Chapter 21: The Finish Drawing Near

September 25th, 2006 9:15pm

Jimmy's Lab

"So you're this Gortox I've heard about?" Jimmy asked with caution.

"In the flesh," Gortox smirked. "I suppose you have some questions."

"I've got thirteen to ask." Jimmy responded. "Although above all else, why… Why would you orchestrate something like this? What did I do to you?" I need to stall for time he thought as he slowly back toward the shrink ray on his desk.

"Seeing that your fate will be sealed soon, I suppose it's only fair that you know why," he said with a sadistic grin. "First it started when you meddled with Junkman's delivery of my gravidiscs."

"Gravidiscs… Wait, that was because he was gonna turn Brobot's parents into scrap metal!"

"If you hadn't stepped in, I would've had what was mine!" Gortox nearly shouted as he walked closer; Jimmy's still backing away. "In any case, I initially chalked it up to him being incompetent. No, it wasn't that. It was when you won the Intergalactic Showdown! You and your little band of friends could've just taken your prize and left and let tradition play out, but no! You had to bring the whole thing down! That show kept the natural order of things with the strong thriving and the weak nonexistent. The Xoron Empire was always on top. But since that show's no more, our rule is being seen as vulnerable across the universe. So now…" Jimmy grabbed the shrink ray and held it behind his back. Gortox then opened his eyes. "I have to make it known that the Xoron Empire will always be in charge, and that starts with snuffing you out!"

Jimmy then took this opportunity to fire the shrink ray at him, which Gortox dodged and scoffed. The blast hit the Chrono-Arch. He then activated his jetpack, flew past him and grabbed the arch before he had a chance to react. "Mom! Dad! Get out of here!"

"We're not leaving without you!" Judy responded to which Hugh nodded.

Gortox saw this opportunity to fly towards the two of them and attack. April got her club out and charged at him. "Not so fast!"

"Vox! Run 'Evac and Quarantine' program!" Jimmy ordered. Jimmy grabbed April and went to his parents. A glass tube surrounded the four of them and shot them up to the surface. Gortox on the other hand had a metal container surrounding him. He noticed an N-men packet left untouched and let out one last smirk before he was entirely encapsulated.

"Is everyone alright?" Jimmy asked the three of them as they were now outside..

"So far so good Jim-Jam." Hugh said. Judy and April nodded in agreement.

"Good, now we just-" Jimmy began saying before the clubhouse beside them exploded and they were thrown back by the impact. Gortox then flew above the debris looking down at them.

"Did you seriously believe that could stop me?" Gortox laughed. Using the power of his matrix generators, he made boulders which were thrown in Jimmy's direction. Instinctually, he activated his power siphon and sliced through the boulders. However, the pieces of it were close to hitting his parents. Jimmy then decided to fly towards Gortox to prevent any casualties. Gortox then threw more boulders Jimmy's way to where he dodged and sliced. However, unbeknownst to him, Gortox secretly hid Jimmy's N-Men packet in one of the boulders. Upon slicing it, a green cloud engulfed Jimmy's line of sight.

"Leaping leptons!" Jimmy said in shock. "How did you-?"

Gortox then grabbed Jimmy by the collar and threw him across the street near the Vortex house. Jimmy was able to slow down his fall with his weapon scraping the ground. April then fought Gortox as Judy and Hugh ran back towards Jimmy who's hair was gradually turning green and his skin orange.

"Jimmy! Are you alright?!" Judy asked.

"I'll be fine. You need to get out of here!" Jimmy demanded.

"No way son. We're not leaving without you!" Hugh retorted.

April used her staff against Gortox, but he merely toyed with her. "Do you honestly think you have a better chance at stopping me than the rest of your extinct species?" She was infuriated by this comment and struck him in the chest. "Hmm, not bad. Still leaves room for improvement though." He used the matrix generators to teleport her to another area in the city.

"APRIL!" Jimmy said in shock. Then he looked at his parents. "Please leave! Staying with me will only hurt you guys! I'm what he wants!"

"Don't say that!" Judy held his hand. "We're family!"

"And families stick together." Hugh held his other hand. Jimmy was speechless and shedded a tear.

"...I love you both."

"We love you too."

"As cute as this moment is," Gortox spoke as he got closer. "I'm afraid the poor boy is right." He then used the generators' power to push Jimmy's parents into the building, knocking them both out.

Jimmy was in shock as he ran to them. "Mom?! Dad?!" He shook them in an attempt to wake them up, but to no avail. "Come on! Wake up!" He then went to listen for a heartbeat, but their heart rates are severely low. He then lowered his head in tears.

"You always knew how to start problems and put people in danger!" Gortox smirked.

"Like you?" Jimmy spoke in a low voice. "You're the one that caused all of this…"

"Was I the one that sent a signal to the Yolkians or took down the Intergalactic Showdown? I think not. That was all you're doing. You're a magnet to danger and all those that come close to you are harmed. So before I finish this, I must ask how you feel, boy?"

"From all that's happened in the past few hours… I feel… devastated. You're going to pay for all this…" Jimmy closed his eyes. "I… feel…" He then opened his eyes as he tossed the arch to the side. "RAGE!" Jimmy's eyes turned from a blue to a green color that glowed, then gradually transformed into his hulk-like form as he got bulkier and took off his shirt so it didn't get ripped (See N-Men). "JIMMY SMASH SPACE LIZARD!" He then proceeded to punch Gortox a few hundred feet down the street. He then ran after him to jump and punch him into the pavement.

Gortox then teleported behind and put a hand to his lip. He noticed a little bit of green blood emitting from it. He then chuckled, "Gotta say, I've underestimated you! I honestly didn't expect that substance to make you strong-!" He was then cut off by Jimmy punching Gortox again.

"Fine, I'll save the monologues for later," Gortox sighed as Jimmy was about to throw another punch only to get blocked. They both proceeded to fight.

Meanwhile near Lindbergh Elementary, Betty and Libby were running with the soldiers to neutralize any threat they saw. They came across Carl. "Hey Carl!" Betty called out.

"Oh hey guys! How are you doing?" Carl said pleased. The soldiers proceeded to go on ahead as the three were catching up.

"Oh ya know," Libby joked. "Went shopping, grabbed a bite to eat and took down Calamitous."

"That's great! At least one down," Carl laughed. He then spoke in a more somber manner. "I-I'm worried about Elke."

"Hey, don't worry. One of us will find her soon." Betty put a hand to Carl's shoulder. "Hopefully the rest of us are doing alright."

"Oh they're alright for the time being." Meldar hovered in with a squad of Yolkians. "Unfortunately, I can't say the same for you three jelly bags." The three prepared to fight.

Meanwhile on a skyscraper, Nick fought Eustace for a bit with a few punches and shots here and there. However, once he disarmed Eustace, he was pretty easy to knock out. "Heh, pathetic." Nick then tied him up and teleported him to where a group of soldiers were to take him in. He then proceeded to teleport more refugees he could find.

Sheen was still on the jet with Yoo-Yee drawing near. He noticed the Chicken Ships going down one by one around him. Once he landed on the jet, the two fought like before with both making sure not to fall, well mostly Sheen. Yoo-Yee first got the advantage with a roundhouse kick, knocking him back. Then Sheen decided to speed punch his way back to him. While he blocked them, it gradually pushed him back to the edge. Sheen took advantage of this and jumped to tackle him off the jet into one of the Chicken Ships, just before the jet they were on crashed. The ship they were on gave more room for combat and less to worry about. Still, it was a tight fight with flurries of punches and kicks thrown around.

"I will admit, you have gotten a bit stronger since our last encounter," Yoo-Yee sighed. "...But this ends today!"

"Hayahh!" Cindy flew in and threw a kick to him which caused him to fly back. "Not on my watch Johnny Lawrence!"

Sheen said, confused. "That's not his name!"

"It was a reference to- nevermind." Cindy attempted to explain.

He managed to catch himself and shouted in frustration. "You again?! You're always getting in my way of victory!"

"Victory? For what, a tagline?" Cindy quipped.

"Is everything a joke to you?" He retorted angrily. "Why must you both always intervene in my destiny?!"

"Because I will follow Ultra-Lord's ways in protecting his friends and family!" Sheen explained. "And I'm not letting you stop me over a title!"

"Very well! Once I take you both down, it'll be all the more satisfying!" He and the others began to duke it out. Cindy and Sheen nodded at each other and they both attacked him from opposite sides. Sheen ran around him to throw a flurry of punches, but Yoo-Yee dodged him and kicked him from under. Cindy flew to Yoo-Yee to kick him, but he grabbed her leg. "Gotcha!"

"More like the other way around." Cindy smirked as she swung her other leg at Yoo-Yee, causing him to let go and getting launched into the air. Sheen got up and saw this opportunity to run up and jump at Yoo-Yee before he could catch himself and kicked him back down to the ship, dealing a powerful enough blow for the ship to start losing altitude.

"Whoa! We gotta bail!" Sheen ran up to Cindy.

"Take my hands!" Cindy held them out. He took hold and they flew away from the crashing ship.

"Not so fast!" Yoo-Yee shouted as he shook off the pain and flew towards them.

"Don't you ever stop?" Sheen said, annoyed.

"I won't stop until I've earned my title!"

Cindy threw Sheen at Yoo-Yee to throw a punch and retained her speed to throw one herself. He caught the punches, but the momentum kept going as he was about to crash into the road below. The three of them hit the ground with Yoo-Yee hitting head-first.

"It's your turn to hold on!" Sheen got up, carried Cindy and started running.

"What're you doing?" She asked annoyedly. "I can still take him Ultradu-" She then looked at what they were running from. Yoo-Yee was dozing off until the last second when he looked and saw the ship they previously escaped from crashing on top of him. "Never mind."

Sheen then slowed down for Cindy to get off and they found themselves a couple dozen Yolkians which both of them got ready to fight.

Back to Jimmy and Gortox, they kept throwing hands for a while until he noticed the previous ship crash. Jimmy was about to tackle him, only for Gortox to block him. "As fun as this recklessness has been, I think it's time to get into the heart of the matter." He then electrocuted Jimmy and right as he was about to punch back, Gortox smiled as he pushed him so far, it went through a few houses and hit a brick wall following that. "Time to really make you feel the fear and pain!" He then looked to where his parents were, but they were nowhere to be seen. "Okay, I'll improvise," Gortox said to himself. His vision was precise up to 30 miles and he squinted his eyes to see Cindy and Sheen fighting off the horde. He then smirked as he was about to activate his power as he teleported away.

Cindy and Sheen took a breather as there weren't any enemies nearby. "Whoo! That was a doozy!"

"You said it," Cindy sighed. "This has been one crazy night."

"Thanks for the help by the way." Sheen held out his fist.

"Sure thing," Cindy fist bumped. "Thanks for taking out that last ship. I'm guessing those Ultra-Lord episodes paid off?" She joked.

"Darn straight!" He laughed. "What do you say we head back to the others?"

"Yeah." Right as they were about to move, Gortox teleported behind Cindy, grabbed her and teleported in front of Jimmy. Before she could even react, he extended one of his claws and stabbed her in the hip. She fell to the ground and whatever strength she had was fading. "J-Jimmy?"

Jimmy noticed this immediately and yelled at the top of his lungs. "GET AWAY FROM BLOND GIRL!"

Gortox wasn't fazed in the slightest as he retained his smirk. Jimmy ran to deliver a rageful blow with his left arm. Gortox without a second thought, extended his claws and sliced most of Jimmy's arm clean off. Overwhelmed by the pain, Jimmy let out a scream that became a whimper as his hulk-like form faded. His eyes reverted back to blue as well as his hair and skin going back to normal colors too. Gortox then laughed as he placed the two of them next to each other. "Never underestimate me Neutron," he gloated. "For you will pay the price. Now that your legacy's tainted and you're suffering, allow me to at least free you from your pain." Gortox was about to use the Matrix Generators to wipe them out of existence, when a blur passed through. He looked at what it was and chuckled at the sight of Sheen carrying Jimmy and Cindy while running away. "Impressive… Very well! If you want to continue suffering, then feel free to do so!"

To Be Continued…