"Intruders?"
"How could he find us so quickly?" Aja worried as they rose as one before scrambling outside to find the edge of the property (not guarded by Mother's shield) to be lined with Omens illuminated in red.
"Well, well, well" Morando purred as his ship alighted on the street. "If it isn't the last defenders of House Tarron! A traitor, a rebel, a human, a dog and two children! Surrender and your deaths shall be swift. Fight and you shall regret your very existence!"
"The only existence we regret is yours!" Krel snapped in retort as the Akiridions shed their humans transductions & readied their serators for battle. Now Duplicate Dan knew that as a copy of the original, he would have only half of the original's power but that did not make him weak.
"Ha! Good one!" Vex chuckled.
"Very well, then" Morando shrugged as his ship retreated in favour of the Omens who lined themselves along the circumference of the shield and fired relentlessly into it.
"Let the soolians try to breach our defences!" Vex laughed, "There isn't a serator forged that can penetrate that shield!"
"But that ship is more powerful than a serator!" Krel replied as it circled back and readied itself to attack the dome. "Ooh! I have an idea!"
The series of whistles that fell from his blue lips echoed high and far until the very creature he had called came running like an overeager puppy. "Buster!" Aja cheered when the arthropod appeared and easily tossed away the Omens that were nearby.
"Adorable" Morando cooed, completely unphased by the whole thing. "You called for your pet"
"He isn't a pet, he's our friend!" She cheered before noticing that Morando did not care whether Buster was there or not as he fired. "Oh no! Buster get out of there!"
"RAAAH!" Buster roared in defiance, but for all of his strength, he was no match for the missile.
"I never liked bugs" Morando hummed.
"Ah! No!" Krel cried out in despair as Buster splattered against the side of the shield, coating it in his blood and guts. The only thing left behind was a solitary leg which thudded against the shield before dropping to the ground in front of Luug who whimpered at the sight of it and begged to be let out to mourn his friend.
"Grr! I am going to kill you for that!" Aja growled.
"Haha~!" Morando merely laughed, raising goosebumps along Duplicate Dan's arms as the Omens simply rose to their feet or pulled themselves back together as if they had never been damaged in the first place.
"Into the house" Vex ordered as he steered the two siblings back inside, Zadra mirroring him on the other side with Duplicate Dan right on their heels. "Now!"
"Force shield at 50 percent and holding" Mother warned as they slipped back inside to the sounds of gunfire echoing off of the shield.
"But not for long" Duplicate Dan worried. Even from the window, he could see that the shield was already weakening.
"Kleb!" Krel cursed.
"We won't be able to stay in this domicile long" Zadra worried as the ship was constantly rocked by the blasts.
"We can't leave Mama & Papa!" Aja argued, her entire frame vibrating with barely contained rage.
"Unfortunately, my royal, the king & queen are in their final stages of regeneration" Mother interjected, "If you remove their cores from their stasis pods at this stage…you would cause irreparable damage"
"Then we don't" Krel retorted, a plan gleaming in his eyes. "Buy me some time, and we can send them back to Akiridion-5 through the wormhole generator. Izita & the Resistance will protect them"
"To the death" Zadra agreed, hand over core.
"Good" Aja nodded grimly, "But we are not leaving this planet until we end Morando. This is our home—we will protect it!"
"This is not our home—" Refuted Krel.
"I would have to disagree" Duplicate Dan raised his hand in the background, but he was mostly ignored.
"—Well, now it is, little brother" Aja returned in kind.
"Shields at critical condition" Mother rasped in pain against the numerous attacks. "That's my way of saying 'hurry!"
At Mother's call the Akiridions fled to the inner sanctums of the mothership whilst Duplicate Dan took up guard in front of the portal, hidden behind a blanket of invisibility. Even with half of him there, he knew he would be more of a hinderance than a help with the machines so he stayed to do what he did best—beat the crap out of fruitloops. No sooner had the portal zipped shut behind him, was the front door blasted off of its hinges.
BOOM!
"Disgusting!" Morando sneered as he stepped through the cloud of debris that billowed about the place. "The royals reduced to the living like larvoxen"
"Lockdown protocol initiated" Mother shoved herself into Morando's face as the mantelpiece jumped into place, over the glowing portal. "You're not going anywhere near my royals!"
"Blast that door and find the royal cores"
"Grrr!" Luug growled and barked as he launched himself towards the nearest Omen leg, only to be booted over the kitchen counter. Mother returned fire with whatever she could get her hands on as the Omens & Kubritz charged up an ionic blaster in the background.
"Who dares?" Morando snarled.
"Mother dares" Mother retorted in kind. "This is my house, after all"
"Destroy her!"
"Access denied"
BOOM!
Duplicate Dan popped into place as he threw up a wall of ectoplasm, stopping the blast from connecting with the portal behind him. Instead, the blast rebounded off of the shield and hit anything else that was within range, including a few of the Omens. "Phantom!" Kubritz snarled when the halfa appeared before them behind a wall of green. "You shouldn't be here!"
"I do have a knack for being where I shouldn't" Duplicate Dan smirked in reply, standing tall.
"Did they really think a child can stop me?" Morando asked, slightly offended at the notion. How could Kubritz have such spite for a weak little human child?
"Are you scared, Gen~er~al?" Duplicate Dan purred, his title rolling off of his tongue like syrup.
"Why would I be scared of a child?"
"They say the weakest dogs bark the loudest"
"I'll show you weak!"
BOOM!
The shield rattled with the force of the blast and formed a crack along the center; another blast like that, and it would undoubtedly shatter. Duplicate Dan's stare turned cold and dead, much like himself, as he saw more than felt the temperature in the room drop several degrees below freezing very quickly. Ice swept across the living room, freezing all that it touched—Omens, hazmats, furniture and all. Icicles sprung from the ceiling and erupted from the floor, frost blanketed the windows and a heavy mist settled in the air.
"H-h-h-h-how are y-y-you d-d-doing this?" Kubritz shivered violently, turning almost as blue as her companion.
"That's enough from you" Duplicate Dan growled, stepping through the brittle wall which shattered like glass upon the ground. "Don't you dare lay a finger on Mother. I won't allow it"
"Curious" Morando grit out from between clenched teeth. Although the cold seemed to prick at the General (as evident by the sudden tenseness of his arms and the clenching of his fists in an attempt to avoid shivering), curiosity seemed to tickle him even more so. "How does a little soolian obtain such a power?"
"You invited yourself inside, and this is how you conduct yourself?" The halfa replied with a sneer, answering the General's question with one of his own.
"H-h-h-h-h-help m-m-m-me!" Kubritz pleaded from off to the side as she dared to shuffle closer to the Akiridion with each degree drop that matched Duplicate Dan's steps.
"Calm down!" Mother appeared in his peripherals. "Your power is surging! Control your emotions!"
"How am I supposed to do that?" The halfa tilted his head in question.
"The same, I'm sure, that you always do"
"By the Ancients! Do you expect me to quell my rage when the fruitloops before me are threatening to execute my friends?"
"If you don't calm down, you're going to freeze her solid" Morando purred, almost egging the halfa on as he nodded to the cowering colonel at his side. Curiously enough, he made no move to pull her closer nor to push her away.
"She seemed to have no problem killing another person" Duplicate Dan came to stop mere paces from Kubritz and Morando, head titled in question and eyes baring down upon them. "Tell me, do you still value life so little, now that it's your own?"
Frost danced across her blue lips as Duplicate Dan forced the temperature to drop further still. By this point, the hazmats were no more than stone cold gargoyles frozen in place, whilst the Omens had merely frosted over. The halfa couldn't fathom what was keeping them so warm in this chilled climate, but it grated at his nerves and he dared to go lower still. Morando, having grown tired of the charade, simply knocked the halfa aside with a well-timed slice from his serator which pushed him back and away.
Duplicate Dan flew across the room from the force of the hit and, ironically, landed upon one of his own icicles with a low groan, slumping over as he slid down to the kitchen floor with his feet hanging out from behind the cabinets. Absently, he noted Mother's despaired cry as he slumped over, but he was far more occupied with trying to keep his ectoplasm inside his body.
"Delete her!" Morando commanded with a terrifying grin.
"Ah kleb!" Mother cursed as the blaster charged up alongside the Omens, once more.
"L-l-lights o-out!" Kubritz demanded through the biting cold, calling for the Omens to burn their ways out of the ice before advancing on the Akiridion icon who remained as the last line of defence between the General and the royals.
"You…will…fail! Long…live…House…Tarron!" Mother gasped as she was fried, before she dissipated into pixels. Down on the kitchen floor, Duplicate Dan grunted in pain as he pulled himself free of the icicle and then again he attempted to reattach the ectoplasmic limbs that he had lost. It was a difficult & painful process and only possible because he was just that—a duplicate. If the original had been there, he would have healed, but not like this.
BOOM!
"The lower deck of this ship is built like a labyrinth" Said Morando as the dust settled on tiers of thawed ice. "Find the royal cores"
"That will not be necessary!" Vex decreed as he and Aja appeared with serators in hand and looking for a fight.
"Kill them!" The Omens advanced at the General's call, intending to fry out their cores if they had to.
"For Mama & Papa!" Aja decreed from behind the ionic shield that Vex manage to throw up before they were fried.
"For the royals!" Vex agreed as he charged forward, taking out the Omens in his path. In turn, Aja launched herself at Kubritz who had warmed up significantly since then. And then blue ignited Duplicate Dan's vision & the last thing he heard before darkness fell was Vex's bellow from the front lawn. "VARVATOS VEX COMMANDS YOU TO GET OFF HIS LAWN!"
