The Silent Heroes

by LG Shala

After Fuse's all-out attack on Mandark's airship in Forsaken Valley, everyone in the Darklands is stranded. With the Airship disappeared, comms cut off and no way to reach the mainland, how will the survivors manage to face off with no backup against Fuse's most savage monsters, his elite Fusions and whatever Demongo is scheming in the most dangerous place on Earth?

10. Full of Hot Air

Chapter 10 – Full of Hot Air

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"Okay. Who's next?" – Shala asked.

"What do you mean, who's next?" – Naver responded.

"You know how we kinda almost had a fight with each other earlier?" – Shala told him. Naver nodded. "We're never going to, uh, work well together as a team unless we bond. I told you guys my story of working at Dexlabs. Jay told us about his time travel thing. So now who's gonna share?"

Naver stared at Shala for a moment. "And so, you're asking me, a guy with amnesia, to share my backstory?"

Naver started laughing, and Shala joined too. Although, Naver considered telling the others of what really did happen to him – specifically the discovery of his powers, but he wouldn't dare, as there was this issue of mistrust. Jay would suspect him even more for… something at least, and he wasn't too sure about himself either. So, he decided to keep it coy, for now, at least.

"Then that only leaves Alice, then." – Naver said.

"Oh, there's not really that much to tell about me. I mean, Shala already knows. Plus, it's kinda supposed to be a secret right now, although at this point, with the war and all, I don't think it really matters that much anyway and…"

"Which is…?" – Jay asked.

"She is a member of an organization called the Secret Scientists." – Shala told them.

"You mean the Saturdays?" – Naver intervened.

"No, not exactly. I mean, they are members too, yes, but… Hey, how exactly do you know about the Saturdays?" – Alice asked him, and Naver couldn't tell if it was curiosity or suspicion.

"Yeah, this is one of the things I mentioned about him. He knows stuff, but doesn't know how. Part of the whole amnesia thing he has going on." – Shala answered for him.

"Okay then. Well, each of the Secret Scientists have their own field they're studying or researching or exploring. The Saturdays got the cryptids, Dr. Beeman is obsessed with aliens, and, well, me – I specialize in Fusion Monsters."

Jay raised his eyebrows in surprise, maybe even slightly impressed, but Naver was confused. "How exactly do you specialize in Fusion Monsters?"

"The exact same way zoologists specialize in animals? Duh."

"But these monsters aren't exactly animals, are they? I've met some of them already and they're more like murderous alien… well, monsters." – Naver responded.

"Oh, you see, Alice has got this thing…" – Shala piped in, but Alice interrupted.

"Yeah, most people don't really see them that way. My way, I mean. They're just regarded as a foreign army, an invading force, agents of war, but I kinda think of them differently. To me, they're like wild animals. Predators in the jungle. A lot of the monsters are based on earth animals anyway, and when you pay close attention to a horde of, say, Skull Bashers, they've got an Alpha, and a whole power hierarchy going on when they travel in groups, not too different from a pack of wolves, and also-"

"Basically, my cousin has this obsession with cataloguing and controlling everything in her life, and now she wants to research the Fusion ecosystem, their attributes and stuff like that. She'd probably even build a whole zoo of them if she could. In fact, she's trying to get Fusion life included as the sixth kingdom classification of organi-" – Shala interrupted her, but then Alice cut him off again.

"Alright, alright we get it! I'm passionate about my research. I'm sure you couldn't relate."

"Now what is that supposed to mean?"

"You're always giving everything the minimal possible amount of effort!"

"Oh, Really?" – Jay turned his attention towards them.

"Am not!" – Shala objected.

"You absolutely are." – she told him. Then she turned to the rest of the group. "For example, when Shala was in-"

"Aaaaand now we're about to hear that story again." – Shala interrupted her again. "I tell you this story once. Just once! And now you bring it up every time you talk to someone about me."

"When Shala was in school one day, they had this pretty big test. Like, it was a really big deal." – Alice went on as she ignored Shala's interruptions. "Everyone in his class was studying like crazy for it, everyone except, well…" – Alice side-eyed Shala. "And a week before the test the exam questions somehow leaked. It was a multiple-choice test with, uh, 50 questions or something like that. And that probably made everyone else's studies a bit easier, you know, they knew which questions were gonna come and stuff, they even knew the answers, but Shala still didn't bait an eye. And after everyone else studied for weeks, Shala sat down, one day before the exam, and instead of studying the material, he just learned the sequence of the correct answers."

"The sequence of correct answers?" – Naver repeated.

"Yeah, like, question 1 – B, question 2 – C, and so on. Instead of learning what questions were gonna come, he just learned this sequence of BCBBBDAAAA etc. For 50 questions. He learned the whole string." – Alice told them. "I sure did." – Shala added with pride. Naver was amazed, but Jay wasn't that impressed by it.

"Wouldn't you rather have actually learned the test material instead of putting this much effort in something this useless?" – Jay, who has been listening in silence this whole time, asked Shala.

"Everyone always tells me that, I know, but it wasn't that much effort, really, it was pretty easy to learn. And by the way…"

"How did you fare on that test, then?" – Naver asked him, interested.

"He got caught." – Alice told him, then threw an "I told you so" type look at Shala.

"Okay, okay, you're telling the whole thing wrong. How would I have gotten caught if I memorized the whole thing? It's inside my brain! You think I had it written down on a piece of paper and then waved it in front of Mr. Teacherman's face? Really, how would I have gotten caught?"

"You tell me, you're the one that got caught." – Alice retorted.

Shala sighed and shook his head. "I just tell you one story that I thought was funny and years later you still bring it up all the time."

"Oh, don't get all pissy about it." – Alice told him.

"No, come on." – Shala said calmly. "I'm not pissy. I'm not even mad that you're telling people embarrassing school stories about me or anything. It's just that to me, it was a stupid story that I thought would be funny to tell you and I didn't really care about it or give it much thought or anything and it's weird to me that you keep, like, making it a whole deal. Or at least, you know, you could get the story right."

"Well, sorry, Shala, but I just want you to use that brain of yours that can clearly do wonders. Is that too much to ask?"

"Well, what actually happened?" – Naver asked them, now deeply invested in this tale.

"Okay, first of all, I didn't wait till the day before the test. I waited till the last day. Which was, uh, the actual day of the test."

"Seriously?" – Naver laughed in disbelief. Alice shook her head.

"Yeah, I learned the whole test during the… the lunch break. It only took me like 20 minutes anyway, and I didn't really need all those weeks to prepare for it in the first place."

"So then how'd you get caught?" – Naver asked him.

"That's the thing, I didn't get caught." – Shala answered. "It's just that…" – he laughed. "As I found out after being seated for the test, the teacher actually changed the order of the questions. And, uh, that whole 50 letter sequence that I had memorized suddenly became worthless. And since I didn't study the actual test materials, you can guess what happened next."

Alice broke out in laughter. "Seriously? That's what it was? Pffffffft." – she kept laughing even harder. "You idiot! That's so much funnier! I never knew that!" – she was laughing so much that her eyes slightly teared up.

Shala raised his hands in the air as he said "I literally told you what happened in detail and you say you never knew that? Come on!"

"You totally deserved it, though. I mean, really!" – she responded while still laughing.

"Okay, okay, so how did the whole thing end?" – Naver asked him.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I dropped out of school and joined DexLabs staff." – Shala answered casually.

"No, I meant with the t… you did WHAT?" – Naver asked, now alarmed.

"No, I actually go to school here, at Darklands High, with my very good principal, Fusion Mandark and teacher Mr Fuse- Of course I dropped out of school! It was mostly a waste of time, anyway."

"Okay, okay, but what's with the test then?" – Alice asked him this time.

"Eh, that was nothing. Seeing as I was the star student and all, Principal Harm actually let me retake the test the next day. That evening I actually did study though, forreal this time, and that was just about enough for me to get a passing grade."

"A passing grade." – Jay repeated and shook his head.

"Anyway, what were we talking about earlier? We got way off track." – Shala stated.

"I think you said we should all tell our stories so that we can bond and become a good fighting team, or something like that." – Naver told him.

"Well, I've had enough bonding to last me a lifetime." – Shala answered as he lied down on an elevated space in the truck.

After that conversation, a silence fell between the four of them again.

Jay was sitting on his floor, with his legs crossed and eyes closed. He was thinking whether or not he made the right call in allowing Alice to join him. After so many distractions since the day began, instead of following Demongo's trail he was making another detour to kill Fusion Courage. Not only that, but their new companions seemed… incompetent at best and were traitors at worst.

Alice, sitting in one of the gunner seats, was having similar thoughts of self-doubt, but ones of worry and not mistrust. Was she in the right for leaving her Providence friends and following Jay on his adventures? Sure, she found Shala and got vital info, but Jay could have done that himself. What if she came back only to find all of her friends dead? What then?

Naver, laying on the floor, was still hung up on his powers. "They won't care! They'll be angry. They'll be delighted! No, that Jay certainly won't be if he finds out. I just wanna get away from here as soon as possible. Why do I have to be the one who keeps seeing everyone die around me? I didn't ask for this. Or did I? How am I supposed to figure out what I wanted before all this?!"

Shala was just relaxing on the elevated floor. "Man, I really want a Radicola. When will this whole missing airship incident be over?" – he thought as he imagined the delightful taste of cold, sparkling soda.

As you can see, everyone had a lot on their minds.

Suddenly, Jay got up. "I gotta get out." – he said as he climbed to the top hatch.

"Why?" – Naver asked. Jay didn't respond.

"Dude, where you going?" – Naver asked him again.

"To take a leak." – Jay answered bluntly as he climbed out of the hatch and closed it from above. "Don't touch my stuff." – he added.

Shala noticed through the hatch that by now the sky was already black.

Naver kept thinking. "This is your chance. Tell the others while Jay's gone. They might take your side when he finds out. You have to do it now though. Quickly!"

The words were in Naver's throat, but he didn't know if he was brave enough to actually get them out. "Come on" – he thought to himself. "Just say "Hey guys…" and there won't be any turning back from there. But what will I say after that, though?" – he kept thinking. The "hey guys" was still in his throat. The pressure was building up. But Jay was gonna get back any second now! He had to do it quickly! But what if… Okay, he has to do it on three. Three, two… He almost choked. Okay, okay, now, on three, two… Nope, he couldn't do it. He decided that he wouldn't do it. Some other time maybe. But then Naver barely did give out a "H-hey guys" in a half-broken voice.

"What's up?" – Shala responded.

"So, uh… There's this thing… From back in the jungle. You know, when fighting those monsters, I found out that I, uh…"

"You okay?" – Alice asked him.

"I HAVE POWERS!" – Not being able to cope with the anxiety, Naver shouted out loudly.

"I'm sorry, what?" – Shala repeated, thinking he misheard him.

"Back in the jungle. I discovered that I had, uh… I have superpowers."

"You… Powers? You? Come on, you've gotta be pulling my leg. Are you?" – he asked.

Naver quickly shook his head and responded with "No, no, I'm completely serious."

"Whoa!" – Shala responded, amazed.

"What kind of powers are they?" – Alice eagerly asked.

Naver was relieved at their response. Well, partially relieved, since the biggest sceptic, Jay, was still away, but he did feel better.

"As far as I know, I can move things with my mind. I didn't know I could do that, just like the thing with the sword, but when I was trying to save Lars, I just did."

"Who's Lars?" – Alice whispered over to Shala.

"A friend." – Shala whispered back. "Cool. You've got telekinesis, I think." – he then told Naver. "That promotes you from some "super ninja" to a bona fide "superhero". That's, uh… Yeah, that's cool."

"So, can we see it?" – Alice asked him.

"See what?" – Naver responded.

"The powers, dude!" – Shala shouted enthusiastically.

"Oh… yeah. I'll try, but I can't exactly do it on command. Like, uh, barely maybe." – Naver told them, but then he heard the hatch opening again. Jay was back. The pressure that was slowly melting away suddenly came back full force as what he was about to say got stuck in his throat. Naver looked at both Shala and Alice, wondering if they were gonna tell him. Should he have asked them not to tell? No, certainly it would be better if they told him right away, right? Actually, no. He shouldn't hide behind them and let them break the news softly. Naver had to come out with it himself.

As soon as Jay jumped down, Naver approached him. Jay stood there. "What is he going to do?" – he wondered. "Trying to say something? Or maybe about to attack?" – flashed through his mind, as he strained his muscles in case Naver would actually attack for some reason, but Naver did no such thing.

Naver took a deep breath, and then told Jay calmly: "I have discovered that I have superpowers and I don't want to keep that as a secret." Then he turned back and sat down at his spot, awaiting Jay's response.

Several things went through Jay's head. Thoughts like "I was right!" ran through his mind over and over again even though he wasn't exactly sure what he was right about and without realizing it, he was trying to fit Naver's powers into the ongoing mystery of the missing airship. "Demongo? No, he wouldn't be one of his minions. Would he? Not even he knows…" – he thought. Even though his thought process was full of suspicion, in the back of his mind he knew that Naver admitted it himself instead of trying to hide it. Or could this also be a scheme to gain trust? Lost in his thoughts, he didn't realize that Alice, Shala and Naver were all staring at him, waiting for his reaction. Nor did he remember to ask Naver what sort of powers does he exactly have, and he didn't get the chance to.

Something big and hard hit the armored truck from the outside. The vehicle shook and Shala fell over from his spot.

"What the hell was that?" – he asked, trying to get up.

"Were you seen getting out and in?" – Naver promptly asked Jay.

"I was careful, I-" – Jay was saying, but Alice cut him off.

"The keys! Shala! Give me the truck keys!" – she yelled and ran to the steering wheel as the truck was hit yet again.

Shala dug into his pocket quickly and tossed her the keys.

"We need to see what is it outside!" – Jay yelled.

"These keys aren't working! You gave me the wrong ones again!" – Alice yelled as she desperately tried to cram them in the ignition hole.

Shala rummaged through his pockets again. "They're all I've got! Maybe you have them!"

Alice ran back to her Bunny Bag backpack. The truck got hit by something else, but not as big. Then again. And again, quicker and quicker. And then the big thing hit again, causing Alice to drop her backpack as the stuff spilled out of it.

"I think whatever it is has attracted the Magma Hulks and they're attacking too!" – Alice yelled as she looked through the spilled items.

"Less talk, more search! We need to find those keys!" – Shala said. Naver dropped to his knees and helped her look for them.

Jay climbed back up to the hatch.

"The hell are you doing?" – Shala asked him.

"I'll get a shot from up there till you get the truck running!" – Jay answered.

"They'll roast you alive!" – Shala yelled. Jay ignored him.

"I got it! It was in the bag's smaller compartment with DOC's hard drive!" – Alice yelled as she got the keys, shoved her Bunny Bag upside down in Naver's hands and ran to get the truck running. The hard drive slid out of the open bag and Naver barely managed to catch it.

As the truck's main engine was dead, the driver's seat was useless, so Alice sat at the dashboard next to the steering wheel. It opened up the views from the side cams and she could now see a horde of Magma Hulks throwing fireballs at the truck as well as a single Triceraclaw ramming the vehicle from the side.

"A Triceraclaw?" – Alice muttered. "That doesn't make any sense…"

The dashboards on the gunner seats also lit up and Shala and Naver sat down to man the cannons.

"What am I supposed to do now?" – Naver asked Shala, as he had no idea which buttons or levers did what.

"There's no time to explain them, just mash all the buttons, dude!" – Shala yelled as he was aiming the turrets at Magma Hulks. On the camera feed they could also see the creatures getting blown up by blasts from Jay's Scorpion Predator.

"My, my, Cameron, you've outdone yourself in the future…" – Shala muttered, impressed with the blasts from Jay's future gun.

Naver got up from his seat and climbed towards the top hatch.

"What are you doing?" – Shala asked him.

"Dude, all of my cannons are facing the right side and the monsters are only attacking from the left! There's gotta be some other way I can help out!" – Naver answered as he got out of the hatch to help Jay.

It was already night out, but the Fireswamps were illuminated by the jets of fire, as usual. The sight, however, was completely new for Naver. He had seen it a moment before on the camera feed, but seeing the charred fields at nighttime with his own two eyes felt different.

Jay was squatting down the roof of the truck, holding the Scorpion Predator.

"What's the situation?" – Naver asked him as he got out of the hatch, but a storm of fireballs all flew in his direction. Naver hesitated to duck, but Jay pulled his leg and he fell down, so all of the fireballs missed.

"Can't get a clean hit on that thing because of all the fireballs coming my way. I've been thinning out the horde but there's a lot of them." – Jay responded. "What have you got?"

"What? What do you mean?" – Naver asked him, confused.

"What gun do you have? Start firing at them already!" – he told him.

"Oh, I, uh… actually just have this sword…" – Naver told him awkwardly.

Jay sighed. He let go of his gun and went through a menu in his NanoCom. The Couture Rifle materialized in his other hand, which he then handed to Naver.

Naver quickly started firing at them, but just now he realized that he'd never fired a gun before – he's been using Shala's Aerial Slicer this whole time, which was enough until now, but in this situation, it was hardly useful. However, now that he got a gun, he realized that he wasn't really as good with it as he was with the sword. He kept missing.

"I can't do this. Here, have your gun back." – Naver put it aside as he pressed a button on his NanoCom. Nano Gumball appeared as Naver sent him to attack the nearest monster, but that wasn't enough either as more and more monsters from the far side of the field were getting to the truck and Nano Gumball would get tired soon. Even the blasts from the Scorpion Predator coupled with the turrets that Shala and Alice were firing from weren't enough to cut it. And the Triceraclaw rammed the vehicle again.

Shala yelled "A couple more hits and it'll breach the hull!" so loud that even Naver and Jay up outside could hear him.

"What are we supposed to do? It keeps tanking the shots!" – Alice responded.

Naver listened to all this as he laid there, useless in battle. That feeling that everyone around him would get killed again came back, and impulsively, he got up and jumped down from the side of the ship.

"What the hell are you doing?" – Jay asked, but Naver was already down on the ground.

The Triceraclaw was charging at the truck, not changing its trajectory even after seeing Naver. Naver ran towards it, with Aerial Slicer in hand, located its weak spot in the armor on its side and was prepared to slash but now, most of the fireballs were being hurled towards him. So, he dodged the fireballs, missing his shot to kill the Triceraclaw. Instead, while still constantly evading the incoming attacks, he decided to run towards the Magma Hulks and kill them off, one by one.

After seeing Naver rush into battle against no less than 50 Magma Hulks, Jay sighed, swapped his Scorpion Predator for the Couture Rifle and jumped off the ship to help Naver. Shala and Alice weren't firing anymore so that they wouldn't accidentally hit their friends.

With each slash, a Magma Hulk crumbled to pieces. With each blast, another was scattered to bits. Dodging each fireball one by one, Naver was in the heat of it, surrounded by a mob of monsters, with Jay providing backup from afar. Shala and Alice were now trying to aim at the monsters that were the furthest away from them. Swish. Slice. No matter how many Naver took down, more kept coming at him. He ran up to one, swish. Dodged a fireball, another, the third one came so close that it singed a bit of his hair but he didn't care. Slice. He heard heavy footsteps from behind, but jumped in time to dodge the Hulk charging at him and sliced it in equal halves on his way down. Then he lunged at another. The next one was huge, it didn't go down in one slice. After the next hit, another Hulk approached Naver, who didn't even notice it as he was dealing with the Magma Master, but a shot from Jay took down the attacker and saved Naver, without him realizing what happened. Two more Magma Hulks ahead, and with unrelenting determination, Naver forced himself yet again to run towards them. One fell as the sword ran through its body, the other one approached but got knocked back by an invisible force. When Jay saw what happened, he stopped firing for a moment, as he couldn't believe his eyes. He came to his senses soon enough and kept shooting, but at this point, Naver didn't even need backup anymore. Dodge. Slice. Push. Naver was totally immersed in the battle, not even realizing that he was using his powers in addition to the sword like nothing. He yelled a battle cry as he kept slicing through Hulk after Hulk, with not a single monster even coming close to hitting him. As the horde got thinner and thinner, Naver kept looking around to attack the areas where more of them were grouped together. Meanwhile, Jay, Alice and Shala managed to deal with the single Triceraclaw that had somehow wound up in the Fireswamps.

As the final Magma Hulk fell, Naver looked around, breathing heavily. The field with no monsters felt so empty, he needed more. The heated battle felt so good because for the first time since he remembered himself, he didn't feel any doubt about what he was supposed to do or who he was. Everything was clear. He didn't have to think. And now that the enemy was gone, the thoughts screaming "what the hell are you supposed to be?" would be slowly crawling back.

The others caught up to him. "DUDE!" – Shala yelled, super excited. "THAT WAS FLIPPIN' AWESOME!"

"What was?" – Naver asked, confused as to what Shala was talking about.

"Oh, are you doing the thing where you pretend you totally didn't take down an army of lava monsters like the baddest of asses? You've been holding out on me!"

"I mean, yeah, this swordsmanship thing just kicks in on its own. I swear, it's not me that's doing this."

"Oh yeah, sure. And next you're gonna say it wasn't you that was also shredding them telekinetically, either. Come on, you can take credit for your badassery!" – Shala retorted.

"Wait, hold on a second. You mean that I was just…" – Naver muttered, while looking at Shala then Jay then back to Shala and Alice. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the battlefield, which was still filled with charred rocks – the only thing that was left of the Magma Hulks after the Fusion Matter got absorbed into all of their NanoComs.

"Yep. You were. That was awesome as hell, dude." – Alice nodded, impressed.

"You are one hell of an asset. Goddamn." – even Jay was impressed with him. "I'm glad you're fighting for us right now. You might just win us the war."

"I'll say." – Shala added. "We should put Naver in a shuttle and send him to Planet Fusion and let him do his thing. He'll solo the entire planet. HAH!"

Naver laughed, excitedly. After Lars and the SACT research group, for once, he was able to do something about his situation. Maybe he'd be sticking around his new friends for longer this time. But would he be able to keep it up? "You might just win us the war." That felt like a lot for a guy who couldn't control his powers properly.

"Uh, guys?" – Naver asked as they were heading back towards their Providence truck. Everyone looked at him to listen. "I just want you guys to, uh… I don't even know how to use my swordsmanship skills or control my powers properly. It's like a switch turns on in my head and I subconsciously go into battle mode, but then… sometimes it just doesn't work and I swing my sword around like an idiot. So, what I wanna say was… this was just a fluke. I don't want you guys to head into battle with high expectations about my fighting abilities."

"With enough training…" – Jay started. "Yes. With training, I'm sure that you will be able to wield your powers reliably."

"Yeah, plus, we've all seen your swordswinging, but we don't even know the limits of your psychic powers!" – Alice exclaimed. "But right now, I think we need to discuss something."

"Hm?" – Shala asked.

"The Triceraclaw! One just doesn't wander into this territory on its own! And, unless Jay got really clumsy, which I doubt, there's no way he would be seen entering the truck. Somehow it knew to attack the truck and attract the Magma Hulks." – Alice explained.

"Guess we'll add that up to the ongoing mysteries. I even started a file for it." – Shala said as he opened the document on his NanoCom. A holographic screen and keyboard got projected from his watch, and Shala typed in "Triceraclaw attack" as the next entry on the list, right after "What happened to the airship?", "Naver", "What's Demongo up to?" and "What is stuck up Jay's ass?". Everyone saw the list, and everyone, except Jay, gave at least a smile. Soon, they were all holding back a chuckle and it wasn't long before all of them broke out laughing. Even Jay chuckled with the rest of them.

As they climbed back into the truck, Shala declared: "So. One of us is gonna have to stay awake and on alert in case there are more nighttime attacks."

"I don't suppose you're volunteering?" – Alice asked sarcastically.

"Nah, I was more thinking… this guy." – he jerked his head towards Jay. "Let's face it, regardless of who we choose, Jay is gonna stay up anyway because of his trust issues or whatever. Isn't that right?" – he turned to Jay, who was now doing push-ups on the floor. "What are you doing?" – Shala then asked him.

"It's called keeping in shape. Don't think you might have heard about it." – Jay told him while working out.

"But, why? You use guns. Why exactly do you need to…"

"I use whatever I can to get the job done. It's a constant life or death battle out there. If they take away my guns, I use grenades. If I run out of grenades, I use my fists. When anything can go wrong on a mission, you've gotta be prepared for everything." – Jay told him as he now stood on his hands and started doing handstand push-ups.

"Okay, now you're definitely showing off." – Shala concluded.

Jay's arms started shaking, so he stood on his feet again and started doing squats. "And yeah, I'll be the lookout guy. You'd just fall asleep." – he added.

"That is not true. I've been known to do all-nighters all the time. But, seeing as I didn't get any sleep last night, as I had to get to the Providence camp, I'll take my time getting a good night's sleep, thank you very much."

Everyone was getting ready to sleep. Shala took off his Engineer Buckle Tab Jacket and bundled it up like a pillow. Alice was lying on the floor, her head cushioned by her Bunny Bag. Jay was sitting with his legs crossed, meditating. Naver sat in the gunner seat. He didn't really feel like he was falling asleep. In this eerie silence, thoughts of self-doubt kept plaguing his mind, and he couldn't stand it anymore.

"Hey, Shala." – he whispered. "You awake?"

"You can't fall asleep either?" – Shala asked.

"Can you tell me a story?"

"You seriously want bedtime stories?"

"No, I just mean like… Earlier today, you told me that this world was a cool place to live in, or something like that. Remember?"

"All in all, this world is a pretty amazing place. Yeah. Ben told me that once, and it just kinda stuck with me." – Shala told him.

"Yeah, that's the kind of stuff I want you to tell me about. How amazing the world is. Stories about Ben 10 and others like that. I do have this weird information in my head about everything, but it feels a lot nicer when somebody else is telling me stuff."

"Sure, I know a thing or two. Heh. Anybody can tell you the tales of their heroic deeds, but I've got something much better."

"What is it?" – Naver asked him.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" – Shala said cryptically.

"Out with it already!" – Alice said from her corner of the truck. She was listening as well.

"Let me explain. After the invasion started, a lot of Earth's superheroes started going missing. Most of the Justice Friends were the first to go, but slowly others started disappearing as well. Hell, Buttercup was considered MIA before the war even began. And the remaining heroes were on high alert, as any one of them could go next." – Shala told them.

"That's… Wow." – was all Naver could say. He kept on listening with full attention.

"And the superheroes weren't the only ones on high alert. Dexter was investigating all of these disappearances. One thing he did was bug their HQs and hideouts. You know, places like the Justice Friends headquarters on Mount Neverest. And now we at Dexlabs had a live feed of everything that was going on in the superhero community, to get us closer to finding out what was happening to the missing heroes."

"Oh, yeah, it was totally to find the missing heroes." – Alice remarked. "Didn't Dexter also bug the PowerPuff Girls' house?"

"Yeah, he got yelled at by Blossom big time for that. Right in the middle of Dexlabs, too. The entire staff was laughing our asses off. But hey, I know that it wasn't exactly the moral thing to do, but it was damn funny, at least. Every time something big was going down, Douglas called the rest of the staff and we all gathered around the biggest monitor to watch the chaos."

"Something big… like what exactly?" – Naver asked him.

"Okay, okay, for example. The roster of the Justice Friends is not exactly what it used to be. You know, most of the heroes like Capital G, Tiki Torch, Speeding Bullet and even Val Hallen had either retired or passed on their mantle to a younger trainee. Sam-R-I disappeared with no trace few years back. Phan Tone quit and went solo. Major Glory was the only one keeping the team going straight, and he went up missing during the invasion. So, the remainders of the team – that is, White Tiger's apprentice, Birdgirl, Speeding Bullet's daughter" – Shala was counting them on his fingers – "the new Val Hallen and the retired Miss Spell sent out invitations to other heroes, or else the team would have to disband. Samurai Jack was sent an invitation, but he politely declined, the PowerPuffs did too. Blue Falcon rudely declared that he works alone. Ben 10, Generator Rex, that Steven kid and a couple others had already formed their own team/hangout, so they weren't really interested in this either. The guy that pilots Megas was gonna show up, but then his giant robot got immobilized by Fusion Matter and that whole thing didn't work out. The only one that accepted the invitation was this half-dragon dude called Firebreather. So, as the invitations weren't really a success, things got more desperate."

"Couldn't have gotten too desperate, or else they'd have invited you!" – Alice exclaimed and laughed at her own joke.

"You jest, but I would actually make for a better Justice Friend than what they got. Get this - they held open auditions." – Shala told them.

"I can imagine how that would have turned out." – Naver said.

"So a bunch of people showed up this time. Mostly, uh, D-list heroes, really. The first one was Robotboy, which, as you might have guessed, was a robot boy. There was also an ex-KND operative, calling himself "The Tommy". Not too much of a creative name. Those two were deemed too young. After that, Johnny X flew in, but when he demonstrated his superpowers, the, uh, the power poots… Yeah, the audition didn't go well for him either. That was a shame, cause I was hoping he'd make the cut. Lastly, this village boy shows up and declares himself to be the new and improved Ben 10, calling himself Clyde 5. His reasoning was that because 5 is twice less than 10, it's twice better."

"How does that make any sense?" – Alice asked.

"It doesn't. That guy had a wicked alien suit of armor, though. I wouldn't mind taking that apart to see what makes it tick. Anyway, my point is, after all four of them got rejected, they all decided to make their own superteam on the spot, before they had even left Justice Friends HQ. Then, immediately, they had a disagreement on the name for their new team and Johnny X started duking it out against Clyde 5 right in front of the Justice Friends. The Tommy joined in the rumble too. Meanwhile, us at Dexlabs were watching this whole thing like a movie. Douglas even brought out the popcorn. Dexter usually disapproved of these viewing parties, but I could hear him whispering "Go, Techadon suit, go!", so he was probably having a good time too. The whole thing was great."

"Okay, but how did the fight end?" – Jay asked him.

"Surprisingly, Robotboy showed the most level-headedness in this, even though he was the youngest one. He went into this ultimate mode or something that he has and broke up the fight. Tommy, Clyde and Johnny went home empty-handed and with a couple of bruises. Meanwhile, Robotboy's membership was reconsidered and they actually let him join. So it all worked out for him. But I know that most of us at watching this at Dexlabs were really hoping that that their new team would work out. It would have been hilarious, watching those guys in action. But I guess they'd have done more harm than good. Yeah. It's good that that didn't happen." – Shala finished his story.

"Then what happened to all the heroes that went missing?" – Naver asked him.

"Oh yeah. We found them, eventually. As it turns out, Fusion Demongo had absorbed all of their essence. Pretty crazy, right? He's, uh, like Fuse's right-hand man. He's right here in the Darklands, actually. In the end, we managed to free their stolen essence and the heroes returned, but Fusion Demongo got away. He's still out there, somewhere." – Shala told him.

"Okay, kids, enough scary stories for tonight. Time to sleep or else you won't be able to wake up for school!" – Alice told them.

"Okay, mom!" – Shala responded, annoyed. "As if she wasn't listening eagerly too." – he muttered to himself.

---

"Psst. Shala! Wake up!" – Naver whispered.

"We should just push him off to the floor." – Jay suggested.

"Hold on, hold on. I got this." – Alice stopped him. She tried to make her best Dexter impression as she leaned over to the sleeping Shala and shouted "WHAT ARE YOU DOOING, YOU IIIIIIIIDIOT? IT IS A FINE DAY FOR SCIENCE AND YOOU ARE WASTING PRECIOUS TIME AND RESOURCES! NOW, I SHALL NOT REQUEST YOUR PRESENCE AGAIN! GET TO WORK!"

"I de-ionized the Electro Gun yesterday, leave me alone…" – Shala muttered in his sleep.

"Damn. I was sure that would work." – Alice said.

"Nah, just look at him. He's probably so used to Dexter yelling at him every morning that he's automatically tuning it out." – Jay answered.

"Yeah, you're right. No, no. I got it now." – Alice said. "SHALA! NAVER AND JAY ARE DRINKING ALL YOUR RADICOLA!" – she yelled in his ear.

"THEY ARE WHAT?!" – Shala immediately sprang up. He looked around and remembered the situation he was in.

"Oh. Yeah. This is still a thing. It's morning already?" – he asked them.

"Get your stuff. We're heading out towards Fusion Courage's lair." – Jay told him.

"Radicola?" – Naver quietly asked Alice.

"Don't ask. We'll be here all day." – she whispered over.

"What, we're going now? But we just got up! What about breakfast?" – Shala protested.

"Nah, you just got up. We've been up for an hour, and you wouldn't let us wake you." – Alice told him. "Come on. You can eat on the way."

On the way to the Inferno Fields Infected Zone, Naver was looking around everywhere. It was the first time he's ever been in the Fireswamps, or anywhere new, really, so everything seemed new and exciting to take it all in. Surprisingly, he found himself memorizing every detail on the road. For Alice, however, this path was nothing but a reminder of the misery from the previous day. The place where they found Helzinger. The attack site where Rodriguez put himself out of his misery. To try and distract herself, she tried talking to Jay.

"Anything else you're after while you're in the Darklands?"

"Besides Demongo? Not really. There is some weird stuff, and some things are anomalous even that are worth looking into, but I didn't have a concrete lead or anything."

"So how exactly do you know Demongo is working against us? I mean, not to play the demon's advocate, but his efforts have been valuable in the war, especially against his own Fusion and the missing heroes incident…"

"Yeah, I'm sure they were. A lot of people are helping out in the war because they want to take over Earth for themselves." – Jay answered. "Cockroaches…" – he muttered to himself.

"Well, what's so important about Demongo?"

"For one thing, he has a chronoton particle, which means he's a problem for the space-time continuum. Which makes him my problem. And plus, Jack has told me that when he was transported into a future ruled by the Master of Darkness, Demongo was his most favored minion." – Jay told her.

"You mean Aku, right? Yeah, I've heard the tale of Jack and Aku." – Alice nodded. "And you think that Demongo might still be loyal to Aku?"

"That, and, Jack asked me to keep an eye on Demongo. He was sure something was gonna happen."

"So you're close with Jack? Cool." – Alice told him, impressed.

"Well, we both are warriors displaced out of time, trying to get back to the past." Jay hesitated. "Or were. But that's a long story, and from a lifetime ago. Now that Jack's gone to the mainland, Demongo is definitely my responsibility." – Jay told her.

"Correction: OUR responsibility" – Alice reminded him.

"Still determined to help out, then?" – Jay asked her with a light smile.

"Well, I'm not letting you have all the fun." – Alice answered smugly.

"That's good, but… It's not fun I'm having here. It's a bloody job. I need you to understand that before you commit to this."

"I've seen enough bloody jobs. Just the attack on the camp is enough to last me a long time…" – she answered.

"It's gonna get worse. It always does." – Jay responded.

"Still, I think I need to go through with this. And I think you'll need me to go through with this too. Nobody should carry such a burden on their own." – she told him.

Jay didn't respond. For a while, he resumed looking around for any signs of giant worm activity as they approached the Infected Zone.

"Is that the Infected Zone? It looks different." – Naver remarked as they all approached the Inferno Fields Infected Zone.

"Yeah, most of the force fields are usually DexLabs tech, but Providence wanted to beat them to the punch with the Firepits. So, they set up their own force field around the Inferno Fields, using the same tech as in the Bug Jar." – Alice told him.

Naver wanted to ask what the Bug Jar was, but he realized that each answer would just bring up more questions so he kept it to himself.

Arriving at the warp pad, they all got off their vehicles and warped inside, one by one.

"How come these warp pads and Dexbots never get attacked by monsters?" – Naver still had to ask. "Just seems weird to have a fully intact piece of technology out here in the middle of nowhere."

"Yeah, Dexter took care of that himself. The warp pad has a force field around and the Dexbot only lets authorized people through. Having a NanoCom automatically makes us authorized, so we're free to go in." – Alice explained. "But be careful with the infection here. We should get up on those floating rocks to get around easier."

Not only was the rate of spread of Fusion Matter higher in the Inferno Fields, so was the amount of fire and lava. The area would have probably been impossible to cross without the messed-up gravity and the floating platforms. Alice led the way, as she often came to the Inferno Fields to study the Stone Drakes.

"What the hell is that over there?" – Shala asked, pointing towards the center of the Infected Zone. There, on the top of an elevated area surrounded by an outer stone wall, sat a gigantic Terrafuser, pumping Fusion Matter everywhere.

"Is that what happens when we don't collect the Fusion spore pods?" – Naver asked.

"Mmhm." – Jay confirmed.

"Damn. We should start doing that here then, right, guys?" – Naver suggested.

"No. Not at the moment, anyway. Right now, I'd say the Infected Zone is being closely watched by Fusion Courage. He's probably wised up on how we escaped his clutches through the underground cave system and must have monsters patrolling the area on high alert. Does anyone have a Radar Nano?" – Alice asked.

Naver summoned Nano Eduardo, happy that he was able to help. "I'm not sure how to use him, though" – he said awkwardly.

"Open the mini-map on your NanoCom." – Shala told him.

"It just says no signal." – Naver responded, confused.

"Yeah, that's because all connections are down. We don't have the real-time map. However, the Radar ability will still let you see the monsters' location in relation to… Wait a second."

"What is it?"

"I thought earlier you said you didn't have a NanoCom?" – Shala asked. Jay heard this and raised his eyebrow.

"Yeah, this is Lars'."

"But this isn't supposed to be able to work for other people."

"I was meaning to ask you about that, actually. Maybe it's possible to…"

"No. I worked at DexLabs, I would know about this. It shouldn't be possible."

"You didn't work on the NanoComs, though." – Naver objected.

"Okay, okay, whatever." – Shala grunted.

"Piece of advice." – Jay interjected. "It'd be better if you wore it on your right wrist. If you're holding a sword or a gun with your right hand, you only have your left one free to press the buttons on the NanoCom."

Naver nodded and took of his NanoCom, but Jay snatched it out of his hand.

"Hey!" – Naver yelled as he tried to get it back. Jay examined it, tried to summon a Nano himself. After it didn't work, he gave the NanoCom back.

"You're a man of many mysteries, Naver." – Jay told him.

Naver put it back on his left hand, ignoring Jay's advice from earlier.

"Okay, enough of this." – Shala declared. "We should keep moving. Alice, where is that underground entrance?"

"Before we do that, we should review all our Nanos. To know what we're all carrying." – Jay stopped him.

"As long as you don't take my NanoCom again." – Naver responded.

Shala showed his Nanos of Humungosaur, Val Hallen and Uncle Grandpa. Naver displayed Nano Gumball, Nano Numbuh Four and Nano Eduardo. Alice's arsenal was different – Nano Finn, who had the Jump power, Nano Rex with Run, and a Nano of Van Rook, the mercenary, with the Stun power. Finally, it was Jay's turn. He showed everyone Nanos of Buttercup with the Stun ability, Rook (the Plumber) with Heal and his own Nano of Val Hallen with the Damage power.

"Hey, your Val Hallen is different." – Shala remarked. Indeed, unlike Shala's, Jay's version was a blue jay wearing a bandana over the long, blonde hair, which was covering his eyes. Shala summoned back his own Val Hallen, who was just a human, wearing a gray beanie with a white stripe. Upon seeing each other, the two Nanos looked surprised at first, but then they did a fist bump and started shredding on their guitars.

"Yeah, I got this one in the Future." – Jay explained. "By then, your guy, uh… doesn't make it, so Val Hallen's axe chose another mortal to be his successor."

"That's a shame. I like that dude. But it really makes you think. Any one of us could be chosen by some ancient artifact to be its wielder. Crazy, right?" – Shala pondered.

"Didn't you say you wanted us to keep going?" – Naver asked him.

"That's right. Let's carry on."

As they neared the entrance caves near the western side of the Infected Zone, they jumped off the floating platforms without a monster encounter and continued their way on solid ground. Except the solid ground had a lot of patches filled with Fusion Matter, with only a couple narrow safe paths. Shala immediately took the shortest, but the narrowest one.

"Shala, get back here! If you encounter a monster over there, you're gonna burn your shoes off trying to run away!" – Alice called after him, but he wasn't listening. She took the long path around the patch of Fusion Matter, while Naver looked for other passages and Jay chased after a floating chunk of ground, which was drifting through the air across the Infected Zone.

"Everyone, stop!" – Naver declared as he was looking at his NanoCom minimap. "There's a monster heading towards us!"

"Si, señor" – Nano Eduardo confirmed. Everyone then saw a large Slag Dragon heading their way.

"What are we supposed to do now?" – Shala asked, who was the closest to it.

"Okay, okay, whatever we do, we shouldn't get seen. If we start a fight now Fusion Courage will know we're here and he'll send his entire battalion after us." – Alice told him.

"That's a piece of cake, Naver will just give them the one-two and they'll be nothing but dust and FM!" – Shala replied.

"I appreciate your confidence in my skills, but that's something I'd really rather not gamble with" – Naver told him.

"Okay, okay. I know what to do." – Alice declared. "The Stone Drake and Slag Dragon can only recognize movement in front of it, but its line of sight is very narrow. Just stay still while it's looking at you and slowly keep moving forward if it's focusing on something else and we'll all be okay."

"Easy for you to say." – Shala said, as he was the one closest to the Drake and the one in its immediate line of sight. While it was looking at Shala, Naver and Alice slowly moved forward step by step. Shala just stood frozen, hoping that the Drake would take him for a weird, tall stone formation. Then it lost interest and turned around to its left, right at where Alice was. She froze in her tracks, not daring to move. Meanwhile, Jay was lying down on his floating rock platform unseen, drifting away from the monster. He didn't dare get up in case the Dragon saw him on the platform.

The Slag Dragon turned back at Shala, who was in the middle of stepping over a particularly large puddle of Fusion Matter. So, he stood there, frozen, standing with one leg on his toes across the four feet wide pond, trying not to fall over. Naver didn't dare move either, as he was directly behind Shala from the monster's perspective. Alice took the time to get around the patch of Fusion Matter quickly. Soon, the Slag Dragon decided to patrol some other area, and Shala and Naver were finally able to move. They all gathered at where Alice was, which, as it turned out, was a large gap in the ground.

"We're going down there?" – Naver asked.

"Oh yeah, we are. The Fusions wouldn't just hide under plain sunlight, you know, they always use cave systems and underground bunkers and abandoned wrecks as their base of operations." – Alice told him. "Honestly, looking at this, how could you NOT expect to find a Fusion inside?" – she added.

---

"It's been an hour, Alice, how long till we get there?" – Shala asked as they were exploring the cave systems.

"First, it hasn't been an hour, only 24 minutes, and second, we aren't that far from there. I've been down here before, so has Jay. I haven't been in Fusion Courage's secret lair itself but I got the directions from someone who has, now, shut up or we might attract those worms!"

"I still say these worms can't be that bad if Jay took one down all by himself, as he says he did."

"Okay, next time one shows up, we're gonna feed you to it." – Jay remarked.

Naver was looking around in every direction, looking into every tunnel and hole. He wished the others stayed quiet so that he'd hear if there was a monster or worm approaching.

They now entered one of the narrower, lower, worm-dug tunnels that made Naver wonder if he had claustrophobia. Alice, however, seemed to think they were on the right path.

"Out this worm tunnel then to the left, and there should be a giant Terrafuser on the way…" – she muttered the directions to the lair that Cindy gave her. "Bingo."

They had found the giant Terrafuser. It kept contracting and twisting, squeezing and squirting Fusion Matter into the ground through its roots.

"Bleargh." – Shala grimaced.

"Shouldn't we, like, get rid of stuff like these?" – Naver asked.

"We should, but we don't have the tech right now." – Alice explained. "Fusion Matter containment around Infected Zones is what the SACT specializes in, that's what the C stands for, and we don't have one of those containment units. Plus, uprooting this thing from the ground is very, very difficult."

"Okay, okay. Let's just move on." – Naver answered.

"Can't we at least use vehicles to get there faster?" – Shala whined again.

"We're still inside the Infected Zone, the gravity will be wonky." – Naver replied. "Right?" – he added, unsure of himself.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go. At least these huge-ass Terrafusers mean we're getting closer to the Lair."

"From now on we should be on alert for any monsters. Naver, bring out Nano Eduardo." – Jay declared.

"As long as you don't steal my NanoCom again…" – Naver muttered to himself, but the mini-map was already showing a monster right in front of them. As Naver looked closer, the others saw the Tar Titan come into the tunnel from one of the side passes. After seeing the humans, it gave out a roar that wasn't exactly deafening, but extremely unpleasant to hear. This was it, then. Now they wouldn't be able to sneak in. The entirety of Fusion Courage's defense force would be after them.

After all of them summoning their combat Nanos, Shala, Jay and Alice shot at the monster, while Naver got his sword and awkwardly swung it against the Tar Titan. The Aerial Slicer got stuck in its thick shell.

"Any ideas on what to do with this giant centipede?" – Naver asked the others as he tried to get the sword out of its core while sending Nano Gumball to do some damage. It wasn't too effective, and the blasts from the others' guns weren't that effective either.

"Cover me while I blast it!" – Jay yelled as he switched from the Couture Rifle to the Scorpion Predator once again. "Naver, get out of the way!" – he yelled at Naver, who was still trying to get his sword and would get caught in the blast. Naver pulled with all of his strength and finally managed to get the Aerial Slicer free, but got knocked against the wall because of the inertia. The blast from the Scorpion Predator knocked the monster back a bit, but didn't seem to do any damage.

Shala used Nano Humongosaur to Snare the Tar Titan and impede its advancement. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" – Nano Humungosaur yelled.

Naver checked his mini-map and saw there were more monsters approaching from behind so he quickly ran there to hold their position. Meanwhile, Shala, Alice and Jay kept firing against the Tar Titan, which was advancing on them, spitting Fusion Matter everywhere. Alice remembered how it took half of the Fireswamps camp to take down the Tar Titans one by one. The odds didn't seem too favorable this time.

Meanwhile, Lizard Queens and Kings were approaching Naver from the behind. One lunged at him, and Naver tried to slice, but didn't do it hard enough and so the monster just landed on top of his massive blade. Another lunged in front of him and Naver raised the Aerial Slicer once again to shield himself. Now the two giant Lizards were about to jump onto Naver and start biting, but a couple shots from Shala's Heatblaster knocked them back.

"Don't thank me yet." – Shala remarked. "The fire blasts aren't enough to kill them."

He was right, as the Lizards were getting up to strike again. Others were approaching too. As another one was ready to lunge, Naver concentrated. He breathed in slowly, dug into his mind, and determined, but not super strained, he tried to release his mind – and it worked! The lunging Lizard Queen got suspended mid-air, even though Naver's hold wasn't concrete yet and it wobbled around. While it was trying to wriggle and squirm out, Naver kept his hold as he sliced it with his sword, more surely this time. It worked! The giant lizard monster started dissolving. Now, more surely, Naver was slicing them up, one by one, as others got knocked back by Shala's blasts, and the ones in the back were getting Snared by Nano Humungosaur.

Then, something from behind turned Shala around. It was Alice.

"We need your Heatblaster!" – she told him.

"Seriously? But these things have fire immunity!"

"The Tar Titan has an extremely durable shell on the outside, but on the inside, it's not fire resistant at all. So, get your damn Heatblaster!"

Shala and Alice ran towards the Tar Titan, leaving Naver, who seemed to have things under control. The giant centipede monster was now spitting Fusion Matter as well as trying to clamp Jay with its pincers.

"Aim for the mouth!" – Alice told Shala who readied his shot.

"Yeah, I know" – Shala answered, but missed and hit one of its tusks.

"Just give that thing to me!" – Jay demanded, but Shala refused to give it.

"Back off. I got this."

He aimed once again and just as it was about to spit out Fusion Matter, a concentrated ray of heat hit the Tar Titan in its orifice. It didn't quite get the job done, though. In fact, the monster went berserk and pursued Jay, now swinging at him wildly with its pincers. It knocked the Scorpion Predator out of his hands, which slid across the ground and fell into a hole through a large crack. As the Tar Titan went after Jay, another well-placed Heatblaster shot got rid of it for good.

As it crumbled, leaking Fusion Matter on the ground, it revealed that there were several stone Drakes in the passage behind it, which were now free to attack. Meanwhile, more and more Lizards were coming in from the behind, and Naver couldn't take them all on. His sword swings were still far from perfect and his telekinetic holds weren't often strong enough.

Alice was using Nano Van Rook, which was Stunning the monsters, and so was Jay's Val Hallen. Shala's Nano Humungosaur was also doing what it could, but for the third time now, Shala had to use Nano Potions to recharge it. Meanwhile, more and more monsters were piling up, crawling all over each other for a chance to attack. Naver tried changing his Nano from Gumball to Numbuh Four, but his NanoCom was on his left wrist and his right hand was occupied, and he wasn't exactly keen on testing in current conditions if he was ambidextrous or not.

Jay was blasting with his remaining gun, so were Shala and Alice. After a couple more shots, Jay's Couture Rifle wasn't working anymore.

"Out of charge!" – He grunted. With the tap of a button on the NanoCom it disappeared as now Jay reached into his pouch and started throwing Energy Grenades. With more blasts, one by one the Stone Drakes fell, but each got replaced with two more as the cave was getting more and more crowded.

"What do we do against these, then?" – Shala asked her.

"A high-amplitude supersonic attack crumbles Stone Drakes to dust, but I can't risk that here! The cave will collapse!" – Alice answered as she turned around to help Naver with the Lizards.

Jay threw another grenade. He reached into his pouch and… he was all out. He still had some Grape Grenades in another pouch but those wouldn't be effective at all. Another Stone Drake tried to slash him with its razor-tipped tail. Jay had no choice – he jumped back and started throwing the Grape Grenades. Besides making the whole cave now smell like a winery, they were as effective as Shala's Heatblaster shots.

The monsters kept coming from both sides, and soon Shala and Jay were back-to-back with Naver and Alice. They had no more space to retreat. Jay's Val Hallen was now attacking monsters by playing the solo from "Party Tonight". Shala's was playing a song by The Mighty Weasels. Despite the two Val Hallens shredding as hard as they could, hope of victory seemed bleak. Jay reached into one more pouch – this one on his leg – and took out an aluminum circle, which immediately unfolded itself into an MVP Endsville Slugger with a snap – his last resort. With all of his strength, he was bashing one monster after another, but they still kept on coming. Naver's telekinetic attacks were weak. Shala's guns were inefficient. Jay's Slugger wasn't gonna cut it. The only thing Alice could do was finally raise the power on her Sonic Smacker as it let out a high-amplitude blast in all directions. Shala, not expecting this, got knocked back and hit his head against the stone wall, knocking him out cold. Naver managed to keep standing and slicing but he didn't have the chance to check on Shala because the Lizard Kings were still coming. The Stone Drakes started cracking too, and that meant Jay could shatter them with the MVP Endsville Slugger with ease. But then the tunnel started shaking.

"Is this that worm thing?" – Naver asked, but before anyone could answer the ceiling started slowly collapsing as one of the large rocks hit Alice, knocking her out too. Jay turned when he saw Alice in danger and tried to summon Nano Rook to Heal her, but he got hit in the head by one of the Stone Drakes. For a couple moments he could still stand, but his vision was blurry. He was trying to find the button to summon Nano Rook but his hands weren't obeying him, and then he collapsed to his knees. The only thing he saw before he was knocked out cold was a small green blob approaching the four of them. The last one standing was Naver, who this time strained his mind as hard as he could to stop the rest of the ceiling from collapsing. He strained… he strained… supporting the massive weight of the cave, slowly he collapsed too. All four of them were down.

---

Shala was woken up by the heat. He kept his eyes closed, hoping that he'd eventually fall back asleep, but he knew that once he was awake, he'd stay awake. So, he opened his eyes, expecting the quaint interior of his room on Mandark's ship. Instead, he was met with the clear blue sky.

He looked around for a moment – and then he remembered. The Firepits. Fusion Courage. Alice? He looked around again. None of his friends were around. Not Alice. Not Naver. Not even Jay. He instinctively reached around for his gun, but then realized that the Chill Caster wasn't anywhere near him. Not even the Heatblaster. "Come on. Not again!" – he thought. He got up, but then realized that he wasn't wearing any shoes either.

"Okay, now this is getting weird."

He tried taking a step, but the rough, rocky terrain hurt his feet. "Ow! Ouch! Yeeeesh!" – he exclaimed with each step, but sucked it up and kept on walking, slowly. At least he still got to keep his socks. Then he looked around. It looked like he was inside the giant stone circle that encompassed that massive Terrafuser. The Terrafuser was still there, pumping Fusion Matter through its roots. Wait, that didn't look like Fusion Matter. Shala looked at it closely. "Those are baby fucking Lizards! Fuck!" – he yelled as he ran the opposite direction from the newly-spawned monsters. Small in size, but still deadly, they weren't anything Shala wanted to pick a fight with while he was unarmed. With each step hurting like hell, he looked around to find a way out of the stone circle. He looked up.

He saw what looked like a green blob at first standing high up on the outer ring, but then he realized it was a Fusion, accompanied by a pair of Stone Drakes. Fusion Courage! Shala reached for his NanoCom, at least he'd be able to use his Nanos, but he didn't have that either.

"Looking for these?" – Fusion Courage dangled several NanoComs in front of him.

"Seriously, dude? You're not gonna kill us? Now we have to run around barefoot like rats in a maze?" – Shala asked him. He assumed that since he was still alive, the others had a fair shot too. "You're like the worst Fusion ever!"

"You want me to change my mind?" – Fusion Courage asked him.

"Okay, but what's with taking my shoes off? Seriously?" – Shala yelled. "Is that like a fetish? Do you like seeing my feet?"

"What? No, I like seeing you suffer!" - Fusion Courage declared.

"Well, if you say so. Why don't you get down here and then we'll see who's gonna suffer? Or are you scared to face me without your posse?" – Shala tried to egg him on. He knew it probably wouldn't work, but he had to try something.

"You'd better watch out!" – Fusion Courage told him as a horde of tiny, but ferocious Lizard Kings started chasing Shala. "Now run, you filthy dog!"

"Who the hell is he calling dog? Is there no self-awareness at all?" – Shala muttered to himself as the baby Lizards chased him. He tried to run, but the ground was still hurting his feet. "Ay-ay-ay!" – he exclaimed as the monsters started biting his ankle, forcing him to run faster. Now the soil was hot, and not only were the sharp pebbles prickling his feet and monsters biting his legs, now it also felt like he was walking on coal. "Well, he did get the suffering thing right." He ran at full speed, just to be off this burning hot ground. His socks were getting burned through. Fortunately, he saw a chunk of rock floating mid-air and he lunged for it, barely grabbing on. He climbed on and looked around. Fusion Courage was gone, and the tiny Lizards were following his platform around everywhere, still trying to bite Shala. Still no sign of the others.

Jay slowly started coming to. As soon as he was conscious enough to realize what happened, he jumped on his feet. He felt that he had no shoes. Unpleasant, strange, but inconsequential. Tried to get his gun, but remembered one was out of charge and the other was lost in the caves. He looked for his pouches, but they were all gone too. So was the NanoCom. Finally, he looked inside a secret pocket inside his vest and got out a miniature V-Charger. It was so small that it could fit in the palm of his hand. That was the only weapon he had left. The final last resort. Now he looked around. He seemed to be above ground now, but still in the Infected Zone. "Who moved me here?" – he thought. "If it's allies, where are they? If it's enemies, why am I still alive?". He continued on barefoot, ignoring the unfriendly terrain as he soldiered on to find his arsenal, his comrades and his NanoCom.

Naver looked around after waking up. "Oh, no." – he thought. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It happened again. It always keeps happening! The others are dead! Why does this keep happening to me? Why am I the only one that keeps surviving to see this go on and on and on? Is this apathy my fate? Why must I suffer so?" – he thought to himself. His sword was missing, so was the NanoCom. He decided to just walk, forever carrying this burden that he seemed to have, and didn't even notice that his feet hurting from walking over sharp burnt up rocks.

Soon, he saw a Stone Drake ahead of him. He wanted to back off, but he was still angry at himself for letting the others get killed that he felt like he had to take it on, even though he didn't have his sword.

"Okay, what was that thing Jay said?" – he thought to himself. "If they take away my guns, I'll use my grenades. If they take away my grenades, I'll keep fighting with my bare hands." – he repeated. "Well, let's try it. Bare hands."

But he knew that he still had something better than bare hands. He didn't dare use it, however, as he was sure that after barely being able to lift a Lizard King, it wouldn't do much against a Stone Drake. As the monster saw him and started charging, Naver dodged its attack, swung his fist and punched it. Obviously, this didn't work, as the monster didn't even flinch, and Naver's hand now was hurting like hell. Before the Stone Drake got another shot, however, Naver ran around it, jumped on its back, ignoring his hurt fist, snapped off one of its massive stone horns and pierced it in the back of the head. After bucking around wildly, trying to get Naver off, the Stone Drake finally fell and crumbled. Naver held his wrist out to collect Fusion Matter, which had already turned into a reflex for him, but then he remembered he lost Lars' NanoCom.

He headed towards where he thought was north – back to the cave entrance, back to the last place he saw his friends. Maybe from there he'd be able to find out what happened. At least seeing their bodies would be some form of closure, right? He headed there without looking back, but if he had looked, he'd see a green Fusion dog on the cliff, observing his moves.

Alice got up. She was still dizzy from the rock that hit her, but otherwise she was fine. She looked around the cave to see how the others were doing, but realized that there was no one else there. Did they leave her? No. No way. They wouldn't just leave her, unconscious, underground. Would they? Well, they weren't dead, at least, they didn't die here, because then she'd still see their bodies. What the hell did this mean? But then she remembered it was Fusion Courage they were dealing with.

"More goddamn mindgames…" – she muttered. She noticed that her NanoCom was missing. Come to think of it, her weapon was gone as well. And her Bunny Bag. And her shoes! "Okay, that's just creepy." – she thought as she looked at her white socks. Now the question was, what was she supposed to do. Should she get out of the cave? Go in deeper towards the lair? Or maybe head toward's Huntor's to get reinforcements? No, she couldn't just leave her friends now. And she couldn't get out of the caves the way she came from – that'd take too long. The only remaining choice was to keep moving forward and hope for another way up and out from Fusion Courage's lair.

Along the way, she kept thinking about all the pain Fusion Courage had caused her and the others. The first assault on Providence's camp. Jackson. Infantino. Countless others. The second assault. Donnie. Peggy. Captain Calan… Rodriguez's suicide, Helzinger's too… Not just even the deaths, it brought a great deal of suffering on everyone else as well. With each step, she could still hear Maison's sobbing from when they in the cellar after the Fusionflies took over. And now, Shala, Jay and Naver probably shared the Providence Agents' fate. No, she wouldn't rest – couldn't rest before she took Fusion Courage down. She kept going, more surely this time. Ahead of her, she saw several Lizard Kings guarding the pass. Without hesitation, she picked up a rock from the ground and threw it into a side pass. The Lizards chased after the loud clang, crawling over one another, which left the main passage open. Now, Alice had to be careful not to step in the Fusion Matter on the ground. She carried on, and entered what looked like the main chamber – tall, wide and filled with Terrafusers. A couple of disarmed Gooby Traps were lying around. And the entire lair was also crawling with Stone Drakes. Alice also noticed a pile of weaponry – their guns, Naver's sword, their shoes too – lying around in one of the corners.

Alice hid behind a Terrafuser, trying to figure out how to deal with the Stone Drakes. She wanted to look through her research notes, but her NanoCom was in the pile behind the monster, so that was useless. She thought hard, what else would be useful against Stone Drakes in a fight. The spikes, the tail… The limited line of sight… She couldn't just rely on that this time, there were just too many. But she did know that the Stone Drakes were prone to violence against one another. That she could actually use. Unless they were under Fusion Courage's direct control, that is. She observed their behavior closely. A couple were slowly prowling around, back and forth. One seemed to be sleeping, or at least resting. Then the one nearest to their pile of weapons – the largest one, a Slag Dragon, passed by a couple others and hissed at them. That was the sign Alice needed – signs of aggression towards each other meant they weren't under Fusion control, and that meant she could exploit their weaknesses. She grabbed another rock – a very large one this time, and threw it at the back of the Slag Dragon's head, then hid. The Slag Dragon thought it was the two Drakes that attacked, so it lunged at them, biting and clawing. The rest of the monsters gathered around to watch, hissing and roaring and egging them on.

This was Alice's chance – she could get to the chamber's other side, where the exit would be, and get out of the lair, but she hesitated. If all of the weapons were here, that meant everyone else was defenseless. And she had to get to that weapons pile. The problem was, that's around where the fight was going on, so she'd have to be extremely careful now, not to be seen by the fifteen or so aggravated Stone Drakes.

Naver approached what he supposed would be the northern point of the stone ring. After processing the event, he knew what was he to do after confirming his friends' deaths and seeing their bodies. He'd have to find the underground passage Alice was talking about, maybe meet these Providence people. But what then? Get them killed just like those nice SACT guys? Just like Shala, Alice and Jay? Like Lars? No, no. He'd have to stay alone. But to what end? These thoughts troubled him as he saw a Tar Titan up ahead. He gripped the only weapon he had – a giant spike he took from the dead Stone Drake – and ran towards the giant centipede. He already expected the spit attack, so he dodged one, jumped over another, and when the monster opened its pincers to spit the third time, shoved the giant stone spike right into its mouth. But that wouldn't be enough, so he used his momentum to boost the telekinetic push that drove the spike even further in, and even poked it out of the opposite side. That was enough to dissolve the beast. "Another one down, but that's not enough." – Naver thought, while panting heavily. His telekinetic powers didn't seem to have recovered after he held up the cave ceiling and stopped it from collapsing. He heard a noise from behind, and noticed the Lizard Queen attacking him just a moment too late to react, but something blew off one of the Lizard's hind legs. Then a front one. Then its head. Naver looked up, only to see Jay, holding a tiny laser pistol. What came over him was a feeling of relief so strong that he actually started tearing up, as he ran towards Jay. He felt that he just had to hug him, even though Jay'd probably hate that, even though he hadn't hugged anyone as far as he could remember. Jay just stood there without moving, unsure whether to hug him back or to accuse him of working with Fusion Courage and knocking out everyone else. So he just stood there, but eventually he asked Naver to let go.

"I thought you were dead! I thought you were all dead! So maybe there's still hope for me yet!" – Naver exclaimed.

"Happy for you." – Jay responded laconically. "What's the situation? Have you seen Fusion Courage, or any of the others?"

Alice was trying to sneak past the Stone Drakes, who were now all in heated battle with each other in one huge pile of spikes, claws and teeth, convulsing and jerking in every direction. Hopefully they'd all tie themselves into one big knot and leave Alice be, she thought. Another slow step towards the weapons. Or would it be better if she just ran really quickly? Just one more step… She reached her arm forward towards the Bunny Bag…

Suddenly all of the monsters stopped fighting, as if an invisible order commanded them to stop. As soon as they did, they immediately saw Alice. They stared at each other for a moment – Alice and the now static pile of Stone Drakes that looked more like a knot of tangled headphones, with the massive Slag Dragon in the middle – and then the Drakes got off each other charged towards Alice. The only thing Alice managed to do was reach for the Bunny Bag and jump for her life. With no other way to defend herself, she decided to break the Infected Zone vehicle rule – got the hoverboard out of her backpack, turned it on and threw it towards the Stone Drakes. What happened next, in Alice's opinion, wouldn't be impossible to describe, but it'd be extremely hard at least. She started floating in the air. This was not exactly anti-gravity, but the gravity was at least partially negated. The Slag Dragon leaped at her, but because of the wonky gravity it flew directly up in the air and hit its head on the ceiling, with its back and head spikes lodged in the stone above. It could not get down. The others started behaving weirdly. A couple followed their leader's example, and even though they didn't get stuck they were now floating in the air up and down, back and forth helplessly. Others didn't dare take a step.

Now Alice was free to float over to the weaponry, the NanoComs and the shoes, which were floating in the air. The only problem was, she couldn't control where she was flying – making swimming motions, as one would do in anti-gravity situations wasn't working this time. Instead, she waited for one of the floating, panicking Stone Drakes to approach her, and she kicked it with both of her feet. This sent her flying back, and now she was able to hang on to the wall and climb towards the hoverboard, which was spinning around itself extremely quickly, as well as the weapons cache.

As Naver destroyed another Lizard King that started chasing him and Jay, they heard a voice from up above.

"Spectacular, Naver. You really are more than meets the eye."

This was Naver's first time meeting a Fusion, but from what he realized it looked almost exactly like Courage the Cowardly Dog, though green with red eyes. The Fusion on top of the cliff was also accompanied by a couple more Stone Drakes.

"Why are you doing this? What are you trying to accomplish?" – Naver asked him.

"I live to serve Lord Fuse" – Fusion Courage declared with pride.

"Is it Lord Fuse that told you to drag us out here, disarm us and take our shoes off? Wouldn't he just want to kill us outright?" – Naver asked him.

"You filth can consider yourselves already dead. What you're going through now – you may compare yourselves one of those Earth gladiators, their pain and torture appeasing military leaders, their eternal battle destined to end in nothing but death. I like seeing you humans miserable. Your will never falters, never breaks – except when it does. It always does."

"That's what you were doing with Providence yesterday? Toying with them?" – Jay asked him.

"Oh, yes. Absolutely. That was a thrill. Watching them struggle to defend their base – the base which I've been meaning to demolish for months – seeing them try to retain hope, to push through, even allowing them to get a refill of the water supply just to dangle chances of survival in front of their faces before I pulled it away and plunged them into such misery… Inflicting as much torment on them as I possibly could… Ah, that was so sweet…" – Fusion Courage kept going on.

"Except, you failed. You failed three times." – Jay declared. "First you failed during the siege. You had to call in Fusionflies. Those were not your monsters, were they? Tell me, which Fusion were you sucking up to?"

Before Fusion Courage could answer, Jay went on. "Second. All your talk of giving them hope and taking it all away is full of hot air. You let the Providence Agents escape through the caves, right under your own nose!"

"And what is the third failure?" – Fusion Courage asked.

"That one's easy". – Naver interjected confidently. "You let the four of us live. And now we're gonna come for you. And if we don't finish you, your master definitely will."

"You seem to be under the impression that you're going to retain your miserable lives. Should I remind you that you're down there, disarmed?" – Fusion Courage asked condescendingly, but then Jay got his miniature V-Charger and blasted several spikes off one of Fusion Courage's Stone Drakes. Naver looked at Jay for reassurance, Jay nodded and started climbing the cliff, with Naver following.

Fusion Courage saw them coming for him and gulped. He decided he'd be safer in his lair, and headed there while leaving the Stone Drakes to deal with the earthlings. But as he was running, he, Naver and Jay heard someone yell "GERONIMOOOOOOOOOOO!" while flying through the air, towards Fusion Courage. That red hoodie was unmistakably Shala's, who had jumped off his floating platform onto a jump pad and was now flying through the air headfirst towards Fusion Courage. As Naver was dodging the Stone Drake's attack, he thought "Shala's gonna get Fusion Courage in the meantime!", but then, with a loud thud… Shala missed and belly-flopped on the ground. He then got out of the Shala-shaped hole and still a bit dizzy, chased after Fusion Courage. His legs were still hurt from running barefoot. Naver and Jay saw what looked like a bunch of baby Lizard Kings flying through the air after Shala. No doubt they all jumped on the jump pad too. Jay shot at the miniature Lizards with his miniature gun, which was just enough to explode them to little pieces. Fusion Courage, who now moved a large boulder that revealed a secret lair entrance under it and crawled into it. Shala followed, as did Jay and Naver.

As Fusion Courage ran into his main hall and called on more Stone Drakes to assist him, he found Alice standing in his way. "Going somewhere?" – she asked him with huge satisfaction on her face as she pointed her Sonic Smacker at him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" – Fusion Courage yelled so hard that Alice saw a hole in one of his teeth. He ran in the opposite direction, and she followed, but the chase ended soon when Jay, Shala and Naver blocked the exit. Fusion Courage was surrounded. Alice tossed the Aerial Slicer, which she was holding in her other hand, to Naver.

As everyone closed in on him, weapons in hand, Fusion Courage was now yelling gibberish. "halbrlelerh… abla… arh… arbl… halbrbrleh… STOOOOOOOP! DON'T KILL ME! I'LL DO ANYTHING! I'LL… I'LL…"

Naver and the others looked at each other. Without saying a word, Alice blasted from her Sonic Smacker while turning the power up slowly. Fusion Courage put his hand to his ears, but his entire body started vibrating and suddenly, BAM – green goo exploded everywhere. The only thing left in Fusion Courage's place was a dog collar.

"So much for inflicting as much suffering as he possibly could. He ran away in fear!" – Naver remarked.

"That's what you get for making a Fusion of a cowardly dog with a big heart. It has no heart, and twice as much cowardice." – Alice said with disgust.

"Yeah. You found our gear, Alice?" – Shala asked her.

"Let's get the Nano first." – Alice said and handed everyone their NanoComs, which were now flashing blue with a message – "NANO CREATION POSSIBLE."

They all tapped the NanoComs (Naver didn't know why, but he was following the others' example) and a hologram of Nano Courage appeared on each of their NanoComs which materialized into the actual Nanos.

"He's so cute!" – Naver exclaimed as he hesitantly pet the tiny Nano. "Aw, gee…" – his Nano Courage muttered.

"It's a good thing we get these guys to remind us how nice they can be, right after we get rid of the Fusions." – Alice said. "This piece of…" – she added quietly, and kicked the ground on the spot where Fusion Courage died.

"Okay, what do I do now?" – Naver asked.

"You gotta choose a Nano Power on your NanoCom." – Shala explained. "Apparently, Nano Courage has… Drain, point – Health, self, and, uh… Scavenge? No thank you, I'm going with Health."

Naver did the same, Jay chose Drain because he already had an adaptium Heal Nano, while Alice chose Scavenge. Shala also got the dog collar that was used to create Fusion Courage. "Gonna get this to the Dexbot that's always requesting assistance with the Nano Enhancement Project." – he muttered. "Still probably got a broken hovercar debt that I gotta work off."

They all went to get their gear and shoes.

"Fusion Courage was right about one thing" – Shala said. "Walking around here with no shoes on is torture."

"Wait, Shala… are you wearing mismatched socks?" – Alice noticed. Indeed, one of the socks was black, but with some gray at the toe and heel area. The other one was fully black.

"What? I didn't have any other clean ones! No one would have noticed the difference anyway if Fusion Courage hadn't taken our shoes off!"

"That's because you're supposed to wash them. When was the last time you did your laundry?" – Alice asked him again.

"Okay, what is this, the inquisition? I was gonna do it. Eventually."

As they all geared up, Naver sat down on the ground.

"I'm sorry. I thought I could keep going with this, but I can't." – he sighed. "As soon as we get to that airship or whatever, I'm gonna get out of the Darklands. Go somewhere safe. I just can't keep taking part in this." – he declared.

"What?!" – Shala exclaimed. "Why?"

"Let me explain. Ever since I woke up into this mess, it's been nonstop torture. I've been seeing people die all around me. You know, Lars, then those SACT guys, and now I thought that I had lost you three. Death and monsters follow me around everywhere, and it's only a matter of time till you guys die on me for real. I just… I can't keep living in this constant state of fear that something's eventually gonna go wrong. What if instead of three or four people, an entire camp dies all around me, and I have to watch? And plus, this isn't really my war. I never volunteered to fight. I didn't ask for this, and amnesia or not, I'd rather get out."

"And you think I did?" – Jay responded harshly. "I never asked for this either, Naver, one minute, I was volunteering in an experiment to make a better future, the next, I was plunged into a… a planetary war that we were doomed to lose. Before I had the chance to make sense of everything, I was tossed a gun and thrown into battle. Then I had to watch Dexter stay behind so that I could get out safely from a collapsing city and change the past. I never volunteered for any of that, but I held my gun and kept shooting. No matter what I endured, I kept shooting. No one volunteered to get invaded by Planet Fusion. No one here can say "this isn't my war". This is everyone's war, and we all have to make a difference. And you're telling me that you, with your sword skills comparable to Samurai Jack's, or your telepathy powers that we don't even know the limits of, you're gonna throw your hat in the ring and leave? You've got great abilities, Naver, and with great ability you sh-"

"Comes great accountability!" – Shala quipped. Jay threw an angry look at him.

"You're right, but I can't even control my abilities. Look, I told you, that fight outside the truck was a fluke. Look at what how we fared in the caves earlier!"

"What, you mean when you were taking down Stone Drakes and Tar Titans single-handedly with no weapons?" – Jay raised his eyebrow.

"No, no, Naver's got a point." – Alice intervened. "His powers are wobbly at best, and his sword skills… when he's not prepared to use them, they're extremely awkward."

"It's not just Naver's skills we need to talk about though." – Shala said. "This whole killing Fusion Courage was a huge fluke. If Fusion Courage hadn't been a pretentious dickbag and killed us all as soon as he knocked us out, well, we wouldn't have gotten here to argue about it. Like, seriously, we weren't prepared for this. Naver hasn't mastered his sword skills. I didn't have anything effective against the monster. Jay – if you had told us you had goddamn Grape Grenades, I could have superheated them with the Heatblaster to supercharge the explosion. But I guess you still don't trust us to reveal your full arsenal. And Alice – well, I guess Alice did fine."

"It was a blast from her Sonic Smacker that knocked you out, dude" – Naver remarked.

"Oh. Right."

"We're getting off track here." – Jay intervened. "We were talking about Naver. And his responsibility to the world that he has to help save."

"Well, what the hell am I supposed to do when I still can't do anything right?"

"You're supposed to do better. You weren't fast enough? Train to improve your speed. You've still got the untapped potential of your telekinesis. Who knows what you'll be able to do if you take your time perfecting it? We can't rely on quitters, and… and just passing grades" – Jay threw a mean look at Shala – "to save the world. Plus, if you run and hide now, it's not just a small group of people's deaths you'll be responsible fall. The entire goddamn planet is going to die on you, and if you're unfortunate enough to survive even that, that's what you'll blame yourself forever."

Naver bit his lip. Jay was right on this one. Chances are, he'd run out of safe places to evacuate to. What was he to do now?

"You're kinda making it sound like Naver really is the only thing separating Earth from victory or loss." – Shala told him.

"Who knows? He just might be." – Jay responded.

---

End of Chapter 10.

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Extract from Alice Quickfeet's Fusion Monster research log:

Terrordactyl

Fusion Matter type - Adaptium

Power Level – 28

Boss: Terrordactyl Screamer

Location: Forsaken Valley (excl. the beach), southern areas of Dinosaur Pass

Wingspan: 8'6''-12'6'' (variable)

Boss wingspan: 15'-20' (variable)

Body length: 4'-4'6'' (variable)

Boss wingspan: 6'3''-8'' (variable)

Weight: est. 80-100 pounds

Boss weight: est. 125-175 pounds

Description:

Flying, pterodactyl-like creature, seems to be based off of Pterodactyl and Pteranodon DNA.

Behavior:

Terrordactyls are highly organized, they fly either solo or in groups. Group flights are usually in V form, with the placements determined by power hierarchy. Bigger, more aggressive Terrordactyls fly in front, with the Terrordactyl Screamers usually flying at the tip. Certain aggressive specimens can't stand to submit to the Screamers; those are the ones that fly solo. Encounters with isolated Terrordactyl Screamers without a flock are extremely rare. There is one recorded event where two Screamers battled each other for dominance as the rest of the Terrordactyls circled the scene to watch. The fight did not end with a casualty as the defeated Boss joined the victor's flock.

Height of flight does not exceed 500 feet.

Terrordactyls can be found just about anywhere in Forsaken valley, with two exceptions:

-The beach. Possible cause: dislike of salt water, as they don't have a problem with the river. Another cause could be dislike of open space.

-Mandark's airship. Terrordactyls usually avoid Mandark's airship. It is unknown if they're repelled by some sort of signal or emission from the ship or if they recognize immediate danger when they see it.

Terrordactyl encounters within the borders of Dinosaur Pass have been encountered, but they tend to steer clear of the larger, more aggressive Horrordactyls as to not fall low in their hierarchy of power.

Travel patterns are unclear. Need to conduct more investigation.

Terrordactyls are strictly diurnal. Recorded nighttime encounters are extremely rare. It is hypothesized that their night vision is extremely undeveloped. During nighttime, they rest themselves on the mountains between Forsaken Valley and Huntor's Crest, but they never cross over into Huntor's crest. Possibly to avoid conflict with Fusionflies.

When encountering humans, the most commonly expressed attack pattern is the dive and sweep. When in groups, they sweep from different directions to confuse the enemy. Terrordactyl Screamers also tend to give out a battle screech, hence the name. It's either to induce fear in the prey or to summon their minions. Screaming also occurs to induce compliance in the submissive specimens. When the dive and sweep method doesn't work, they land on the ground and charge at the enemy. More aggressive specimens also flail their wings wildly to confuse and intimidate prey. Then, attack with beak. An alternative is flying 1-2 feet in the air and attacking prey with claws. In groups, while some are using this method the others keep sweeping while the enemy's distracted.

Terrordactyls tend to avoid Monkey Skyway Agents if they're carrying someone. If they're flying alone and therefore unarmed, they won't hesitate to attack.

While under direct Fusion control, all forms of hierarchy and dominance are thrown out the window. The V formations still occur, but now their sequence is random, regardless of dominance or Screamer presence. Otherwise, they remain organized, now under the command of the Fusion. The avoidance of the beach and the airship, as well as Monkey Skyway Agents is also gone.

Known Fusions that have controlled Terrordactyls:

Fusion Numbuh Four

Fusion Spidermonkey

Fusion Mandark

Conclusion: Need more research on Terrordactyls to fill some gaps and answer some questions. Curious as to how they react to different frequencies of sound, as well as their temperature resistance.