(WARNING: This chapter contains intense material. Including blood, nudity, and disturbing imagery. Reader discretion is advised)

Part 25: Dark Dawn

The dark moonlit night normally brought either rest or joyous celebration. But Alex didn't feel much like either, lying on the hood of the car they'd found working and staring at the sky with her hands behind her head. Clover and Arnold were asleep in the back and front seat of the car respectively, and she wasn't sure where Lady Luna had gone off to. She just said she had to take care of something and would be right back.

Alex sighed, sitting up and pressing her palms together in front of her, staring at the same star she'd been staring at since night fell. "Starlight, starbright. I wish I may I wish I might, make a wish on the first star I see tonight..." She stared at the star intently as she made her wish... for the fifth time that night. She knew it was probably futile, but one never knew. A few extra wishes couldn't hurt.

"You're gonna talk the star's ear off moonbeam." Lady Luna chuckled as she approached the hood of the car from the small bushes beside the street. Alex scooted over so she could sit on the end near the bumper, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. "They'll answer in their own time, just don't put pressure on them."

"Right, sorry." Alex replied. "I think I'm starting to see why you love the stars so much."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, look at them, they just... sit there." Alex gestured to the stars, as if sweeping them out of the way. "That one never pulls a gun and shoots that one. And the sun never reaches out and kills 'em all. They just sit... in perfect peace and harmony. Not a care in the universe."

"Mmm... yes, they're very peaceful." Lady Luna nodded, turning to look at the stars again. "I wish I had my star charts with me, maybe I could see how all of this chaos will turn out. But I'm flying as blind as the rest of you here..." She sighed and shook her head. "The stars have been my guide for so long... I feel kind of lost without them."

"They're still there." Alex said.

"But I don't know what they're saying without my charts." Lady Luna replied.

"Just lay down and listen." Alex suggested. Lady Luna stared at her a moment, then looked up and let her back fall onto the hood beside Alex, her arms falling to the sides to sprawl across the hood. They both just stared at the silently shining stars. They didn't hear anything... or even feel anything mystical as one might expect from a Disney movie.

"I haven't just watched them in a very long time." Lady Luna said.

"I love watching the stars. And the ocean... two of my favorite things." Alex giggled. "I used to sneak into Clover's room because her room had the balcony that overlooked the ocean. I would sneak in at five in the morning and wait for the sun to come up... it was like watching the world set on fire. Of course, that was before all of this started..."

"That does sound nice." Lady Luna replied companionably. They watched as a group of clouds began to roll in, slowly blocking out the stars one-by-one. "It looks like it's going to rain soon."

"Yeah. I think it's getting late too, so we should probably get some sleep. We still have a bit of a trip before we get to the next military base." Alex said.

"True, but I have a feeling this one will be our lucky one. There will be something that works there." Lady Luna nodded.

"What tells you that?"

"The stars, sunshine." Lady Luna stood up and looked up at the sky with her hands on her hips.

Alex smiled and giggled. "Then I guess it must be true." Alex slid off the hood of the car and walked to the backseat, climbing in beside Clover and curling up on one of the seats to sleep through the night. She slept well enough, and in the morning they set off for another in a long line of military bases in search of a working jet, or even a helicopter. Anything that could get them across the ocean and bring back the anti-gravity generator.

The morning was chill and dull gray, since the clouds had grown thicker as they slept. As if any cheerfulness the morning usually brought was being sucked out of the sky. Clover was driving, with Alex sitting beside her. Lady Luna and Arnold were in the back seat. "Do you think Sam's okay?" Alex asked.

"Of course she is. She's the best spy I know. She could fool her own mother into thinking she's the queen of England." Clover insisted. Alex let out a laugh at that, one of the first real laughs she'd enjoyed in a long time. They lapsed into pointless companionable chatter until they reached the base, plowed straight through the fence, and drove out onto the airfield where the helicopters and jets were waiting.

They screeched to a stop and Clover climbed out of the car, not bothering with the keys since it wasn't their car anyway. "So, who's feeling lucky today and wants to pick our first disappointment?" She asked. Alex glanced at Lady Luna, who was looking through the selection of vehicles with piercing eyes.

"That one." Lady Luna pointed to a nearby helicopter. It didn't look different from any of the other, bearing the paint job of any other helicopter in the military, though it did have a pair of jet engines attached to its skis. The doors looked like they were tightly closed however, perhaps tightly enough to provide it some protection from the flood.

"Good as any." Clover approached it and pulled the door open, stepping inside. Alex, Lady Luna and Arnold approached to wait outside, watching the vehicle expectantly. In a few moments, the blades whirred to life, causing Alex's heart to soar with delight.

"It worked!" Alex screeched. "Now we can put an end to all of this!"

"Welp, all aboard that's coming aboard!" Clover shouted from the Cockpit. Arnold climbed into the back first, as Alex and Lady Luna moved to join him. Alex looked at the older woman and smiled.

"The stars were right." Alex said. "And you didn't even need a chart to know what they were saying."

"Of course. Was there ever any doubt?" Lady Luna asked.

"Not even a little bit." Alex smiled and climbed into the helicopter. Lady Luna smiled back and followed, closing the door behind her. They were on their way... once they reached Egypt, they could carve off the top of the pyramid with their gadgets, and airlifts the gravity generator out. Then they could put an end to Tim Scam and his evil robots one way or another.


Mandy leaned against one of the craggy rock cropping that overlooked Area 51, watching the officers resume their normal patrol routes. She hadn't seen any sign of Brittany in the last several hours she'd been waiting... the sun was on the verge of rising, though it wouldn't help much with the thick, dark storm clouds massing overhead.

Carmen and Stella were talking in hushed tones behind her about their daughters, Alex and Clover. Mandy found herself aching to see her mother again as she listened to them... such excited, gentle tones. They wanted to see them again, to find out what happened to them. But Mandy noticed Gabby sitting off to the side, leaning against the rock with tear-streaked cheeks.

Mandy pushed away from the rock and knelt down in front of her. "You doing okay?" She asked clumsily. She was used to being a leader... but not under these kinds of conditions. She led trends and posses, not ex-prisoners of war. She didn't know how to act around them.

"I'll be okay I suppose..." Gabby replied softly. "I was just thinking about Sam..." She reached up and wiped a few tears from her eyes. "You knew her, didn't you? I think I recognize you."

"Knew her...?" Mandy asked.

"Yes..." Gabby wiped her eyes. "She was... she was killed... that's what HE said..." She spat, as if refusing even to say his name. Mandy stared in shock, taking this in. She'd never particularly liked Sam... they'd never interacted as friends, and they'd even competed on several occasions. Still, seeing Gabby like this made her heart ache... it was like watching her mother cry...

"She was a good girl..." Gabby continued. "She was always... always curious about things as a child. My husband said she should write a Big Book of Questions, because she asked them all, and made you answer." She chuckled through her tears and shook her head. "And she was always willing to do the right thing..."

"I guess she was..." Mandy looked down at the ground as she spoke, moving some rocks around aimlessly with one finger. "She never complained when she lost a competition... she was never mean or really threatening. And I've never seen her leave her friends, no matter what they did to her." Mandy shook her head. "You must've been proud."

"I was..." Gabby nodded, looking away from her as a sob caught in her throat, rendering her unable to speak.

"I guess I should admit, I've never gotten along with her." Mandy confessed. "She seemed nice, but she always hung out with Clover... the little spotlight stealing power hungry attention whore." Mandy smirked. Gabby chuckled lightly. "But I always admired her, in a way. She could put up with Clover of all people, and still wear a smile every day."

"Well, she would wear a smile any time a friend was around... and she made friends so easily." Gabby told her.

"I'm sure I would've been great friends with her if it wasn't for Clover." Mandy told her.

"I'm sure you would have... you seem like a wonderful person." Gabby told her. Mandy stared at her for a moment, then her gaze shifted to the ground. She realized how much she'd changed since this began... she never would've cared about someone else sobbing before. Boohoo, everyone has problems. But now, her heart ached for her pain... she sympathized with her more than she ever thought possible. She was sure it was all thanks to Brittany...

"It doesn't look like Brittany's coming..." Mandy said softly, as though saying it too loudly would make it true.

"We can wait a while longer." Gabby said.

"No... it's pointless." Mandy stood up. "There's a settlement near here... I can take you three there. I can come back afterward and wait for her." She looked over at Stella and Carmen, who had looked in her direction upon hearing her voice. "Come on, I'll lead you someplace you can be safe and rest. The longer we stay here the more we run the risk of Scam sending out patrols and finding us."

"Great, I could use a nice bath." Carmen stretched her arms out stiffly. "And maybe we'll find Alex and Clover there."

"Maybe..." Mandy said softly. She turned to walk away from the base, with the three women trailing close behind her. Honestly, she felt pretty numb. Brittany was probably gone... her mind knew it but she refused to let her heart believe it. Brittany had been her anchor in this new life... the rope that kept her from plunging into the dark abyss of despair that threatened to draw her in every second of every day. Without her... Mandy wasn't sure she could fight that abyss.


A scream... a horrible, unstoppable bloodcurdling scream that made the hairs stand on the back of her neck. Sam was eternally grateful that her mother had been saved... she'd heard Scam say that Carmen, Stella and Gabby had escaped from the base... but at what cost? Had Sam made a mistake, beckoning Brittany here to help her? What had Sam cost her...?

She could only watch and listen from her position peeking around the door to Tim Scam's experiment room, watching as the tubes that fed into Brittany's flesh pumped her full of glistening silver liquid. Brittany's screams drowned out the beeping of the life support machines behind her, forcing life into her body, forcing her to endure all the pain. Scam watched the process with a victorious smile on his face.

Brittany wore no clothes, the flesh of her body seeming to writhe in convulsing waves. Occasionally her skin tore open, blood dripping down her body to fall from her toes to the steel floor underneath her suspended body. Tears of agony flowed down her cheeks, mixing with the blood in strange pools of light pink color.

"Absolute genius." Scam said to himself in satisfaction, observing his handiwork with a critical eye. "The bonding process is working perfectly... soon your brain will be able to control the Scamlar... and the Scamlar will control your brain." He approached the girl, ignoring her renewed screams as more silver flowed through the tubes into her body.

"Please... stop... it..." Brittany begged. "I'll... do anything... please..." Her teeth were clenched tightly, her eyes red and watering, her head hung low in despair and pain. "Anything..."

"You will help me... by hunting Alex and Clover down, and making them suffer." Scam told her. "It may be too late to make Sam suffer... but her two friends will have to be enough. And being killed by you... the ultimate weapon, made from the body of one of their comrades... it's a beautiful idea. Not as good as using their mothers... but as good as I can manage now."

Brittany howled in pain as one of the tubes pulled out of her back, moving up to plunge straight into the back of her neck like a drill. She screamed until she ran out of breath, the silver liquid funneling into the back of her throat. The flesh of her neck writhed like the rest, moving up into her head. Brittany shook her head furiously, but it was a futile effort at rebellion.

The tears that flowed down her cheeks changed, the tears replaced by drops of blood as the Scamlar invaded her very brain, the lump on her head vanishing. Brittany howled again, letting out one last struggle before her body went limp, tears of blood dropping to the floor beneath her. Sam was shaking in horror at the scene... she'd never known Tim Scam was this far gone. She knew he was petty and evil... but this... this was something beyond any evil she'd ever known.

"It's working." Scam said delightedly. "The Scamlar is taking control... using your mind to fuel its own powers. It was always to limited to preprogrammed shapes and what it took from DNA sequences. But now it can use your brain, your imagination to assume any shape you can imagine. The pinnacle of science... the ultimate weapon, one those WOOHP fools never would've understood."

Brittany's eyes opened slowly, looking lifelessly at Tim Scam. She was still strapped to the machines behind her, hanging from them. Scam laughed and reached up to stroke her head. "You ready to find them, Brittany? And make them suffer for standing in my way all those times?"

Sam backed away from the room, barely able to contain her revulsion, and the urge to throw up. That... thing... was Brittany. He'd actually gone so far as to turn a human into one of his mindless machines. He was completely insane... worse than any villain she'd ever known. She turned to run away, cursing herself for the tears that flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't keep up the act anymore, she had to get away and warn her friends.

"I'm so sorry Brittany..." Sam said as she ran. Thankfully the halls were fairly empty, since Scam was secure in the notion that he'd cleared the building of intruders. And those few that did see her didn't do anything, still convinced she was a Scamlar drone. Sam broke out of the building and kept running into the dark dawn.

"It's my fault... I'm so sorry..."

TO BE CONTINUED