Sorry for the spam, here's an updated version where the ages actually work!
For Berto, it was an easy, simple day. Everything had slowed down significantly since the defeat of Makino, and with Jim back in the picture Berto had a new buddy to work with in the lab. Today however, he was on his own, Forge was his only company, and while he cared for him, he wasn't exactly tech savvy.
They were in a new N-Tech base hidden deep in the copper canyons. It was late, but Max was in the city probably chilling with Steel, stopping some crooks or just sitting on a roof somewhere. Which is why it confused Berto so much when he spotted another source of Turbo energy nearing the base on one of the screens.
Double checking both Max's and Jim's locations, he confirmed that there was indeed a third source.
"Eh, boss? You might wanna take a look at this," Berto called Forge over to the screen. Zooming out and showing the location of Max, Jim, and the third glowing blue dot.
"Mother of mars," he muttered.
"What is it?"
"Dunno, but it can't be good." He commed Cat and Jefferson, "Scramble the jump jets. Approach with caution and at any sign of aggression, treat it as a threat."
Everything turned to a blur as they moved out. What they found was beyond what any of them were expecting.
Jim and Claire were laughing happily as Blinkey and them led the trolls through 'Copper Canyon' . The beautiful orange colors were muted by the night, and illuminated by the moon. Soon however there was a green glow reflecting off the rocks as they were met by high tech jets and tanks.
"Jim," Claire questioned. "What's our move?"
With a growl settled in his chest, his tail instinctually flicked and unwrapped from Claire giving her room to move, he dropped his pack and rolled his shoulders. "Blink, get the trolls out of here. Claire and I will deal with this. We don't know if they're hostile, but I don't want anyone getting hurt."
"As you wish, master Jim."
All the trolls started back the direction they came, to a cave just outside city limits where they'd stayed the night before. At their movement, one of the jets started following them.
"Claire…"
"On it." Focusing her energy, two purple cuffs of magic appeared around her wrists. Holding her hands out toward the plane, a runic sphere appeared around the plane, it stopped and was unable to move.
As soon as she had done so, however, they began being barraged by energy blasts from the tanks. Jim barely had time to summon his armor and shield himself and Claire from the blasts.
Once the onslaught ended, he released the shield and gave a ground shaking roar before running on all fours, jumping high into the air as he summoned his sword and sliced the tank in half. Then roaring again at the other jet in the air, his tail swayed back and forth behind him, waiting for their next move.
By this time the trolls were efficiently out of sight and safe for the time being. Claire released the other jet, it stayed where it was for a minute before landing.
A graying man with a robot arm came out, about 20 yards from Jim and Claire, who were fairly close to the other two tanks and jet. Both had weapons trained on them both.
He and a small troop with blasters came running toward them, the man without a helmet pulled a plasma based sword and charged Jim, to his surprise Jim did the same with eclipse.
Claire exchanged blasts with the foot soldiers while Jim quickly disarmed the man with the robot arm, cutting his sword off at the hilt and crossguard, leaving mostly just a pommel in his hand.
"That was a cute toy," Jim growled with a smile.
"Mother of mars it talks!" The man yelled.
With a snarl, Jim put a bare foot on the man's chest and kicked hard, sending him sliding back on the desert floor.
The foot soldiers were unconscious and the tank and jet that was afloat were set ablaze behind Jim as him and Claire walked up to the man.
Jim put a foot on his chest and spoke. "You know, something to be aware of when attacking someone new, is being aware of their capabilities, something you didn't do when it came to me and my mate."
Jim gave a devious smile while nodding toward Claire, who had her magic wrapping her wrists, as her hands were on her cocked hips. Jim's tail swaying and twitching behind him.
"What are you?"
Jim didn't have time to consider his answer as a familiar blue light blasted him and Claire back, and her scream rang through the air.
Max got the call from Forge and he and Steel booked it to their location. He didn't believe it but his partner confirmed it on their way there. A third turbo energy signature. Upon arrival, some blue creature and a girl with some purple holograms wrapping her wrists were confronting Forge on the ground with some of the tanks and jump-jets in ruins and flames behind them.
From the sky and out of view, Steel and Max sent a massive turbo blast at them, careful to not hit Forge, it hit the ground at their feet and sent them flying back among the other N-TEK agents, the girl screamed and there was a flash of turbo energy and the blue guy with a tail ran on all fours over to her.
Max landed and helped his uncle up from the ground, and they ran over to the two, about to attack, but Max stopped Forge as they got close as he listened to the conversation.
"Claire, baby, are you okay? Talk to me. Open your eyes and look at me." The creature said. She opened her eyes, glowing a violent violet.
"Arm… hurts…" was all she could get out through the pain.
The two looked at one another, and Max stepped forward seeing her bone broken through the skin.
"I'm sorry, this is my faul…"
The blue individual turned on all fours and snapped at him. Snarling with his eyes dialated to thin slits. He stalked forward, backing them up, once they seemed sufficiently far away, he stopped and returned to the girl, 'Claire'.
They heard some mumbling and before they knew it another scream rang through the air, it seemed it had set her arm back into place. And Max wasn't sure if he was seeing things correctly, but it looked like it was licking her face.
"Steel, what just happened?" Max asked, seeing that Steel had enhanced vision.
"He set her arm, and is now licking the tears off her cheeks. It's kinda… cute."
"Eh.. I'm airing on the side of weird," Forge said.
"I'm with Steel on this one Forge," Max shrugged.
The creature helped Claire sit up and wrapped his tail firmly around her broken arm to hold it in place as best he could. They whispered and finally decided on something as the girl beckoned them over.
"Take us to whatever jail you have, we'll go quietly. I Can't fight too well with a broken arm and Jim wont leave my side till I'm better."
Forge nodded, and looked at Max. "Call your father, have him come in ASAP to notify him of the third source of TURBO energy." He looked at Claire, "Can you walk?"
Her eyes changed from brown to purple as she nodded. 'Jim' helped her up then lifted her bridal style as they followed Forge to the jump-jet with Max and Steel following.
Jim and Claire were taken to a cell, and a Dr came in to place a cast on Claire's arm, in which she had to magically restrain Jim from injuring the Dr whenever he made her hiss in pain or when he initially came into their electronic green cell, because he came too close for Jim's comfort.
Claire loved him, but sometimes he was a big butt about things, those trollish instincts really get his head scrambled.
After the Dr left, Forge and Max came in to interrogate them.
"What do you have that gives off TURBO energy?" Forge asked.
"Dunno what that is," Jim said in a relaxed crouch.
"How do you not know what it is? You're radiating it." Steel mentioned.
"I'm just sorry that I broke someone's arm, who possibly didn't deserve it," Max said.
"First of all, apology accepted." Claire said. "Second of all, I didn't. You all attacked us."
"You made the first move," Forge tried.
"I stopped a ship from following our tribe, it wasn't even hostile," Claire glared.
Jim's ears twitched, then his head perked up. Looking through the energy barrier and out the door as someone was about to enter.
Next thing Claire knew, Jim was about to have a panic attack and the only word he muttered was dad .
A dark haired man with the same striking blue eyes that Jim had entered the room, and from one moment of having a panic attack, the next he was about to tear out the circuits keeping the electronic berrier up between Jim and the man in front of him. Claire whipped out tendrils of magic and wrapped them around Jim to hold him back, but with tears running down his cheeks he screamed, "You're a dead man, James Lake!"
The man gained a furious look on his face, marched up to the forcefield and glared. "How do you know that name!?"
"Dad," the one in the armor said, "Who's James Lake?" Walking up and putting a hand on his shoulder. His mask disappeared, and Jim's eyes dilated even more.
(What Jim just processed)
His dad obviously didn't recognize him. This kid called his father, James Lake Sr, 'dad' as well, this kid looks his age, and what that meant was that James Lake was a scumbag more than he thought. He had to have been a double life kind of thing. And that was just messed up.
"Claire, let me go." Jim said, taking a breath and relaxing his posture, but in reality he was about to kill the man in front of him. Cautiously, Claire released her magic and stood back, feeling the dangerous aura coming from her mate.
"Not now Max," James said. "I'll ask again, how do you know that…"
"Hey kid," Jim said.
"Yeah?" He questioned.
"This your dad?"
"Yeah?"
"How old are you?"
"16."
A cold, unkind laugh echoed from Jim's chest, as a growl settled.
"James Lake," Jim said to his dad.
"How do you know that name, this is the last time I'm asking or I'm having Max blast you!"
Jim snorted. "Barbara Lake."
He got more mad, Forge looked confused. "Jim, what is going on? Who are these people?"
"And one last name for ya," Jim said, baring his teeth, and talking through a growl. "James Lake Jr."
James was breathing heavily and glaring daggers at Jim's direction.
"What are you going to do about it?" Jim said with a feral smile, a rumble in his chest.
James, stupidly, lowered the forcefield and the second it was down, Jim had his father's throat in his hand pinned to the wall. Claire, as per Jim's actions, restrained Forge, Steel and Max.
"Let Max go," Jim said. In a moment, he was released, and about to attack Jim. But his words stopped him. "Max, your dad is a liar and a cheater. And I can prove it."
"What?" He said confused.
"You're about to be in the same miserable boat as me, the only difference is you actually got to know him for some point of your life."
"What are you saying?"
"Ji-im?" James struggled to get out with his son's strong blue hand clamped around his throat.
"Ding-ding! You guessed it, your son." Jim said, looking back to his dad.
"Wait, what?" Max and Steel said simultaneously.
Claire and forge were now invested like it was a cliffhanger on a season finale, and watched the interactions with rapt attention.
"Here's my guess Max," Jim started. "Your dad was always on business trips for extended periods of time when you were younger?"
"Uh… Yeah, I guess."
"Yeah, well same for me, except one time, he left. And he didn't come back. The fucking cheeting piece of scum."
"Hey! That's my dad you're talking about!"
There was a beat of silence when Steel spoke. "Uh Max, I'm pretty sure what he just established was that this is his dad too."
"I know but it just seemed right," Max shrugged. "Is this true?" He asked Jim.
Jim nodded. "You've got a mom?"
"Yeah?"
"Does she know about… whatever this is?" Jim gestured to Max's suit.
"Yeah."
"Get her down here, I want to talk to her."
At that, James turbo blasted out of Jim's grip, but was swiftly decked in the face, knocking him out cold.
"You can let Forge down Claire, I think he sees what's going on here."
He nodded as the magic was released, "He always did act weird before he disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Claire asked.
"Long story, but he got blasted into space and picked up by an alien warlord named Makano for about 11 years."
Jim snarled, and his tail whipped before it wrapped around Claire's wrist.
"Is anyone forgetting something?"
"What?"
"That means we're brothers," Max said.
And then Jim's world stopped.
