Author's note: I'm so sorry I was late! I was busy at a Christmas party on Thursday and I didn't have time to write and post things on the Internet! But I'm only half-hour late before Christmas Day! Merry Christmas, everyone! Here's my present to you all!
CHAPTER 12: Healings and Offers
"That's General Hawk??" Stego gasped, hardly able to believe it.
"General…?" asked a stunned Blind Master, "But…how…you two know each other??"
"Let's just say Gideon owes me a favor," Hawk said enigmatically as he glared at Gideon who was now actually looking murderously anguished and scandalously indignant. If it was possible for anger to boil blood, Gideon's would be overflowing madly.
David was floored, beyond incredulous, as he stuttered, "An army general?? On our side??! And he knows about the Whitelighters?!!"
General Hawk gave David a reassuring glance of truth.
"G.I. Joe has seen and witnessed its fair shares of things beyond human belief, Mr. McLagan."
Meanwhile, Krygaw and Damionax were befuddled and impatient. At the sight of the Elder ceasing his cause, the rest of the Whitelighter army followed suit, afraid that if they struck the Dinosaucers and their friends before Gideon could, they would be inadvertently undermining the Elder's authority. This pause infuriated the two immortal sons of Gideon. They were so close to eliminating their half-brother and securing their places as Gideon's left and right hands of the thrones of the Whitelighter kingdom. So why was their father stopping the attack?
Gideon's voice was haggard, ragged in breathing, as he forcefully hissed, "This is none of your concern, Hawk. You have no say in this."
General Hawk seemed mildly amused, if not smug, as he said, "The Council wouldn't seem to think so, especially since I now invoke the Oath of Abraham."
There was a hushed silence on the battlefield, and every person's attention was now focused on Elder Gideon who, if it even was possible, was further outraged. The leader of the Whitelighters was no fool; he knew exactly well what the G.I. Joe general would ask for.
"Father!" exclaimed Krygaw in shock, "You promised this mortal and swore to him the Oath of Abraham?!!"
"What's going on?" Bronto-Thunder whispered.
"I think we're about to find out," murmured Montacera, "but I can tell you one thing: Gideon doesn't look too happy about this."
"When I gave that vow to you, it was in haste," Gideon groused to the G.I. Joe general, shaking violently, "Hawk, I beseech you, to use the Oath of Abraham for something else, at some other time. I can give you riches, powers, command over invincible armies, comforts beyond your wildest dreams…just do not interfere with this moment. I can't grant what you will ask for! I will not allow it!!"
General Hawk didn't even bat an eye at the high-pitched timbre of Gideon's wrath.
"As tempting as that may be, you know the rules better than I do. And the law of the Whitelighters and Council of Immortals clearly states that the Oath of Abraham must be fulfilled whenever called on. And right now, I could honestly say I don't give a damn how you feel about it, just as how I know you don't give a damn about me, Gideon. But when you threaten the lives of the Misfits and Joes, people who are under my command and ward…that's when I give a damn."
Gideon was backpedaling furiously as he clarified, "You are obviously a victim of a grave misunderstanding, my dear Hawk. I would have never laid a single hand on those mutants' heads had I known you were so protective of them. I will gladly release them back into your custody with full pardon."
"He's lying, the two-faced slag!!" Compy yelled out while still incarcerated by the rings pinning him to the sandy floor.
"Don't listen to him, Hawk!! He would have killed them along with Justin and us! He already stabbed Allo!!!" Itchy hollered, but a Whitelighter nearby angrily rammed the pummelstone on the butt of his black sword into Itchy's stomach, causing the Dinosaucer to sink to his knees in pain, wincing.
"Relax, Dinosaucers," General Hawk replied, "I know what Gideon is capable of, and I'm not exactly stupid enough to rely on just his word. And I also trust the testimony of the Blind Master, considering that he witnessed what you planned to do to Justin and what little family has is blessed with."
"The fool is obviously lying," sneered Damionax disdainfully, "after all, you cannot exactly trust a crippled mortal to tell you an unbiased fabrication."
One bold Whitelighter then shouted angrily, "Elder Gideon, why must we tolerate this garbage?!! This General Hawk has no command over us or our actions!! He cannot do anything to stop us even if he wished it!! We owe no allegiance to him or any of his pitiful kind!! We can do whatever we please with the half-breed and his family! Surely the Council can overlook your debt to such an insignificant cretin!"
"Silence, Uriah!!" snapped Gideon sharply, and all the Whitelighters knew that Gideon was like a caged animal huddled in the corner, defensive and desperate for a way out of this fiasco without losing his pride and dignity. Unfortunately, there was only one solution, and Gideon was extremely loathed to take it.
Hawk then ordered steely, "Under the Oath of Abraham, I, General Hawk, ask Elder Gideon of the Whitelighters to repay a debt of the past. My request is for the hate curse to be lifted off Justin, the mutant child of the Dinosaucers, and to be left alone to live a peaceful life with his friends and family."
The crescendo of angry voices of protest from the Whitelighters was loud enough to boom and echo throughout the desert mountains, and it nearly caused those witnessing this exchange to go deaf.
"No way General Hawk can expect the scum-bag to keep that promise!" Itchy muttered during the uproar.
Ryan then said thoughtfully, "I dunno, Itchy. This Oath of Abraham seems like a big deal to Gideon. He seemed so desperate to bargain with Hawk about it. I think that if Hawk's making a request right now, Gideon has no choice but to follow it."
Raptor then roughly muttered, "I agree with Ryan. Pride and honor may be the Whitelighter's downfall, but it may also be our trump card. Gideon would rather let Justin live than admit to his kingdom and to the other immortal races that he refused to uphold the laws he boasts so much about, that he is powerless to even grant the wish of a mortal human. There's too much at stake for that. The Elder knows that, and so does Hawk. If Gideon doesn't let Justin live, he loses the honor and respect of the leader of the Whitelighters."
"You're the last one to talk about pride and honor, Tyrannos!" snapped Bronto-Thunder irritably.
"Stuff it, dino-pig," Raptor shot back.
"Go play in a lava-pit, chopper-face!" Bronto-Thunder grumbled.
"Not now, you two! Honestly, Raptor, if it isn't Compy, if it isn't Itchy, then it's Bronto-Thunder!" Paul griped through clenched teeth.
The velociraptor sniffed, "I daresay I cannot help it if I'm constantly surrounded by brain-dead idiots whose sole reasons of being on the Dinosaucers are due to pity of a soon-to-be-deceased allosaur!"
"Why you little, smart-mouthed -!" Bronto-Thunder hissed as he was about to grab Raptor by the throat and wring him by the neck before planning to slam Raptor's skull to the ground like a basketball. Itchy and Compy looked like they too were ready to join in the beat-down. Luckily enough, Struthio, Teryx and Plateo managed to intervene before things got ugly, angrily shushing them as the rest of the group focused on listening to the furious debacle between Hawk and Gideon all the meanwhile.
"There is no way we will let that bastard child live!" howled one Whitelighter solider furiously.
"Hearsay, my Lord! The mortal speaks of hearsay!!" shouted another.
"My Lord, do not grant such a decree!! It would be disastrous, intolerable!! Our race will surely perish if that half-breed survives!!" bellowed a Whitelighter, so outraged, he threw his scythe down to the sand. Damionax decided to act now before it was too late. With a rush, the son of the Elder rushed directly towards Justin with his axe bared and poised for a single, quick attack. The mutant teenager was now on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably, next to the slowly-dying form of Allo, the Dinosaucer's blood forming a pool around him and his son, the dinosaur's hand twitching weakly in Justin's. It would be swift and final.
"Justin!" shrieked Teryx and Sarah as Damionax was about to perform the execution. The Whitelighter had darted so fast and suddenly, none of the Dinosaucers and the Secret Scouts could do anything to stop Damionax, though Raptor, Blind Master and Struthio attempted to intercept the immortal with a scurry of their feet. Unfortunately, the two Dinosaucers and ninja master would never reach Justin in time.
"Jus…tin…" Allo managed to weakly croak, and the teenager managed to look up only to see fleeting moments of the downward path of the axe descending to his skull. Giving a single whimper, Justin shut his eyes and cringed with his hands brought to his temples instinctively, as a feeble attempt to lessen the incoming pain or as some sort of protection, unaware his fear just jump-started another rush of adrenaline and impulse.
Within a split-second, the axe disappeared within a plethora of white lights and sparks before it completely orbed out of Damionax's hands, leaving him weaponless, and the only thing that struck Justin was a small gust of air from the Whitelighter's passing hand. With another flash, the axe appeared next to Justin, materializing out of a cloud of holy luminescence before flying directly towards the soldier in an ironic twist. Bewildered, Damionax managed to orb out of the way of the weapon, yet he was unable to prevent the weapon from wounding him. With a hiss, Damionax reappeared again in front of Justin, holding his forearm gingerly, and Justin, to his amazement, could see telltale drops of blood trickling from the cracks of the Whitelighter's fingers. The Whitelighter had been injured…by his own weapon. The black, deadly axe was now lying in the ground with the head embedded into the sand. The very weapon Damionax was about to attack Justin with was simply turned against him, reflected back like all the other attacks the Misfits used against Justin previously before.
Damionax turned to Justin with absolute venom and vengeance, his blue eyes blazing with cold fire.
"You damned son of a bitch. No one has ever managed to disarm me from my axe," he said in a low voice, dripping with malice.
"There's a first time for everything," shot back Ryan.
The Whitelighters were stunned at the debacle. Damionax was one of the greatest warriors to ever grace the Whitelighter race, the sole commander of hundreds of soldiers and armies, fearless, undefeated, and a proud champion. To be thwarted by a pitiful half-breed child was surely an ultimate humiliation. Justin was immediately frightened.
"I'm…I'm sorry!" Justin gasped fearfully, "I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"
Assured and relieved, General Hawk then turned his attention back to Gideon.
"Looks like fate certainly has ways of screwing you over, considering that Justin's powers of telekinetic orbing have managed to protect him thus far."
"Telekinetic orbing??" Dimetro asked, confused, overhearing this.
"I've heard of telekinesis, but that's a new one," Tricero frowned, his pain momentarily forgotten.
"I guess it's the Whitelighter blood in him that makes it so different," murmured Montacera who was still by Tricero's side.
Gideon, however, was still dragging his feet, unwilling to follow the code of honor.
"I will not grant such a request, General Hawk. Can you realize what his existence would mean to me and my people? Our lineage has been tainted with, cracked and broken! With his bloodline, he could be the doom that could wipe out the Whitelighter race and extinguish the holy light of the immortals! Our race must remain pure to survive!!"
General Hawk then gave a smug grin as he highlighted, "I can't say I buy that bullshit. Your race was hardly 'pure' to begin with. I believe that Justin is hardly the first one of your…'oversights'. After all, if I recall my knowledge correctly, wasn't there another one of your past mistakes that you allowed to live due to circumstances beyond your control? Let me clarify: do the names Paige Matthews and Wyatt Matthew Halliwell ring any bells?" (See Author's note)
Gideon turned absolutely purple with rage as he hissed furiously, "How did you know about them??"
"You'd be surprised how extensive and thorough G.I. Joe observes and investigates strange phenomena, Gideon. We may be mortal, but we aren't stupid."
"Sounds like Gideon and his Whitelighters have been very busy," David smirked.
Stego frowned as he tried to make sense of it all. He asked with disbelief, "Wait a minute! So there are other Whitelighter half-breeds out there?!"
"Stego! Don't use that term!" scolded Sarah, and the stegosaurus immediately looked remorseful. However, he was still puzzled from the revelation, and he wasn't the only one.
Plateo then asked, "But…but if Justin is not the only hybrid of a Whitelighter and a mortal human being…then why in the name of Reptilion is he being singled out for such abominable treatment and punishment?!"
Hawk then answered with revulsion, "That's because the other children were from other Whitelighters, or lesser Whitelighters of importance and rank, if you will. Justin, however, is of Gideon's blood, so that makes him the illegitimate son of the very leader of the Whitelighters, the Elder himself. That's why he was torturing the kid so much…because Elder Gideon has a personal vendetta against him. After all, it'll be a real royal scandal, to know that the very leader and ruler of the Whitelighters has allowed himself to integrate with the common, inferior humans, who are neither witches nor wizards or anything that they deem important."
Elder Gideon looked wrathful enough to kill every single person in the desert witnessing this.
"Wait, Justin's royalty?" Itchy gaped.
Struthio then looked at Justin in awe before saying, "Then…in a twisted sort of way, you'd be some kind of prince."
Plateo then remembered that Krygaw and Damionax were Gideon's own sons.
"And that would also highlight that the Whitelighters, Krygaw and Damionax, would be your half-brothers," the Dinosaucer remarked quietly.
Now Krygaw and Damionax looked angry enough to kill, with Krygaw silently fuming and Damionax appearing tormented enough to explode. General Hawk then said in a final tone, "Well, Gideon, I'm waiting. I already invoked the Oath of Abraham, and by your laws, you have to keep your promise. After all, the Council of Immortals would already sense what has just happened here, so they'd be a bit miffed if you broke the very laws they created. Keep in mind, Gideon…you're not the only immortal leader in this world, and not every immortal shares your beliefs of pure blood."
There was a gut-wrenching silence. Then, with great torment and agony, a red-faced Gideon then intoned in a powerful, quivering voice:
What has been cast,
Must now be undone.
Release this curse
From the impure son.
Sadness, isolation, spite, and misery…
The spell is broken,
Your suffering has ended,
Do as you will and as you please.
With a soft glimmer, Justin's body was outlined with a strange purple haze before it died, fading away into nothingness. His heart pounding, Justin just knelt there in the sand, stunned and frightened. What if it didn't work? What if it was too good to be true? Would this truly end the suffering Justin had gone through for so long?
David then managed to do a very risky yet noble thing. Steeping directly in front of the adolescent and fixing his eyes on Justin, the raven-haired adult took a deep breath before removing his Secret Scout Ring from his finger. There was a collective gasp from all around as David and Justin locked eyes.
A full second passed, then two, then three.
Justin felt incredibly cold as he continued to stare at his friend…until David then let out a huge, warm grin, his eyes twinkling.
"Kid, you're free," he said. Upon hearing this, Sarah, Paul and Ryan followed David example, and to their joy, they found he was telling the truth. Even without the protection of the Secret Scout Rings, they only looked upon Justin and saw nothing but the innocent, gentle teenager they had all known and loved, without hate, horror, or revulsion of any sort.
"Oh Justin!" Sarah cried out with joy as she enveloped Justin in a hug.
"The curse…it's broken! It's really broken!!" Paul laughed, his voice shaking with excitement.
Ryan didn't say anything, partly because he was still ashamed, but he gave Justin a much relived smile of happiness and thankfulness, without any bitterness.
They weren't the only ones. With a soft pop, the rings of light that were binding Compy, the Misfits, and the Joes soldiers disappeared. With a soft landing, all the Misfits and their parents were staring upon the scene with dazed looks and amazement.
"Whoa, what happened?" groaned Fred as he stood up, wobbly and holding a hand to his dizzy head, with Lina trying her best to support her friend from stumbling back onto the sand.
"Oh my God, what were we doing?!!" Wanda gasped as the memories of what she did under the curse came rushing back into her consciousness.
The Dinosaucers were still a bit wary around the mutants who had previously tried to kill them, but now they began to lessen their guards as Bonehead asked, "You…you guys remember? You remember what you did??"
Wavedancer nodded, white in the face at the thought of how she nearly killed her sensei, the Blind Master. Xi was actually trembling, one of the few times he had ever shown fear and helplessness. Toad then turned to Ryan and Dimetro, his yellow eyes full of regret and with the air of a meek puppy-dog, harmless and in a way, sort of cute.
"We're sorry, yo. We didn't mean to attack you Dinosaucers and all."
Ryan then nodded his acceptance, and Dimetro shakily managed to smile.
Avalanche then asked worriedly, "Is Justin all right? He's not hurt is he??"
Struthio shook his head, but he said worriedly, "Physically, no…but…"
The struthiomimus then indicated to the fallen Allo with a nod of his head, and the Misfits and Joes saw that Justin was still heavily grieving at his slowly-dying father lying beside him.
"No," murmured Spirit with dread, blanching at the sight.
Meanwhile, Krygaw, Damionax and the other Whitelighters were extremely vengeful and feeling cheated. Helpless, they all could only listen to their Elder as Gideon then commanded, "Whitelighters…return back to our realm."
With thousands upon thousands of beautiful, sparkling flashes and miniature lights of the holiest silver and white, the Whitelighters orbed away, disappearing from this God-forsaken mud-planet. Yet before Gideon disappeared, he shot a hateful look upon General Hawk, the Misfits, the Dinosaucers and the Secret Scouts before pointing a quivering, loathing-filled finger at Justin.
"This is far from over, Justin," Gideon hissed, "You may be banished from our holy kingdom, but I shall not rest until I can laugh with joy upon seeing your miserable grave. Mark my words, you damned half-breed, there will be a reckoning."
"Hey, what about Allo, you bastard?!!" yelled Shipwreck angrily, "You just stabbed him!! Get back here and fix up the damage you did to the kid and his father!!!"
Gideon then smirked as he orbed away wordlessly, leaving them with the current problem unresolved. At least he made sure that one aspect of the half-breed's life would be ruined.
"That double-crossing, self-righteous asshole!!" Blind Master swore, his hand clenched around his cane in rage. General Hawk sadly shook his head.
"He wouldn't have healed Allo, Gabriel. It was difficult enough to get Gideon to coincide with the Oath of Abraham, and even then, I wasn't sure if the Elder would comply with it, considering how much he hates Justin."
"Actually, General…how did you even manage to get Gideon to make that promise to you in the first place?"
General Hawk sighed, "Long story short, I ran into Gideon before and I did something that put him in my debt. I also had to promise not to expose the Charmed ones as well."
"The Charmed ones??" Blind Master asked, bewildered.
"Let's leave it alone and say that they need to stay secret, Gabriel." And that ended the conversation.
Concurrently, the G.I. Joe sniper, Low Light, was already next to the petrified, stone form of Cover Girl, still fossilized in the unmovable state. Low Light then turned to the wounded Itchy and Bonehead, remembering that they had the weapons that turned her into this form, so it was possible they had a way to reverse the process.
"Please," Low Light croaked hoarsely and jadedly, "Help her."
Though Itchy looked far from complying, Bonehead nodded to the G.I. Joe soldier without much convincing as he took out his fossilizer gun, reversed the polarity of the terra-energy, and pointed it at the statue of Cover Girl before firing another beam of power. The converting forces illuminated the rock figure briefly before the dead, brown walls and surfaces faded, transmogrifying back into human flesh and blood. With a small gasp, a weakened yet fully-restored Cover Girl managed to topple backwards in shock before Low Light caught her in his strong arms, nearly out of his mind with worry.
"Low Light?" Cover Girl murmured weakly. The sniper just gave a grim smile as he held his girlfriend's petite hand into his callused, gloved one.
"'Bout time you got off your lazy butt, Courtney. It's bad enough you couldn't handle your own against a Dinosaucer and had to leave the fighting to me, as usual," he snickered. Cover Girl gave a playful frown as she gave Low Light a light punch to the chin, allowing her to get up from the ground on her own.
"Don't make me force-feed you sand until you barf your guts out, wise-guy. So what the hell happened to me? And what happened here??"
While Low Light gently tried summarizing the whole transaction of events, most of the group was sadly gathered around Justin and his father.
"Allo…" sobbed Justin as he hugged his guardian's body close, not caring if he got the Dinosaucer's blood onto his sweater. Dimetro, now even further weakened up to the point of collapsing from Toad's poisonous slime, was trying to check on his leader's vital signs as best as he could.
"His pulse is weak, erratic," panted Dimetro, "And he's lost a lot of blood, too much to make an effective blood transfusion. And with it being a stab wound directly into the heart…I'm sorry, Justin. I cannot do anything."
"No!! Dimetro, please do something!!" Justin shouted hysterically, wailing, "Don't give up on him!! Save him!! Do something, anything!! Please!!! Just save Allo!!"
Dimetro then gave the teenager a look of pity and helpless grief as he repeated, "Justin, I can't. I can't do anything for him."
"Wait, what about Lifeline back at the Pit?!" Shipwreck exclaimed, "He can heal Allo, can't he?! All we have to do is teleport him over here!!"
Spirit shook his head, saying "Lifeline is on another mission with several Joes to investigate a strange sighting of the Dreadnoks and the Cobra B.A.T.S. somewhere in the rainforests near Buenos Aires. We can't possible locate him in time nor can we risk jeopardizing the other Joes during their mission. And Bree is back at the base, but she does not have healing powers like Lifeline."
"Dragonfly, what about your training?!" Wanda asked Lina, desperate to find a solution, "Can't your healing silk and the stuff you shoot out of your mouth patch up the stab wound, stop the bleeding?!"
Dragonfly shook her head miserably as she confessed powerlessly, "It wouldn't do much, especially since all it can do is slow the bleeding down, but a puncture to the heart is too severe for my silk to heal! With all the time that passed, Allo is suffering from the shock of the blood loss and internal bleeding, things that would require immediately attention, not a simple patch-job!! And my silk can't undo the damage Allo already suffered!!"
"And we can't send him to your medical bay at G.I. Joe headquarters," wheezed Dimetro additionally, "I'd doubt your team of medical staff could ever be familiar enough with dinosaur anatomy to help him, not to mention Allo wouldn't be able to survive such an excursion. He won't even be able to make the trip to the medical bay in the Lavadome…that is, whatever's left of it after the attack by Avalanche."
"Nice going, Lance," groaned Pietro disdainfully as he surveyed the smoking, wreckage of the Dinosaucer base that was desecrated from Lance's tremors and seismokinesis.
"Hey, it wasn't my fault! I was under a curse!" Lance shot back heatedly.
"In more ways than one," muttered Fred with a roll of his eyes. Justin, was still inconsolable.
"So there's nothing that can save him? I can only just sit here and watch him die?!!" he sobbed.
"No, you can still save your father, Justin."
This came from General Hawk as he knelt down as looked at the tearful, broken teenager straight in the eye, stern and intense.
General Hawk continued, "Justin, if don't want to lose Allo, then listen to me: you can still help him and your family, you can still save them, but you have to use your powers of healing."
"What?!" Tricero managed to wheeze.
"Justin, you heard Gideon tell you that all Whitelighters have the ability to orb and heal wounds. I know this is true after my run-in with Gideon and his clans, so that means since you are of Whitelighter descent, you also have the power to heal."
The mutant teen was speechless momentarily.
"But…but I don't know how! I don't even know if I have it, if I can do it!" Justin whimpered.
"This is where the Triplets can help you on that one," General Hawk said mysteriously as a bewildered Daria, Quinn, and Brittney came up alongside Hawk. Some of the Dinosaucers, especially Compy, were dubious if not wary.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Compy protested gratingly, "Back up there for a second! Look, I'm all for helping and saving Allo's life here, but even I know that there's gotta be something fishy when using those three girls for whatever slag you have in mind, General!!"
"Compy, what other choice to we have?" Tricero then choked.
Raptor then spoke in the closest tone to pleading he could manage, "Justin, Hawk, do whatever it takes. Quickly. Now."
Quinn then asked with a hand over her chest, her nervousness being apparent, "But General, what do you want us to do?! We don't know anything about healing!"
"And our psychic powers can't mend injuries! At best, we could probably use telepathy to help Allo not feel any pain when he dies," Brittney added, which brought a soft wail from Justin when he heard that.
"Nice going, big-mouth!" Daira snapped at her sister.
Hawk then commanded to the Delgado Triplets, "Trinity, I need all of you to use your ability of psychic imprints on Justin, to help him harness his power of healing."
"What?!!" chorused several in disbelief. Hawk then turned to Justin as Trinity gathered behind the Secret Scout.
Hawk explained carefully, "Justin, I'm going to get Trinity to use their psychic powers and telepathy to leave an imprint in your mind, to give them a chance to explore your consciousness and mind. My guess is that you do have the power to heal Allo but you aren't even aware that you have it nor do you have the ability to summon it to use. This is where Trinity comes in. Mutant powers are partly based from the inner willpower, from your mind, when your brain sends a conscious signal to your body to invoke it. If Trinity can delve deep into your being, they may be able to help you control the inner power and use it to save your father. In other words, the power of healing is behind a locked door and Trinity has the key to help you unlock it."
"It's a long shot…but it just might work," commented Paul worriedly.
"Justin, just try it. You know we're behind you one-hundred percent," Ryan offered supportively. Sarah and David looked at Ryan wordlessly, but with some cheerful elation.
White in the face, Justin nodded, saying, "I'll do anything to save Dad."
General Hawk then gently ordered to the four mutants, "Justin, place your hands over Allo's wound, close your eyes, and concentrate." Justin followed without hesitation. Hawk then said, "Trinity, use your powers and help Justin try to call forth his powers. See if you can help him realize how to heal Allo. It's now or never, girls."
Also nervous and slightly fearful of failure, Daria, Quinn, and Brittney placed their hands on Justin's head, their eyes turning white with no pupils and their fingers glowing with a soft, radiating glimmer as they gingerly touched Justin's pounding head, the mutant teenager slightly quivering at the touch.
"This won't hurt, Justin, but you must not be afraid. You must not falter. Just trust us and trust yourself," Blind Master whispered as he knelt down next to Justin in emotional support. Justin just silently nodded as he cupped his hands tightly over Allo's wound, feeling his father's hard chest struggle to rise and fall with each weak breath of oxygen in his dying lungs. Trinity was actually diving deeper and deeper into Justin's psyche, the memories of pain and tragedy floating around at every turn. It was like diving into an ocean in the pitch-black of night with orbs and orbs of people screaming, yelling, cursing, and ranting in anger and hate floating around serenely like florescent jellyfish. The further Trinity pushed with their telepathy, the more Justin wanted to stop, to turn back. The horror of the memories and images were almost too much to bear. In understanding, Blind Master placed his strong hand over Justin's, the comforting touch jerking the teenager back to his senses, the both of them pressing over Allo's stab wound.
"I'm so scared…" Justin hissed in pain.
"Don't be," Blind Master said softly as he gave Justin's hand a gentle squeeze.
So if we find the door to Justin's healing power, do we pick at the lock, ram it down, or just use a blowtorch? Justin heard Quinn intone in his head telepathically. Before Justin could think of how absurd that just sounded, he then felt a surge of warmth, of power, radiating from the very core, his very center.
Oooooh, lookit all the pretty lights, Brittney echoed in Justin's mind.
Jackpot, crowed Daria.
General Hawk then smiled with great relief and peace as he murmured simply as Justin's hands began to glow in the color of sunlight, "I think you've just found your light, Whitelighter."
Everyone, the Dinosaucers, the Secret Scouts, and the Joes all gasped with wonder and joy as Justin's entire body began to glow with warm, comforting aura of the sun and gold, bathing the entire body Allo, and indeed, everyone around them, shielding them with warmth and serenity. All around them, they could see nothing but the color of gold and yellow, like the purest sun, and the feeling was pleasant, warm but not overbearingly hot.
"It's so beautiful," murmured Sarah.
"Hey, it's healing all of us as well!" gasped Teryx as her injured arm began to close itself, the blood vanishing, as feeling began to return to her wing again in full glory.
"Tricero! You're going to be all right now! You're going to be all right!" gasped Montacera in joy, hugging her surrogate father, as the horrific slashes on the triceratops' back began to curdle and recover with incredible speed and coziness. Tricero gave a beam in return as he hugged Montacera gratefully.
"I can move again!" cried out Dimetro as he felt the light also heal his body internally, erasing any evidence of Toad's poisonous slime and toxins.
"Hey, how come you're not healing my hair?!" whined Quicksilver as he worriedly massaged his scalp in a futile way to protect his silver-white tresses, "Do you know what dry desert air does to my precious locks?! I mean, really, and I thought the Pantene Pro-V shampoo-conditioner treatment ten times a day was a bitch in itself! And dang it, I found another split-end!!"
"Pietro, shut up!!!" all the Misfits yelled at him.
"Congratulations, Compy, we have finally found someone even more annoying than you," Raptor sneered at the composagnathus Dinosaucer.
"Go sniff yourself, fang-face!" snapped Compy as he felt his current bruises disappear.
As suddenly as it arrived, the light of healing faded, and Justin felt himself emerge back into consciousness as Trinity released their hold from Justin's psyche.
"Wow, that was fun!" cheered Quinn as she was getting over the sudden high of using her telepathy. Justin and Blind Master then removed their hands from Allo's chest wound, not sure what to expect. To Justin's crashing misery, the wound had vanished…but Allo was still lifeless as ever. Eyes closed, chest still, his arms and tail limp, the leader of the Dinosaucers just quietly laid there, his back on the sand, no signs of life apparent. Justin felt his face fall as Blind Master gently wrapped his arms around the teenager in a gentle hug. It didn't work. They had failed. Allo wasn't healed in time.
For a few moments, there was only a respectful and stunned silence, apart from a weeping Teryx and a sniffing Bonehead. Even Quicksilver and Trinity felt the seriousness of the loss.
"I'm sorry. You tried your best, young one," Blind Master whispered as he felt the tears fall from Justin's face and burn his hand as if they were red-hot with anger and woe.
Allo then gave a soft groan.
"By the mother planet," Montacera gasped, starting to cry with joy as she saw Allo groggily move his limbs.
"Thank the gods, thank the gods…" whispered Bronto-Thunder with his head bowed down so that people couldn't see him silently weeping with extreme gratitude and happiness from the answered prayer. The allosaurus opened his eyes, focusing his blurry vision, and feeling the sore protest of his body from the speedy recovery. Propping himself up, Allo rose into a sitting position to see his comrades standing amongst the strangers known as the Misfits…along with the Blind Master and his son, Justin.
"Allo??" Justin whispered, trembling.
Allo gave a weak smile, saying, "Normally, in cases like this, you're supposed to call me 'Dad', Justin."
"ALLO!!" cried Justin as the allosaurus enveloped Justin into a huge hug and kissed his forehead, breathing heavily with joy and relief, eternally grateful that his son was safe and no longer in any danger. Justin didn't say anything as he felt Allo soothingly stroke his head, the dinosaur whispering thanks to any deity that was listening.
"I…I thought I lost you," wept Justin as he hugged Allo even tighter.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," murmured Allo soothingly as he continued to rub Justin's back with one hand, "I'm here now, and it's all over. It's all over, son. I'm back, and I'm not leaving you alone."
"Yaaaay!! Allo's back from the dead! Allo's back from the dead! Allo's back from the dead!" Trinity sang as they skipped and danced around Allo and Justin.
"He wasn't dead to begin with, you nutcases! God, could you three be any more insensitive?!" Althea complained.
"Do you really want the answer to that question?" Wanda rhetorically asked.
"Wow! Orbing, telefinetic orbing and healing?! Justin's got cool powers!" Stego exclaimed in awe as the other Dinosaucers kept cheering and hugging each other. David noted with some jest that Raptor and Compy were about to hug each other, lost in the need to celebrate, before they came to the realization and just gave each other a poisonous glare in a classic humor gag.
"It's telekinetic orbing, Stego," groaned Dimetro slightly with a roll of his eyes.
Allo then turned his attention to Wavedancer and General Hawk who were respectfully waiting to say something to the Dinosaucer.
Althea said, "Allo, we're really sorry for everything we did…to you, Justin and the Dinosaucers. Even though we were under the curse, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of damage has been done to the Lavadome base where you guys live. If you are willing to forgive us, we'd love to help you rebuild it."
Allo nodded warmly, "We'd like that, very much so."
Now everything was all right…
"General! There's something coming from the sky in the distance! Due east at a 60-degree angle above the horizon!!" Roadblock said loudly, and the tone of urgency attracted a few heads.
General Hawk, the Joes, the Misfits, and the Dinosaucers then turned their attention to the direction in the horizon with the sun slightly overhead and behind them, casting eerie shadows. Roadblock was right. There was a trail of white smoke rising from the flat horizon and at the tip of it was a firestorm of orange and red, a sure sign of something huge, something fuel-propelled, something immense. And the object was rising too steeply and quickly to be a jet, and in the way it was launched, it almost appeared to be…
General Hawk turned pale as he noted the telltale smoke of the trajectory missile, the way the rocket was already deploying the second and third phases of the boost system, the soft but distinct roar of the object breaking the sound barrier. He cursed loudly, "Goddamn it to hell!!! It's a Peacemaker!!!"
Stego then commented with oblivious simplemindedness, "That's a good thing, right? I mean, we could finally have some peace after all this fighting."
Hawk fought not to yell at the ignorant Dinosaucer as Low Light, Roadblock, and Spirit's eyes widened at the name of the missile. Hawk then clarified, "It's NOT a good thing…whoever you are!!! A Peacemaker is a nuclear warhead, a ballistic missile!!! From the way it's traveling in its trajectory path, it looks like its heading straight here, being guided towards this very desert we're all in right now!!!"
"What??!!!" the Dinosaucers and Secret Scouts gasped.
"Damn it, if it isn't one thing, it's another!" Tricero groaned.
"Now what do we do?! With the Lavadome wrecked, we can't seek shelter that can withstand an atom bomb nor can we use our defenses to blow it out of the sky!" Struthio said worriedly.
"Could we out-run it? Maybe take our transporters and get out of here before the bomb hits us?" Stego asked.
Cover Girl then shot down the hope gently, "We can't! It'll be here in a matter of minutes, and even if we could teleport all of you Dinosaucers out of here, the radiation and blasts would devastate the surrounding cities and towns around the mountain ranges. A lot of innocent people will surely get killed from this, even if it only did focus around the desert!!"
"How do we know you G.I. Joe soldiers didn't send the bomb on us yourselves?" Bronto-Thunder said suspiciously, glaring at Hawk and Wavedancer.
Montacera then came to the Misfits' defense, "Bronto-Thunder, stop being so stubborn!! If they sent the bomb on us, why would they even be here in the first place?!!"
Hawk then added, "And keep in mind, I may be a General, but I don't even have the proper authority to be able to launch a nuclear bomb into American land! I don't know who sent this warhead towards you! Although, I think I have a pretty good idea…"
"So what can we do then?" Ryan twitched nervously.
"Maybe we could stop the bomb by ourselves, yo," Toad suggested.
"Do you kids know anything about nuclear missiles?" Paul asked, scarcely willing to believe it.
"We know a lot about explosions…" Xi offered innocently. The others irked and face-faulted at this statement.
"We're doomed," groaned Compy upon hearing this.
"Maybe we could stop the warhead from detonating," Scarlet Witch mused, "After all, with our powers, we could handle it! Maybe we could cause it to go to the middle of the ocean or somehow cause it to become a dud! It's worth a try! After all, this is our mess, so we should do everything we can to fix it!"
"But we don't anything about this bomb or how it works! If we try to sabotage it, we might end up endangering everyone even more!" Avalanche warned as Daria, Quinn, and Brittney managed to identify the schematics of the warhead with their scanners.
Trinity then spoke up eagerly, "It seems to be a LG-118A Peacekeeper missile specifically."
Daria said, "It's a U.S. Intercontinental ballistic missile, a weapon launched from a silo in the ground and shot out into a ascent and descent pathway involving sub-orbital space before homing in on its target with explosive power of around 300 kilotons, more than twenty-five times the amount of force used on the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan during World War II."
Quinn then said, "It's an MIRV missile, meant to deliver the multiple warheads upon multiple targets during its re-entry into the atmosphere at once. Using its three sections to follow the stages of boost system, post-vehicle system, and re-entry system, it can use its guidance system and electronics systems to deliver blasts that can come up to more than 6000 miles in range."
Brittney then finished, "And though funded by the government during the presidential authority of Carter and Reagan, only a hundred or so missiles have been constructed with only fifty or so allowed for deployment in the Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming due to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II, which means that in order for it to be have even been launched, you needed someone with a lot of authority and the ability to go into the Air Force base to deploy the missile without trouble and a lot of red tape."
Everyone was now staring at Daria, Quinn, and Brittney in disbelief as if they were the children from the movies, "The Exorcist", "Omen" and "Rosemary's Baby" combined. Wavedancer's eye began to twitch slightly as she looked at her Triplet sisters and asked with as calm and sweet of a voice she could muster, "Heh heh…uh…Trinity…care to explain why you three seem to know so much about nuclear warheads???"
Trinity then looked a tad nervous as they put on their best innocent, cute faces complete with toothy grins and Bambi-eyes before saying in honey-coated voices, "Just from doing a class project…"
Wavedancer then said flatly, "When we get home, we're doing another search on your rooms and laboratory and computer files."
"Damn," the three mutant girls said in union, deadpanned.
"You have very weird children," murmured Teryx to Spirit.
"That's the understatement of the year," groaned the Native-American G.I. Joe. Hawk then commanded to his team, knowing they only had one chance to stop this.
"Trinity, I want you to use your teleporter watches to teleport up there and somehow stop the bomb from coming here by any means necessary! Since you three appear to be the most familiar with the Peacemaker, it's obvious you three should try to tinker with it! Low Light, Toad, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, go up there with them!! Use the Mass Device to transport onto the bomb itself! Since it's in the lower parts of the atmosphere, you should be able to breathe and still be able to help Trinity to stop the bomb!"
"Why me??" whined Pietro.
"Stop complaining and do it!" snapped Low Light.
"We'll come too, then," Dimetro, Tricero, and Itchy said as they stood up, "Hawk, since we're from an advanced civilization with technology much more developed than yours, we should be able to aid Trinity in trying to stop the warhead. And with our heavy weights, we'll be able to hang on to the missile much more easily than your soldiers, especially since we will be traveling at insane speeds in the air that there could be no possible way those kids could hang on without being blown off. We could provide the footholds for your Misfits and soldiers on this mission."
Low Light shook his head, saying, "No use endangering you Dinosaucers too. This is our problem."
Itchy then said steely, "This is our home; that makes it our problem."
"You better hurry now, cause that bomb's getting closer with every second!" Blob warned in the background.
Daira then fiddled with her teleporter watch a bit before stating, "I've uploaded the coordinates of the place we should teleport. Judging from the last position our scanners picked up when we first spotted the missile, and using Newton's Laws and Parabolic Motion Theory, we calculated that this would be the right spot in the atmosphere to teleport where we could easily intercept the Peacemaker. Judging by our combined weights and with Quicksilver's ability to create gusts of winds to slow down our acceleration, we might be able to literally drop on top of the warhead before it reaches the third and final phase as it passes by. Unfortunately, we only get one shot at this, you guys. If we miss, we don't get another chance to set new coordinates again before it goes into the re-entry phase. After that, there's no changing it. The warhead will be as good as gone."
General Hawk nodded, "Go, then."
Trinity and Toad clung to Dimetro, Wanda and Pietro clung to Tricero, and Low Light clung to Itchy. Taking a deep breath, all the Misfits and the G.I. Joe soldier teleported with the three Dinosaucers, disappearing in thin air.
"Will they be all right? Could they really stop the bomb, General Hawk??" Bronto-Thunder asked. General Hawk just remained silent, brooding, as he looked at the blue sky with the telltale white streak of mass destruction.
At the same time, in the air…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" screamed the ten members of the group as they clung on to dear life on the smooth, metal surface of the Peacemaker ballistic warhead, now in the second phase, and starting its descent-path towards the desert where the Dinosaucers reside. Besides the insane speeds, the conflicting G-forces of the plummet were enough to make all of them pass out. Luckily, with Dimetro, Tricero, and Itchy managing to provide somewhat of a pillar of support and with Quicksilver constantly running around the missile to generate an opposing whirlwind to slow down the acceleration of the bomb, the members of the Misfit team were just able to hang on and remain conscious, though barely.
"You guys, hurry!! I'm not sure how much longer I can slow this thing down!! Even my speed can't levitate a thousand-ton warhead!!" Pietro shouted as he continued to circle around and around the weapon, generating enough forces to match against the winds of a mega-tornado.
"There's the panel that leads to the computer-guidance system!!" shouted Daira over the wind as she pointed to a hatch complete with a reinforced-steel door and electronic lock. With a small wave of her hands, Scarlet Witch managed short-circuit the lock with a well-aimed hex-bolt, rendering it to a useless, smoking, twisted heap of metal. Keeping one claw embedded deep into the surface as a secure hold, Itchy managed to rip the hatch door open with his brute strength and flung the door aside. Now the system of the warhead was fully exposed, and everyone could spot the sophisticated circuitry that was generating the computerized orders to the warhead. Keeping a firm grip on the nuclear missile's surface with all four claws, Dimetro managed to lean directly over the panel with Toad and Trinity keeping a firm grip on his back.
"Geez, that's a lot of microstuff, yo! How're you gonna know what to do with it?!!" Toad shouted.
"We already know the schematics of the missile from the blueprints we printed when we hacked into the Pentagon last week!!" shouted Quinn as she, Daria, Brittney, and Dimetro started to hotwire the panel, disrupting the electronic system.
"Although it is quite impressive, this technology is still basically primitive compared to our machinations back at our home planet!! We should be able to disengage the missile and render its radioactive-content useless in a matter of minutes!!" Dimetro said as he fiddled with several semiconductors of the main circuit board.
"No need to panic! All we have to do is sabotage the main panel before the missile detaches the head during the re-entry phase!" Quinn yelled. Unfortunately, by Murphy's Law…
"Entering lower part of atmosphere; enabling re-entry phase," a mechanical voice announced out loud from a speaker within the control panel. Before they could react, the second and third portions of started to sputter out, using up its rocket fuel, as the very top part of the missile began to fire its separate booster rockets. To their collective horrors, the head of the Peacemaker was starting to detach away from the rest of the body, and the group was still clinging on to the middle-half of the missile.
"It's taking off without us, yo!!" yelled Toad.
"It can't!!" shrieked Brittney, "The head is what has the multiple, radioactive warheads inside it!! It's the heart of the nuclear bomb!!!"
"Pietro, slow down the head of the missile with your whirlwinds!! Everybody else, jump for the head!!!" Low Light yelled, and as best as they could, the three Dinosaucers scrambled for the Peacemaker end before it could propel itself out of reach. Dimetro and Tricero managed to take a flying leap and succeeded in grabbing hold of the head. Itchy and Low Light did the same, but then to Itchy's horror, the Dinosaucer slipped with his webbed feet skidding on the smooth metal surface of the missile head. With nothing to grab on to, Itchy was about to be sent flying off the missile and directly into fiery paths of the head's booster rockets, burning hot rocket fuel and generating an inferno hot enough to melt sand into glass. The itchyosaurus would be burnt to a crisp.
"Itchy!!!" Tricero hollered helplessly as he saw his comrade lose his grip and slide off the nuclear warhead. To everyone's surprise, Low Light managed to grab the heavy Dinosaucer by the claw before he could succumb to the fires of the rocket's rear. Hanging on by a single claw, Itchy looked up to see a wincing Low Light, transformed into a shiny, blackish-gray metallic alloy, and holding on to Itchy's claw for dear life while hew kept another hand firmly clutching into the rocket's surface, actually bending the metal and making a deep impression suitably enough for a grip. Still, to hold on to a gargantuan, two-ton Dinosaucer at the speed of free-fall acceleration was not easy.
"Low Light, leggo!! If you hang on to me, you'll be torn apart!!" Itchy hollered.
Low Light hissed in pain as he shouted back, "Don't worry about me!! I transformed into adamantium, and the metal in practically indestructible!!! I can't be torn apart no matter how much the G-forces get!!" However, the solider wasn't going to mention that he still didn't feel like he was immersed in excruciating pain from being a Stretch-Armstrong doll. He then looked above at Toad, Trinity, Tricero, and Scarlet Witch before shouting, "You guys have to go on without us!! We can't do much good at this point, and you need to hurry and deactivate the missile!! Don't waste any time, just do it!!!"
Dimetro and Tricero nodded. With as much haste and care as they could muster, the two Dinosaucers and the five Misfits inched their way toward the conical apex of the Peacemaker missile warhead which contained the computerized electronic guidance system of the bomb. Toad managed to crawl to the second panel with the aid of his sticky, amphibian hands and with a blob of acidic slime, he managed to rip off the door to the second computer system. Trinity, Tricero, Wanda and Dimetro managed to hover above Todd.
"No need to panic!! We can still rewire the guidance system and put the Peacemaker off-course!!" Daria exclaimed.
"Let me try…" Quinn said as she reached out for the panel. Unfortunately, a surge of electricity immediately flashed in front of the controls as a protective barrier…and the painful, hot energy was sent coursing through the body of the eleven-year old Quinn, slightly electrocuting her. Quinn screamed as the energy snaked through her body before she lost consciousness and went as limp as a rag doll, falling out of Dimetro's protective arms. Like a bullet, the cataleptic mutant girl flew out of the missile head.
"Quinn!!!" screamed Brittney, Wanda, and Daria, their voices actually shrill with fear and dread. Itchy saw the body of the young child hurtling straight towards him, and taking a huge gamble, Itchy managed to swing a bit before snatching Quinn in mid-air before she could fly straight into the rocket thrusters' flames. Low Light fought the urge to scream in pain from the additional strain, but at least Quinn was safe.
"Hang on to me, young one," Itchy whispered protectively as he cradled the insensible Quinn to his chest like his own child.
"The guidance system must have some sort of defense mechanism!!" Tricero shouted.
"It's a Telsa barrier!" Dimetro shouted, "It's an electrical force-field basically, and from the looks of it, it can generate enough energy to fuel an entire household for a week! Quinn was fortunate not to have been killed from electric shock!!"
"Stand back!! I'm going to try to hex the barrier, allowing it for you guys to get at it!!" Wanda shouted. The other teammates complied as the gothic mutant then let out a powerful blast at the exposed computer system. With a small explosion, the Telsa barrier died…but it also took out the guidance system as well. Now, all that remained of it was a smoldering, charred bunch of lead, frayed wires, and useless, unidentifiable junk.
"Great, you just hexed the guidance system as well, Scarlet Witch!!" snapped Brittney, frustrated and unbelievably at her wits' end.
"Oops," Wanda cringed pitifully.
"Once again, it never ceases to amaze me how much my fabulous sister could screw this up!!! She could give Toad a run for his money!!" Pietro commented gratingly as he continued to run around the Peacemaker.
"Oh shut up, Pietro!!" screamed Wanda.
"So now what do we do?!!" Tricero hollered to Dimetro, Brittney and Daira.
"No need to panic!!! We can still prevent the electronics from sending the signal to launch the individual ballistic warheads!!!" Brittney yelled the last possible hope and solution.
"What good will that do?!!" shouted Toad.
"It'll lock the warheads in place and prevent the system from generating the signal to cause electromagnetic impulses to travel through the radioactive material to cause the nuclear explosion!! In other words, our bomb'll be a dud!!!" Daria clarified.
"Computer system malfunction…" droned the same mechanical voice aloud from the damaged control panel, "System unable to continue trajectory. Begin premature explosion…T-minus 60 seconds…"
The gods of Murphy's Law must have had a field day with this one…
"Uh, that's not good, is it, yo?!!" Toad asked.
"NOW can we panic???!!!" screamed Pietro.
"Okay, start panicking!" yelled Brittney as everyone around her started screaming in dread and fear. Not surprisingly, Quicksilver was the worst, if that was even humanly possible.
"OMIGODWE'REGONNADIEOMIGODWE'REGONNADIEOMIGODWE'REGONNADIEOMIGODWE'REGONNADIE…!!!" Pietro kept screaming over and over again while hyperventilating. Wanda had to seriously fight the urge to slap or hex her albino brother hard in the face. Dimetro then remembered something.
"Wait, what about the teleporters?!! The ones you use to transmit coordinates to your Mass Device for teleportation?!! Could we use the teleporter watches to teleport the nuclear warhead to a place where it can't do any damage?!!"
"We can't!!! No matter where we send this sucker, it'll do really bad stuff!!" Brittney gasped, "The only place we could teleport it to where it has no chance of causing any severe side-effects would be outer-space itself, but the Mass Device doesn't have enough power to teleport something this big to something that far away!!!"
"T-minus 50 seconds…"
"Wait a minute!!! What about your Dinosaucer suits?!! There was that one thing you guys were able to do that required a lot of energy, the one where you devolved back into your prehistoric forms!! I noticed it when I fought Stego and Plato!!" Wanda shouted.
"You mean dinovolution?!" Tricero frowned.
"Yeah, exactly!!! Doesn't that process give off a lot of energy?!! Maybe we could use that energy to give a teleporter watch a power boost!!!" Wanda suggested.
"T-minus 40 seconds…"
"I think I can!!" Dimetro reasoned with urgency, "Energy is energy, regardless of where it originates from!!! If I could attach one of those teleporter wristbands to the power-output of the Dinosaucer insignia of my uniform, I might be able to give it enough energy to be able to do the task of teleporting the warhead!!"
"And with the teleporter watch able to transmit energy signals back to the Mass Device, you'd also give the Mass Device a big enough power-surge to send this missile out of the way in space!!" Daria exclaimed, catching on.
"But we can't, yo!! I don't think one measly teleporter watch is enough to do the job!! And if we try using all of them, we won't be able to get off this thing before it goes kablooie!!" Toad shouted.
"T-minus 30 seconds…"
"We have to try!!" Pietro said as he dropped his teleporter watch into Wanda's hands before taking off again, trying to keep the warhead afloat, "Hurry, you guys!! Whatever you're gonna do, you better do it now!!"
Toad and Daria then also handed their teleporter watches to Dimetro as Wanda gave her brother's to Tricero, and for the first few fleeting moments was nothing but torturous, terrifying silence as the two Dinosaucers managed to touch their insignias with one claw and by using a simple power cord, transferred vast amounts of dinovolution-energy to the watches' input.
"T-minus ten and counting…"
"Hurry, yo!!" Toad screamed.
"It's not ready yet!!" Tricero yelled as the watches began to shake and glow softly, unable to take on so much power at once, close to breaking down.
"Seven…"
"We'll have to chance it!!! I've already uploaded the coordinates!!!" Dimetro yelled as he removed the two teleporter bands from his uniform.
"Five…"
"Hurry, Quicksilver!!! Put all three in the panel and then go with Low Light and Itchy and help them teleport away!!!" Tricero yelled and with a silver blur, Pietro hurriedly followed the order.
"Three…"
"Grab on tight!!" Dimetro yelled and Daria, Brittney and Toad clung to the dimetrodon Dinosaucer. Wanda hugged on to Tricero.
"Two…"
Pietro ran to Low Light, Quinn, and Itchy, pressing the button on Low Light's watch for the Mass Device to get them out.
"One…"
---
"The Peacemaker!!!" gasped Cover Girl in shock, "It disappeared!!"
"But…where's Itchy?! And the others?!!" gasped a trembling Teryx, holding her hands to her mouth, unwilling to imagine the worst. But to everyone's relief, all ten of the group appeared in front of them, the weight of what had nearly happened bringing the fatigued soldiers to their knees, with Itchy still cradling the recovering Quinn in his arms.
"Quinn!! You all right, girl?" Shipwreck pestered, almost out of his mind with worry as he ran to his daughter's side.
Quinn nodded as Low Light remarked, "Thank Itchy for that one. He was the one who saved her life."
Itchy blushed slightly as Quinn hugged the Dinosaucer lovingly around the neck. Shipwreck looked at the Dinosaucer in extreme gratefulness as he whispered, "Thank you…"
Itchy smiled, already bonding with the sailor. He replied, "You're welcome."
"Where…where'd you send the warhead??!" asked a very stunned Bronto-Thunder.
"I simply sent it to the satellite Titan, one of the moons of the planet Saturn in the solar system," Dimetro shrugged sheepishly.
"You what??!!!" exclaimed Bronto-Thunder.
"We couldn't let it cause any damage on Earth! It would have been disastrous! And it was about to explode prematurely if we didn't do something soon!" Tricero explained. Bronto-Thunder was still worried.
"But what if you sent it into an inhabited city or into some innocent civilization?"
"Oh pipe down, long neck, what are the chances anyone even lives in that sector of the galaxy anyway?" Quicksilver brushed off casually.
---
"AAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" screamed the gargantuan ruler of the Titan kingdom, "MY PALACE!!! MY BEAUTIFUL, PRICELESS, GLORIOUS, GEM-STUDDED PALACE!!! IT'S RUINED!!! RUINED!!!"
Indeed, the colossal palace, with more than enough to room the entire inhabitants of earth many times over, and decked with priceless jewels and rare metals embedded in slabs of black, smooth marble and sparkling gold…now had a large, noticeable smoldering, radioactive crater of what used to be the west wing of the castle.
"MY BEAUTIFUL CASTLE!!! IT'S RUINED!!!" bellowed the king, still continuing in his rant.
"Oh who cares about your stupid castle?!" snapped Mistress Death, "It'll be covered by the insurance anyway!! You did pay for the insurance, right?!!"
"Oh shut up, you wrinkled, ice-cold cow!!! I swear, this is Warlock's doing, I just know it!!! He shall pay for this!!!"
"Oh, what did you expect, Thanos?!! After all, you did siphon off the energy from his Soul Gem when you pretended to help him in that battle with Magus!!!"
"Well I didn't expect him to hold a grudge against me for it!!!" snapped the mad Titan, "I swear, by the hammer of Thor, I will make whoever did this pay with their blood!!!" (see Author's note)
---
"Wow, this has been the most traumatic birthday ever," whimpered Justin as he felt Allo hold him tightly.
"And the day's not even over yet," groaned Compy.
"So, what do we do now, Allo?" Ryan asked the Dinosaucer leader.
"We need to rebuild the Lavadome, but as for the other pressing concerns of Cliffton and Eddington…I don't know. I honestly don't know," Allo sighed wearily.
"But what about Justin's mutation, Allo?" Tricero asked gently, "You know that Gideon will still be trying to hurt the young one in any way he can, and we don't want Justin to lose control again. What happened today could happen again…and perhaps it would be at the cost of his own life. Allo, please understand that I love Justin and I want to keep him safe. But if we don't find a way to teach him to control his mutant powers, he won't be safe."
"But…but how??" Paul queried, "None of us know how we can possibly help Justin with his mutation, and it's not that we could simply ask someone to teach him…"
Paul then had the inspiration strike him at the same time the rest of the Dinosaucers and Secret Scouts realized it as well, and as one, they all slowly turned their gazes to Hawk and the Misfits, pondering.
General Hawk then smiled with sincerity.
"I think maybe we can help you, Allo…that is, if you're willing…"
Author's note: The first reference should tell people if this will be AU to the "Charmed" universe. Though it won't be in the near future, I will bring the Charmed ones into Red Witch's Misfit-verse! As for the second reference, any Marvel fan should be able to guess WHO the Misfits sent the nuclear warhead to. And I think people can guess what will happen in the last chapter next Friday, but a thousand fan-points if anyone can guess Justin's new name! Until then, read and review!