. One blast did manage to knock the bulky turquoise one off balance, but the big armored rider immediately somersaulted back upright while still seated on the ATV and swung an open clawed hand aimed at Little Cato's mech suit. With a pulverizing swipe, the turquoise Tenebrus smashed one of Little Cato's mech suit arms off, sending Little Cato staggering.

"Little Cato!" Gary shouted, immediately turning back to fire his blasters at the other armored enemy, the teal one. The teal Tenebrus swung left and right, directing the bike they were riding on to avoid Gary's shots. Gary directed both blasters forward, charging up the next shot for a combined super shot. He managed to fire a bigger and more powerful beam, but the teal one swiftly jumped with their bike over said beam just as it fired into the floor while shooting their own beams at Gary's blast to create another smoke screen. Gary took to using the pack on his mech suit's back to blow the smoke away, but there wasn't enough time before the teal one dove straight for him, giving a clawed swipe of their own that knocked away the pack, making Gary stumble a bit as well. He looked back at Little Cato to see that he still wasn't doing so well.

Little Cato was desperately shooting at the turquoise Tenebrus with his remaining mech arm, but also had to use it to try and parry the incoming strikes. He even had to resort to sticking one of his real arms outside the control seat to shoot with a smaller handheld anti-matter pistol he kept holstered for emergencies like this. It already didn't help that the turquoise one didn't give him any time at all to properly juggle both these things. Before he knew it, the turquoise one zoomed right behind him and destroyed his other mech arm, leaving Little Cato's mech suit completely armless.

Gary knew things absolutely went from bad to worse. Taking his attention off the teal Tenebrus, he heaved himself in Little Cato's direction, running as fast as he could towards the Ventrexian and placing himself in front of him protectively.

"Gary, what are you doing?" Little Cato protested.

"Getting you out of this pickle!" Gary answered as clearly as he could over the noise. He raised his dual blasters and tried to shoot at both the turquoise and teal Tenebri, whom he now had two moving targets to deal with.

That went as well as one would expect. As he tried to shoot on one side to another, the two armored enemies sideswiped Gary back and forth multiple times, picking off his arms one slash at a time until he too was armless. Gary resorted to taking out his own anti-matter pistol, which prompted the teal one to swing their claws under him, destroying the legs of his mech suit. Gary tumbled out and onto the floor, his body laid completely vulnerable while still holding on to his pistol.

"GARY!" Little Cato cried, crouching down with what was left of his mech suit to shield the blond. At the same time, he couldn't ignore the taunting laughter of the two armored Tenebri circling around him and Gary in their vehicles, surrounding them both in flaming trails of teal and turquoise ether. He could even make out some of their own verbal taunts, ones like:

"That all you got? Boy, what talkers!"

"So much for anti-Tenebrus fighters, Crimson Kittens!"

At the same time, Quinn and the rest of the crew had just witnessed what happened on the monitors back on the main ship after regrouping.

"Those idiots! I told them their gear's not equipped for this!" Quinn exclaimed in apprehensive anger. "The mech suits are too heavy to compete with high-speed vehicles!" She turned, getting ready to go back out there.

"Chookity-pok," Mooncake interjected.

"Well, the mech suits are light enough to be a lot faster than regular Infinity Guard models," Tribore chipped in, "but these guys are just faster." He didn't seem perceptive to the fact that Quinn was now giving him a simmering glare in his direction.

Luckily for him, Fox jumped in with a wary smile, "He meant to say that they're too fast."

HUE patched in his comms to Little Cato. "Little Cato, do you still see the pack that was on Gary's mech suit before?"

Little Cato scanned the area until he spotted it lying a few feet away from him. "Uh, yeah. What of it, HUE?"

"I added a special surprise in it for occasions like this. Just get it onto your mech suit."

"And how do I do tha –" Little Cato didn't need to get an answer from HUE once he spotted Gary getting back on his feet and dashing towards the pack. "Gary!" he called out.

"Man! And I wanted to use it first…" Gary muttered to himself despite that the noise from the attacking Tenebri drowned out his words anyways. With a dive, he managed to grab the pack and then spin around with it, flinging it into the air at Little Cato. "Don't worry, Spider Cat!" he yelled to the befuddled orange Ventrexian. "It's prepped and ready to go anytime! I just turned it on!"

To Little Cato's amazement, the pack opened and unfolded in midair, getting bigger and more complex as it revealed itself to be a whole new exoskeleton. Said exoskeleton immediately homed in on Little Cato and opened to encase itself around his remaining exoskeleton. In the span of a few seconds, he had just gotten himself a whole new and improved mech suit to operate. "Whoa!" Little Cato could only gasp. "Gary? HUE? What's this about?"

HUE merely clicked a button on his monitor. This somehow caused Little Cato's new mech suit to display a hologram displaying a series of pictures on it, prompting even both the turquoise and teal Tenebri to stop riding and stare at what was being presented.

"The sun might be gone but the moon still shines! Behold!" Gary stepped forward, holding his hands in front of Little Cato's new mech suit like a class project. "The new generation of mech-suit, the first Crimson Light-exclusive prototype of its kind ever! Built with gadgets based on private anti-Tenebrus research not even the Infinity Guard's been doing, this baby's a wild card born from the shadows! If you guys think you got us figured, you got another thing coming!"

Little Cato just blinked and looked at Gary for a second before turning back to the three Mad Tenebri. "Yeah, what he said! You bet I'm not gonna let you do whatever you want, you little shrinking violets!"

The magenta Tenebrus sitting on their throne simply looked at the display with little to no reaction. The teal and turquoise Tenebri down below seemed a little more receptive.

"What's up with these guys?" the turquoise one asked.

"Beats me," the teal one responded dispassionately.

The turquoise Tenebrus opened their arms, shooting a flurry of dark energy blasts at Little Cato. "Get smacked, kitty!"

The blasts rapidly closed in around Little Cato, but he revved up a pair of accelerators on the mech suit's feet and streaked away before impact. He zipped left and right, dodging each and every incoming blast, in which he remained amazed at how well he was handling the new toy on the first try. When another dark blast came his way, he jumped and rolled right on its trail and then slid on it like skating on a handrail, jumping off and landing right behind the turquoise Tenebrus, grabbing them in a deadly hug.

"What the –" the turquoise Tenebrus cried before they were cut off by Little Cato's mech suit spraying something. Little Cato then jumped out of the vapor cloud created by what he just did, spinning around in the air while holding on to a cube of crystal, the turquoise Tenebrus encased inside of it. Little Cato slammed the cube onto the floor, splitting it in half while simultaneously cracking the turquoise Tenebrus's armor in half as well, exposing the wearer inside. Little Cato fired three small shots at the wearer, binding the ankles, wrist, and neck with the same crystalline substance. The downed and pinned individual appeared to be a short and teal-skinned adult Hooblot, the bald head indicative of a male. He appeared to wear a pale shirt with black X-like suspenders, dark pants, and yellow boots and shoulder pads.

"That's one!" Little Cato yelled. Gary had already run towards the downed Hooblot and knelt down to secure him, keeping his pistol pointed at him the whole time.

"Melvin!" the teal Tenebrus called out while looking at their downed comrade, noticing too late that Little Cato had just zipped by them and jammed a rod into the spokes of their bike's front wheel, flipping them over. "Ah!" Little Cato shot out a stream of shots that covered the teal Tenebrus in a cluster of crystalline cubes in midair. The trapped Tenebrus landed upside down onto the floor, the impact splitting them in half too, exposing the wearer to be another adult Hooblot. Little Cato fired another series of small shots to immobilize the Hooblot, noting that this one was thinner and taller than the other one. There was a head of brown hair on the scalp, indicating that it was a female and she had turquoise skin. She was wearing a pale tan single that went from her collar down to half her thighs like a skirt and a vermillion jacket that went over said single, along with an equally pale pair of boots.

"Devlin, no." the teal Hooblot known as Melvin gasped, vainly attempting to reach out to her. He could only watch as Gary moved to secure her as well.

Little Cato skidded to a stop. "And that's two!" he proclaimed, his eyes now facing the top where the magenta Tenebrus still sat on their void matter-throne. "Your turn, big boss!" He kept an anti-matter blaster held up and pointed at the reclined figure as he continued to yell. "Come on down off your high chair, why don't you? And fight me, one-on-one!"

To be continued…