Chapter 2 – The Old Frontier
"Sup, Jack. I got the Lizard Queen skins that you wanted!"
"Excellent work. I hope you can deliver them to Courage."
"You got it. Taking the next available S.C.A.M.P.E.R. to the mainland."
"Actually, there's a Kumari Serpent at the beach, waiting for passengers. I believe you should be able to get to it in time."
"Thanks for the tip!"
"May your travels be safe."
"Hey there, Jack."
"I see you have returned from your mission unscathed, Harper."
"Yeah, the Fusion Control Center is still empty. No sign of any Fusion returning to reactivate it."
"Thank you very much for checking it out anyway. I will see to it that you receive your reward for your help."
"Yo, Jack, I'm back!"
"Hello, Shala. Tell me exactly, what did Demongo ask of you?"
"Well, he sent me to retrieve something from Fusion Mandark's lair, only it didn't really look like a Fusion lair to me."
"What was it that Demongo needed?"
"An overrider cortex."
"An overrider cortex? I am… not familiar with this technology. Could you explain what it is used for?"
"Well, I'm not exactly sure myself…"
"What? And you gave an unknown piece of technology to Demongo? Aku's most loyal and faithful servant? Do you realize how big of a mistake you could have just made?"
"Relax, Jack, I'm pretty sure it's just something stupid that should have been kept away from Fusion hands. Look, I'm sure Tetrax knows what it is, I'll just ask him to make sure."
Jack shook his head in disapproval as Shala left to find Tetrax.
Tetrax Shard, the crystal-like humanoid alien, was stranded on Earth due to the war on Fuse. As the captain of the Mandark Industries aircraft, Tetrax spent most of his time on the bridge. The airship was usually stationary, hovering in one spot, so navigation was not needed, but Tetrax, along with a couple Mandark Industries engineers, was occupied with constantly monitoring the area for potential threats, as well as monitoring the state of the airship, using all sorts of radars and scanners. Shala knew that's where he'd find him after his second trip to the food court.
"Hey, hey, hey, Tetrax! How's my favorite Petrosapien doing?"
Tetrax was staring at a screen. Or at least, that's how it seemed, as he had his visor helmet on.
"Busy." – he answered without looking at Shala.
"Don't worry, it's not gonna take a lot of your time. I just wanted to ask for your expertise on technology."
Tetrax's helmet receded into his armor, and now Shala could see his diamond head. He looked away from the monitors and turned towards Shala.
"It's been a while since the great thinker Shala asked for help with something. Is everything all right with you?" – Tetrax asked. His face was usually stiff, but Shala could see a subtle smirk.
"I need to know what this thing called an "overrider cortex" is. Just to get Jack off my back. You know how he gets when it comes to Demongo."
"A what?"
"Overrider cortex. It's this… ball of energy radiating with blue, uh… energy." – Shala tried to explain.
"Various objects fit that description. Though, that name sounds made-up. Did you say Demo-"
Tetrax's question got interrupted by a sudden scream outside. The singular scream was joined by others, and almost immediately, it sounded like the entire Bazaar was screaming in terror.
"Strange. These sensors aren't picking up anything unusual. Anything on your end, Simon?"
"No signs of danger, sir." – the Mandark Industries engineer answered.
"Check out what's going on." – Tetrax told Shala.
Shala ran outside. Everyone in sight was running towards the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s, terrified of something, trying to leave the Darklands. The flights towards the mainland weren't supposed to depart for another hour, but the KND pilots were forced to give in to the crowd. Soon, the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s started filling up. "What's going on?" - Shala was shouting, trying to be heard over the mob. Someone who was running by him told him "Look over the edge, dude!" as he was running. Shala tried to move against the panicking crowd, and as soon as he got out of the mass he ran towards the edge.
"Holy…" was all that he managed to mutter.
A horde of Fusion monsters bigger than Shala had ever seen, bigger than anyone had ever seen, was covering Forsaken Valley. The jungles below had become an indistinguishable sea of brown, green and orange, crawling, floating, hopping and charging towards the airship. Towering over them were several Don Dooms, taller than the tallest trees, some tall enough to even reach the airship. But that was not all. The skies were clouded, the sunlight obstructed and turned green by an alien swarm – thousands of Fusionflies, Terrordactyls and Cephalopods were approaching the airship.
"This is it." – Shala thought, awestruck by terror. "If Fuse's forces are this numerous in the Darklands only, then… How can we even defend ourselves against something like this? How can the rest of the world?"
He stood there for a moment. He wasn't sure how, but doom impending was almost… hypnotizing. But then he managed to snap out of it, knowing he had to do something to help. He ran back to Tetrax, who was outside, trying to manage the crowd.
"How big is the horde?" – Tetrax asked, yelling to be heard over the crowd.
"You'd better see for yourself!" – Shala answered and ran back to the edge with Tetrax. Samurai Jack was already there.
Tetrax gazed at the horde silently for a moment. "We are doomed." – he then said.
"We are." – Shala agreed. "But we are not going down without at least thinning out the horde!"
Tetrax nodded.
"You have my blade. I will fight until the last drop of blood leaves my body." – Jack added.
"No, Jack! The Darklands may be lost, but we can save the people on this ship if the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s evacuate in time." – Tetrax protested. "You have to leave with them."
"Absolutely not."
"You need to warn Dexter and the others! These people are panicking, nobody knows what they'll say, but you can give them an accurate assessment of Fuse's forces here. Tell them exactly what happened. Meanwhile, the ones who remain here will buy the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s time to escape." – Tetrax argued.
"I will not abandon you all in this battle!" – Jack protested.
"Jack, you're too valuable in this war to lose!" – Shala tried to convince him. "Plus, the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s are gonna need your help if they run into trouble over the ocean!"
Jack still hesitated, considering it.
"Just go! There's no time to waste!" – Tetrax yelled.
Jack gave both Shala and Tetrax a nod as a goodbye and ran towards the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s, which gave in to the crowd's demands and were starting to depart. Jack tried to board one, but all of them were full.
"It doesn't matter. I can sit on the roof." – he said and with a single jump he got on top of one.
The remaining S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s still couldn't leave because people were crowded all around them, even though there was no more room in any of them. Tetrax ran there to try to break up the mass.
Shala stayed at the edge of the ship, looking in the face of death. Watching certain doom approaching, somehow, he felt more alive than ever. "I've had a good run, I guess." – he thought. "I knew this day would come eventually. Could have done more until then… but still, helping saving the world. What a way to go." He held the Chill Caster tighter as some of the Fusionflies got closer to the ship. Soon, he heard the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.s behind him take off. He sighed as partial relief came over him. "At least some of the people will still make it." – he thought and smiled. He turned around to take one last look at the airship before the massacre, but noticed someone else standing on the edge, on the far left of the airship's platform. Shala turned to him and shouted "HEY, YOU! WHAT ARE-"
Suddenly, the entire horde disappeared. Every single monster vanished into thin air, as if they had never existed. For a moment, Shala stood there, dumbfounded, not even recognizing how the now empty Forsaken Valley jungle was supposed to look like.
There was a huge flash of green light, accompanied by a deafening roar coming from some sort of blast or an explosion. The entire airship shook violently and suddenly, the solid platform under Shala's feet was replaced by air as he fell over the edge of the ship.
THUD.
"Mmmmrh… Come on, Jack, five more minutes!"
THUD.
"I'll clean up the room later, okay?"
THUD.
THUD.
Shala finally woke up. Instead of opening his eyes to his room on the airship, he found himself stuck between branches high up on a tree. His back was hurt. "Wait… what happened to…"
THUD.
The tree shook again. Shala looked down. A Triceraclops kept charging at the tree and ramming it with its head, trying to knock Shala off. Shala straightened himself up and stood on a larger branch, then he reached for his Chill Caster. Unfortunately, it was not strapped to his back anymore.
THUD. The Triceraclops hit the tree again. It shook, but Shala kept his balance.
"The Aerial Slicer it is, then." – he thought to himself. He jumped off the tree, summoning his Aerial Slicer from the NanoCom mid-air, landed on the Triceraclops' back and struck its shell. The sword did not penetrate the monster's armor. The Triceraclops started charging at full speed to get Shala off, but Shala was not getting down as he kept trying to attack the monster in different spots. Desperate to get the human off its back, the Triceraclops charged towards a tree. The sudden stop during impact was enough to send Shala flying as he also hit the tree and fell down.
"Now my back AND my front are hurt." – Shala whined in pain while trying to get up. The Triceraclops took a couple steps back as it prepared to charge at Shala again.
"Okay, this will be a lot harder without my gun. So, where's your weak spot?" – Shala thought. He knew that a Triceraclops' shell was mostly made of wreckage that it had absorbed from buildings it's destroyed. "Armor made of a random pile of junk has to have a plethora of gaps in it. So, where is it?"
The Triceraclops ran at Shala again. Shala thought of summoning a Nano, but then decided "why bother?" as he dodged to the side at the latest possible moment. The Triceraclops hit the tree he was standing in front of at full speed, and was stunned for a moment. Shala used this opportunity and ran up to it close.
"Weak spot located." – he said, satisfied, as he stabbed the opening in the neck part of the Triceraclops' armor. The monster let out a dying roar as it started dissolving into Fusion Matter, only leaving the metal bits behind. Shala noticed a tiny satellite dish among the wreckage.
"Okay, okay. So turns out, there is no giant Fusion army setting out to destroy the airship." – Shala talked to himself while walking back and forth. "That means the ship should still be okay." He looked up. Nothing in sight, except for the ever-present Planet Fusion hanging ominously I the sky and a couple of Terrordactyls flying around. The only thing that was different was that the sky had changed to a shade of green.
"This is where the ship is supposed to be, isn't it?" – Shala asked himself. He checked the map on his NanoCom. "No signal. Figures. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Okay, okay. I'm pretty sure I'm in the same spot as the airship used to be. But it's missing, and there's no wreckage of it anywhere… I guess it just flew away?"
Shala looked up again. "AND WHY THE HELL IS THE SKY GREEN?!"
He sat down and leaned back against the tree that helped him kill the Triceraclops. "Guess I'll ask Tetrax where to look for it." – he muttered as he looked into his NanoCom. "What? The comms are down too? Now what the hell am I supposed to do?!" – he yelled. His yell might have been too loud, though. After making sure it didn't attract any monsters, Shala kept going back and forth to think.
"So if the comms are down then something MUST be wrong with the airship. Either it's damaged, or destroyed, or… what if it just flew away to the mainland?" – Shala pondered. "Nah, there's no way Tetrax would leave the rest of this place marooned with no way to get off or contact the mainland. Well, besides the giant sea serpents." – he thought. "With no airship and no comms, the nearest settlement would be the… Providence outpost all the way out in the Fireswamps. Perfect. Unless that whole camp decides to up and disappear as well. But there's still the matter of comms…"
Shala threw another glance at the garbage Triceraclops left behind, among them the satellite dish. It was likely a remainder of the early days of the invasion, when they tried to build communications towers in Forsaken Valley but were unsuccessful due to Triceraclops attacks.
"Could this possibly work?" – he asked himself.
He checked it out. "Wow. It seems to be pretty much intact. Except… The solar battery it used to be attached to is gone. So it's worthless unless I go out and fight every single Triceraclops that's out there.
Shala squatted over the rest of the remains to see if there would be anything useful there, when he felt something protruding in his pocket. He put his hand in it and… It was the alien battery he found in that pseudo-Fusion lair!
"Whoa. Wohohohohow! This is exactly what I needed! Okay. Okay. Gotta figure out how to use this first, though."
After a little bit of tinkering, it was ready. Shala couldn't believe that the NanoCom was showing bars again. Now all that was left was to establish a connection with the airship… but it was still not possible. So Shala did the next best thing.
"Alice, it's me, Shala. Something's wrong. Mandark's airship is gone and I can't communicate with it. Communications might be down over at your end too. I hope you're hearing this and I hope everything's okay over there, Fuse is definitely up to something malicious."
Relieved that at least this message got through, Shala looked at the satellite dish.
"I'm not carrying you all the way to the Fireswamps." – he said. What he did instead was put it on one of the tree branches, hoping that no rampaging monster would crush it in its blind fury.
"Now all that's left is to find my Chill Caster. I was holding it as I got knocked off, so it has to be around here somewhere." – he said to himself as he went around, looking for the gun.
After a short while of looking he found the gun near some bushes. But the Chill Caster wasn't the only thing that he had found – it was a boy. He looked pale, around 14 or 15 years old, with black hair. He seemed to be unconscious, and he was holding Shala's Chill Caster in his hand.
The pair of SACT Agents guarding the outpost on Huntor's Crest saw someone approaching the barricades. It was a guy. Blonde, messy hair, gray eyes, and was holding a weapon in his hand.
SACT Agent Cody leaned over and told Agent Larry "Now there's a guy who looks like he's been living in the jungle for weeks." Agent Larry chuckled, but whispered "Yeah, but he also looks like he's ready to bite someone's head off, so don't go ruffling his feathers."
The stranger got to the gate. "Howdy." – Agent Larry greeted him.
"I'm looking for someone. Did anyone enter or leave recently?" – the stranger asked.
"Yeah, there was this one guy earlier today. Tall, with the red hoodie. What was his name again, Larry?" – Agent Cody said.
"I think it was somthin' like… Yeah, it was LG Shala. Got in on foot, then rented a hoverboard. Why ya askin', guy?" – Larry asked.
"What was he here for? When did he last leave and how?" – the stranger ignored Agent Larry's question.
"He was doin' a mission for that creepy demon guy that's in here." – Agent Larry answered.
"So, it's Demongo…" – the stranger muttered and tried to step in, but Agent Cody stopped him.
"Hold on there, my man. We need to know everyone who comes in." – he told him.
The guy stopped for a second.
"Jay Zoomringer." – he said dryly as he entered the SACT outpost. Cody didn't stop him.
"Are ya off ya rocker? Did you see how he looked at ya?!" – Agent Larry yelled.
"Well, we had to know his name. Steel's orders. Would you rather deal with this guy or with him? And besides, I don't think it's worth him picking a fight with SACT anyway."
"You're a braver soul than me." – Larry told him and shook his head.
End of Chapter 2.