Chapter 20: The Battle For Retroville

September 25th, 2006 7:20pm

Downtown Retroville

Deep in the urban area, a mother and her child were running and screaming at the sight of some Yolkians heading their way. They could see smoke on a few of the skyscrapers with other debris on the streets and sidewalks. Various airships blocked the sky from any remnants of daylight. As they kept running, they were chased by an onslaught of Yolkians with their spears equipped. While looking back at them, the mother tripped on some debris. As her eight year old son attempted to help her up, they became surrounded in a matter of seconds. As both of them held onto each other, closing their eyes and accepting their fate, a windy noise was made followed by the clanking of metal and breaking of glass. Next thing they knew, someone grabbed them both and it felt like all sorts of motion happening at once. Once it stopped, they opened their eyes revealing several hundred other humans now with them at the edge of the city. Eventually, they looked to their savior which was a young teenager wearing a suit that loosely resembled the famous cartoon character Ultralord. Before either of them had a chance to say anything, the teenager ran off at breakneck speeds. The kid was in awe judging by the "whoa" heard from his voice.

Throughout the night, Sheen and Nick were evacuating refugees faster than anyone else could. This also prevented either of them from any kind of hate speech influenced by Meldar's message, since both were too fast for anyone to realize, let alone say anything about who either of them were. "So how many are you at now?" Nick asked.

"436, you?" Sheen responded over the radio.

"454." Nick said smugly as he attacked a Yolkian. "Guess my teleportation is a little faster."

"We'll see about that," Sheen said as he turned off the radio. "I'll need to find people even faster than before."

As the fight kept going, Libby would turn invisible to sneak past the Yolkians while Betty would attack a few at a time with her blades, even dueling a couple. Then, Libby would attack the rest from behind with her shield forcing them to the floor until their glass casing broke rendering them unable to fight. Betty then took a breather. "You guys do this kind of fighting all the time?"

"Eh, every once in a while," Libby joked while shrugging. Then in a second's notice, Libby turned around to see a burst of ice shot directly at Betty. Libby ran towards Betty and attempted to deflect it with her force field, but they were still knocked back by the impact of the beam. As they got up, they saw a red robot three times their size descending down near them.

"Hello children," the robot speakers sounded. "Did you miss me?"

"Calamitous? You too?!" Libby said in shock.

"Yes, me too!" He retorted. "And I brought back a whole heap of revenge, say 65 million years worth!" As he began to reload, Betty and Libby prepared to fight.

Meanwhile Carl was shaking in the sight of the countless Yolkians heading his way. He then took out a Purple Flurp can and shook it and drank a gulp's worth. As they got closer to him he felt the carbonation flow through him and release back out a hundred fold, resulting in all of the Yolkians in that direction getting blown away with their glass casing broken. "I DID IT!" Carl briefly felt proud before remembering… "Hey guys," Carl spoke into the radio. "Has anyone seen Elke?"

Nick spoke first, "Unfortunately, we've yet to find her in all the people we rescued so far."

"Okay-" Carl started to say glumly.

"We'll keep looking though!" Sheen reassured.

"I'll just have to keep fighting then." Carl proceeded to do the same again to the next horde, but then April jumped in and attacked a few of the Yolkians in Carl's path with her battle cry. Carl already drank another gulp. "April?" Carl said surprised. Before he could say anything else, he felt it coming back up. "GET DOWN!" April then saw Carl the moment he said that and ducked just in time before he belched again knocking all of the enemies above her.

April then turned back to Carl in amazement. "Whoa! Where'd you learn to do that?"

"A bit of a long story," Carl scratched the back of his head. "What're you doing here?"

April began to explain her situation involving Gortox, the Matrix Generators, and the loss of her people as another horde came in.

"Gosh, I don't know what to say." Carl said sorrowfully.

"Save it." April said. "All that matters now is making sure that the Matrix Generators are out of their hands again, so no other worlds suffer the same fate. I know Neutron can help with that."

"Yeah…"

"Do you know where he is?"

"He's currently in his lab making a portal to get all of them into distant space. His lab is in a brown shed near some houses."

"I better warn him about Gortox then. He's no light threat. Alright if I go on?" she asked to which Carl nodded. "Stay safe!" As April ran off, she thought to herself Huh, I thought he'd have something more sophisticated for a lab.

On a skyscraper not too far from the ships, Cindy took a couple deep breaths, before activating her green power siphon and taking flight towards the Yolkian ships. Of all the things I have done, this would be one of the crazier things. Ah well, it's now or never! Here I go!

As she flew towards the ship, some of the Yolkians noticed her charging towards the ship and changed course to attack her instead. With her siphon in hand, she made sure to slice the glass parts of their armor one by one before they helplessly fell to the earth below. Eventually she got closer to the ships releasing the Yolkians. For reference the chicken ships were about 5,000 feet in the air and there were at least thirty of them. As she got close to one of them, the ship started to fire back at her to which she for the most part either dodged or deflected using her weapon. After a little bit of this, she was then hit causing her to get knocked out and fall almost all the way to the ground. At the last second, she regained consciousness and resurfaced back up to the ships. This time, going a little more covertly and attacking the engines. While she did get some attention, she managed to reach and slice the engines without too much difficulty.

Okay, one ship down… a few dozen more to go. She then noticed the ship plummeting towards the city. I should've thought that through. Okay… What can be done? Er… the empty land to the right looks convincing, especially since evac's on the opposite side. Okay, can I do this? Cindy then went to the side of the ship and pushed as hard as she could to get the ship out of harm's way. After some effort, the ship crash landed on the outskirts of the city. Now that's what I call a work out… Before the surviving Yolkians could begin to attack, she flew away.

As Sheen kept sprinting across town saving a couple refugees at a time, he was spotted by a certain warrior. At an instance where Sheen ran back to rescue a few more, he managed to jump to narrowly dodge a kick under him. As he stopped to turn back, he noticed a familiar rival featuring a yellow martial arts outfit.

"Yoo-Yee, what're you doing here?" Sheen asked in shock.

"Just about to take what's mine Sheen," he responded as he began to charge at him. "And that starts with defeating you!"

"Heh, let's dance!" Sheen started to fight back. While he was faster, Yoo-Yee was a tad more agile and stronger which made this an interesting match.

8:34pm

Area 86

"General Abercrombie!" A soldier spoke. "Pilots 543 and 237 are requesting an audience with you sir!"

"Granted!" the general spoke. "Bring them in!" As they walked in he directed his attention to the both of them. "What happened to you two?! Neither of you responded for the past couple hours!"

"Apologies sir!" The first pilot said. "Long range communication is currently offline!"

"What do you mean?"

The second pilot chimed in. "The Yolkians have returned and are invading the humble city of Retroville as we speak."

"It's always something with that town," the general silently said to himself. Then he directed his attention to everyone. "Very well. Let's get the military out there to stop this threat as well as some craft to evacuate everyone for the time being! Let's move it!" Everyone around him started to spread the word and carry out the order. He then pulled the first pilot aside which startled him at first. He then ordered, "And get me a coffee. I'm not awake enough for this." He then nodded and walked away feeling a little sheepish.

8:42pm

Retroville

Nick was on a roll evacuating one refugee after another. His count is 1,507 at this point. While there were a lot of them still out there, they've gradually been harder to track down. As he kept teleporting civilians, he saw Eustace standing atop a skyscraper merely watching the view of the destruction.

"Wow, I wish I brought some popcorn for this spectacle! It's like a movie in front of my very eyes. It's amaz-" Eustace said in awe before a whizzz sound was heard and Nick was right beside him. "WHAA!" He flinched back in shock.

"Eustace Strych!" Nick started as he marched towards him angrily. "I've got a bone to pick with you!"

"...Aaaand you are?" Eustace asked him as he backed up. "Sorry, but I don't remember someone as insignificant as you. Is that supposed to be a cheap attempt at looking cool?"

"I don't care what you think of me, but one way or another, I'll make sure you remember!"

"Sure you will," Eustace said sarcastically as he backed up against the ledge. Nick was about to throw a punch at him. "That's quite a drop. Any further and you'd fall right off!" He then dodged to the side as Nick charged at him.

"Whoa!" Nick almost slid off if not for catching himself. As he was catching a breath, Eustace pulled out a revolver and opened fire. Nick ducked only to get kicked off the building.

"Sounds fitting for an unremarkable boy to meet an unremarkable end." Eustace scoffed and looked back to the battle. Only seconds later, Nick teleported back on top and ran towards him and delivered a punch with a lot of force that sent Strych off balance. "So your game's teleportation?"

"And yours is a gun even though you're just a child." Nick rolled his eyes.

"HA!" Eustace laughed as they began their fight. "Rules don't apply to the wealthy! We're the ones that make them!"

Right as they both threw a punch, Sheen and Yoo-Yee threw one as well. Sheen was agile in avoiding some punches and kicks with his speed, but Yoo-Yee was ironically one step ahead in planning strategies. Despite Sheen's speed, his attacks were somewhat sloppy and predictable, whereas Yoo-Yee's attacks were swift and precise.

"I've always said it was stupid that some hyperactive child won the title of chosen one, by only doing an obtuse pose!"

"You're the one who's not taking this well and choosing the wrong side!" Sheen retorted as he dodged a kick and punched back.

Yoo-Yee caught the punch and kept hitting Sheen. "Every day of training for that title was brutal and exhausting! In time I got harder, faster, better and stronger! Eventually I surpassed even the strongest of the monks and ninjas of my clan!" Yoo-Yee then grabbed Sheen by the neck and carried him up to the sky near the chicken ships. "And yet, all because you happened to show up by coincidence just months prior! So I will do whatever it takes to defeat you and bring you back as proof I'm truly worthy!"

"Yeah! I'll have to do a raincheck on that!" Sheen looked down from hundreds of feet up in the air as he gulped. Then he saw in the distance, a chicken ship plummeting. Knowing full well who did that, Sheen smiled to himself. "My friends have back on all that I do. I'm not gonna let them down." He then did an upwards kick to Yoo-Yee's face and he lost his grip causing Sheen to fall. After a little bit, he thought this was it for him, but then he was saved by some U.S. military jets passing through, catching Sheen's fall. As Sheen caught his breath, Yoo-Yee gave chase to the jet carrying him.

Meanwhile Betty and Libby were having a bit of a challenging time landing a hit on Calamitous. He seemed easy at first, but his weapons could stop them in an instant and Yolkians would pop up whenever there seemed to be an opening. So the fight was a little more of a game of cat and mouse. Every blast Calamitous hit typically was absorbed by Libby's force field or was dodged. This was gradually getting harder for all of them since the land they were on was becoming a mix of ice and cheese.

"Well children," the petit professor began. "If you want to live past this moment, you could surrender if you'd like."

"Any ideas?" Betty whispered to Libby.

"We need to fall back and regroup, but there's too many of them to escape that easily." Libby said back. "Invisibility is irrelevant due to the ice and cheese either making too much sound or showing footprints."

"And a shield?"

"I don't know how long I can hold us without it giving."

"I got an idea!" Betty whispered into Libby's ear.

"You're running out of time!" Calamitous spoke as he began to load his weapon again.

"Hard pass!" Betty then charged at him and was about to use one of her blades to attack. This was met with him about to fire his freeze ray. Betty dodged a couple, but then the cheese ray fired a force field popped up on Betty and she was pushed back a bit.

"Alright no where's the other one?" Calamitous wondered as she disappeared. Then holding Betty's other blade, Libby cut off his robot's legs as well as his left robotic arm which was holding the cheese ray before reappearing. Both Betty and Libby then fist bumped as Calamitous walked out of his robot. "Ah, phooey!" He then grabbed the freeze ray and ran away.

"Oh no you don't!" Libby and Betty ran after him, only to be stopped by more Yolkians. As they were about to fend for themselves, some military tanks and troops started running into the road and attacked any Yolkians they saw. This gave the two girls the opening they needed to chase Calamitous and capture him. Due to his stubby legs, he didn't make it far before Libby put a force field around him.

All around the military provided a lot more support in where the kids were needed. Chicken ships were taken out a lot faster with their assistance and Carl was getting exhausted so this allowed him to catch a breather from all the belching and evacuations were more properly dispatched to get them out of there with General Abercrombie leading the charge.

Meanwhile in Jimmy's lab with his parents protecting him from behind, he was almost done with his modified Chrono-Arch. He was updating the code so time travel wasn't involved but instead, only space travel.

"So Jim-Jam," Hugh began. "I hate to ask this, but what's the point of taking them across space? Won't they just come back?"

"Even so, they would be on the far end of the universe." Jimmy explained. "Even the speed of light takes 46 billions years to travel across the cosmos. It'll likely be a lot sooner than that, but we can be a lot more prepared when they make their eventual return."

"Jimmy!" A familiar voice was heard entering the lab.

"It can't be! April?!" Jimmy ran up to her. "I'm surprised you're here. Nevertheless I'm happy to see you!"

"Happy to see you too!" She then "trust-sealed" with Jimmy for a couple seconds.

"Unfortunately, now's not a good time for a reunion. Retroville is under attack!"

"I'm well aware. In fact, that's why I'm here." She then explained her situation to Jimmy as he was working on his invention.

"So does Jimmy have a space girlfriend and an earth one?" Hugh whispered to Judy.

"He never mentioned one. Hopefully that's just a custom, cause it might get in the way of what's happening here otherwise." Judy said back.

After April explained why she's here. Jimmy absorbed it. "So this Gortox stole the Matrix Generators and attacked your world?" April nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"All that matters now is that we save this world before the same happens here and any other planets who resist his reign."

"I'd say it's a good thing that I'm about done with my invention, but since he has the generators in his grasp, what's to stop him from teleporting back everyone?"

"That is the question Mister Neutron!" A sinister voice spoke as a dark puff of smoke engulfed the lab. "How does one stop a being of infinite power at his disposal?"

"That's him." April confirmed it as the scaly creature revealed himself in front of Jimmy and his parents. Hugh was shaking and held onto his wife who was slightly shaking as well. Gortox's smile looked like something straight out of a horror flick. Jimmy knew then and there this was gonna be a long night of tragic events following this very moment.

To Be Continued…