I had intended this story to be just one episode, but I ended up realising that trying to cram all the events into one episode would not have done this story justice, so I've made it into a 2-parter set of episodes! Part 2 will come next in the form of episode 5! I hope what I've written will continue to please my readers old and new out there.
It may be a quite long while now before I can write up my next episode story after episode 5, because I'm returning back to university studies now and that will no doubt take up most of my time sadly. So don't expect regular updates from now on folks!
On the bright side, this 2-parter story should be a treat for Danger Duck and Marvin the Martian fans! And the other Loonatics get their hands dirty in some serious fighting! This 2-parter story also will link in with the "Duck Dodgers" cartoon series and refer back to the old Looney Tunes a little at the end! A Gossamer creature and another version of Roboto (from Duck Dodgers) will make an appearance as well! So please, enjoy! And let me know what you think!
Episode 4: Gladiators – Part 1
At Loonatics HQs, in the combat practice room, Slam Tasmanian and Danger Duck are facing off against each other in a free-sparring match. They cautiously walk in a circle facing opposite to one another, each waiting for the other to make a move. Ace, Lexi and Rev watch them from the sides of the room.
'C'mon Slam! Let's see what ya got!' Duck taunts Slam.
'Rugalalajuwah!' Slam challenges Duck back to make the first move.
'Alright, you asked for it!'
Duck leaps up into the air and conjures up two of his power orbs, then throws them at the floor in front of Slam. As they hit the ground, smoke rises, blocking Slam's view of the duck. Duck takes this opportunity to teleport himself right behind Slam in order to attempt a surprise attack. As he materialises behind the Tasmanian devil, he launches himself at him with a flying side kick. His foot hits its target, Slam's back, but Slam's body doesn't even budge, and instead, Duck finds himself bouncing right off it and landing in a splat on the floor. Slam turns around and only just then notices Duck is behind him.
'Nugarahwudah okay?' Slam asks Duck in a worried manner as he picks him up off the floor.
'Fine!' Duck answers in defeated pride, 'I'm just fine!'
'Eeehh, good try Duck,' Ace says in mock praise.
Duck grumbles something at the leader's remark.
Tech enters the combat practice room at that point, carrying a new invention of his in his hands. He has a pleased expression on his face as he looks down at his new glove-shaped, metal-plated gadget.
'So-what's-new-Tech-ole'-pal?-What'cha-got-there-in-yer-hands?' Rev curiously asks.
'This Rev,' Tech holds up his invention for all to see, 'is my new "Techno-gauntlet"! A little something I've been working on for the past few weeks to aid me on the battlefield! It performs various functions…'
Suddenly, Tech is interrupted by an emergency alert call from Zadavia. Her hologram image is projected in the combat room.
'Loonatics, I have something for you that may be a potential problem,' Zadavia informs. 'My sensors have been picking up strange alien signals from space, originating from near our planet. So far, I have been unable to decipher these foreign messages. I have no idea whether they may possibly be distress calls from an alien race, or warnings of danger of some kind. I need you all to travel off-planet once again and investigate the source and meaning of these mysterious alien signals.'
'Travel into space again!' Duck complains, 'Do we have to? Something bad always seems to happen when we go up there!'
'Yes Duck! I need you to get up there and take a look around!' Zadavia replies in a firm manner.
'We're on it Zadavia!' Ace affirms.
Opening sequence starts here.
The Loonatics are in space. They are riding in a saucer-shaped spaceship, an updated model of Tech's "Space Dream 8000" (from "The Comet Cometh" episode!). Tech is at the main driving controls and he is wearing his "techno-gauntlet" over his right hand.
'Good thing I just updated my Space Dream 8000 interstellar traveller!' Tech remarks, 'This Space Dream 8000 version 2 is a vast improvement over its first design!'
'Yeah, it doesn't seem to be jolting as much as before!' Duck quips.
Rev turns round from a perimeter-scanner screen.
'Tech,-I've-been-trying-to-track-the-alien-signals-to-their-source-but-I-can't-seem-to-get-a-fix-on-them.-They-seem-to-be-coming-from, well,-everywhere!-All-around-us!-Like-they're-part-of-the-atmosphere-or-something!' he informs in puzzlement.
'But I don't see anything out there,' Lexi comments as she looks through the ship's window.
'Peculiar,' Tech agrees, 'That can't be right! There can't be signals originating from every direction! Unless…someone's scrambling our sensors!'
As soon as Tech reaches this realisation, a larger spaceship suddenly appears right in front of them out of nowhere.
'Where the heck did that come from!' Ace shouts in surprise.
'It must have had some kind of cloaking shield around it!' Tech realises out loud.
The larger spaceship then produces guns from its hull and they align themselves to target the Space Dream 8000 v.2. The face of a reptilian lizard-like alien appears on the Loonatics' video screens.
'We are The Urrocks! And we are hereby taking over your space craft!' the reptilian alien on the screens says, 'Our weapons are trained on your ship Acmetopians! If you wish to remain unharmed, you will surrender to us without incident and co-operate with our demands!'
'Err, can we think on that for a minute?' Ace quickly replies. 'Tech, get us outta here!'
Tech reverses the Space Dream 8000 v.2 away from the Urrock space ship in a sudden surge of speed. The Urrock ship gives chase and opens fire at them. The Loonatics hang on to hard edges as their ship is rocked by a shower of lasers.
'They're attacking us! They're attacking us!' Duck cries out in alarm.
'Activating force-shield!' Tech informs as he pushes a few buttons on his control panel.
The Space Dream 8000 is instantly encased by a transparent energy shield, but it still shakes violently from the lasers' impacts on it.
'The shield's not gonna hold under this kind of pressure!' Tech warns.
The force-shield crumbles under the Urrocks' lasers and the Space Dream's engines fail when the lasers hit them. The Urrock spaceship then sends out a tractor-bean, slowly pulling the Space Dream 8000 toward it.
'They've-caught-us-in-some-kind-of-tractor-beam-and-are-pulling-us-right-to-them!' Rev informs in a panic.
'Loonatics, get to the escape pods! Now!' Ace commands.
A connecting bridge tunnel emerges from the Urrock ship. It attaches itself to the Space Dream 8000's surface when the tractor-beam pulls it within reaching range. Some of the Urrock aliens pass through the bridging tunnel into the Loonatics' spaceship. The Loonatics leave the control room and rush to the escape pod chamber. But to their dismay, they are met by the invading Urrock crew upon reaching the doors to the escape chamber. The Urrocks lower crackling staff-like weapons at the Loonatics.
'You're not going anywhere Acmetopians!' proclaims one Urrock.
'Wanna bet!' Ace shouts.
He laser-blasts one of the Urrocks, knocking him over. But as soon as he does this, the other Urrocks fire energy balls of some kind from their staffs at the Loonatics, before they have a chance to react. The energy balls expand to encompass each of the Loonatics upon hitting them, creating circular prisons for them. The Loonatics attempt unsuccessfully to break free of their energy ball prisons, except for Duck who manages to 'quack' himself out of his. He reappears outside of his energy ball prison.
'Whoah! I'm outta here!' Duck cries as he spots the Urrocks heading to try and recapture him again.
He teleports himself once again, this time completely disappearing from everyone's sight.
'The duck has disappeared!' says one Urrock in irritation.
'No matter. We have these five left,' replies another, 'They look like they can put up a decent fight! They should be enough to satisfy Lord Zorak's demands for now!'
The Urrocks drag away the five remaining imprisoned Loonatics with them back to their spaceship. The Loonatics cast each other worried glances through their energy ball prisons.
'Where did Duck go?' Lexi asks in a low tone, 'He just left us!'
Meanwhile, unknown to them and the Urrocks, Danger Duck has teleported himself into the escape pod chamber and has taken an escape pod to flee the captured Space Dream 8000. His pod slips away unnoticed.
'I've gotta get back to Acmetropolis and get help!' Duck tells himself within the narrow confines of his escape pod. 'Now if I could just figure out how to steer this darn thing back homeward!'
Duck uncertainly pushes a few buttons, flips a few switches and toggles at what appears to be a steering stick. To his dismay, the words "New directional course set: Mars" appears on the screen in front of him. His pod jets away from Acmetropolis and instead heads to some other unknown direction through space. He screams in absolute terror as he is taken to a location he had not intended on travelling to.
Back with the Urrocks, the five captive Loonatics are taken to a giant space coliseum dome structure. They are pulled out of their captors' spaceship and are imprisoned in clear rectangular containment vessels within a small room. Through a clear screen wall in front of them, they see that they are being held above the grounds of a massive fight arena with hundreds of loud alien spectators seated around it.
'I don't like the looks of this!' Lexi comments worriedly. 'Where are we?'
An Urrock, dressed in more elaborate roman-themed gold armour and a long, dark purple cloak, rises from a high chair in a small balcony located just above the audience circle.
'Ladies and gentlemen from all corners of the universe, I, Lord Zorak, leader of the Urrock space hunters, welcome you to the Intergalactic Duelling Coliseum!' announces the high-status dressed Urrock.
'That's where we are,' Ace says in answer to Lexi's question.
Commercial break here.
Suddenly, Ace's containment vessel slips down into a hole that opens up beneath it in the floor. He is transferred through a dark tunnel from the small room to the grounds of the fight arena, popping up at the destination from below ground level. Ace looks around himself at the arena surroundings in bewilderment.
'The Coliseum is the only place in the universe where we pit inhabitants of different planets against one another in mortal combat for your entertainment! And for today's first match-up fight, we have our old favourite hairy orange monster, 'Gossamer', against a new contender, 'Hellraiser Hare'!' announces Lord Zorak.
A cheer erupts from the crowds. Ace pulls a confused face.
'Hellraiser Hare!' he exclaims in confusion, 'That's an insult doc!'
From the opposite side to Ace, the hairy orange monster, 'Gossamer', emerges from the ground. He roars a fearsome roar at the sight of Ace.
'Eehh, you look familiar doc! Do I know you from somewhere…or sometime?' Ace politely asks Gossamer.
The larger Gossamer roars again in Ace's face in response.
'Let the fight…BEGIN!' Lord Zorak announces aloud.
Gossamer lunges at Ace. The other captive Loonatics gasp from above in their containment vessels.
'Ace!' Lexi cries in fear for him.
Gossamer scoops up a surprised Ace in his strong arms and starts squeezing his body in a crushing power hug. Ace struggles to free himself, but Gossamer's hold is unbreakable.
'Ugh! Y'know I like a friendly hug as much as the next person, but yours is a little too 'friendly'!' Ace manages to quip at Gossamer.
Ace then fires his optic lasers at Gosamer's face. Gossamer immediately drops Ace and brings his large hairy hands to his burnt, frazzled face, roaring in anger. Ace then drops to a crouch and swings a leg at Gossamer's, sweeping the orange monster's legs out from under him. Gossamer falls over and as soon as he is flat on the ground, Ace leaps on top of him and brings his fist above the hairy monster's face. He brings his fist down hard on Gossamer's face, knocking the monster out cold.
'And the winner is: Hellraiser Hare!' announces Lord Zorak.
The alien crowds cheer loudly again. Ace finds himself imprisoned again in his containment vessel and he is moved back to the small holding room where the other Loonatics are.
'Ace-are-you-alright!-That-was-a-close-call-you-had-there!' Rev asks in concern.
'Yeah I'm okay Rev, but we gotta figure a way outta this joint!' Ace replies.
'Before one of us doesn't make it out of their fight in one piece!' Lexi adds gravely.
'Hopefully Duck will make it back to Acmetropolis, report to Zadavia what happened to us, round up some help and track us down again!' Tech optimistically predicts.
Ace, Lexi, Rev and Slam all look at Tech in disbelief.
'Are you kidding Tech! If we have to rely on Duck to rescue us, then we're DOOMED!' Ace exclaims.
'Hey I was just trying to be optimistic!' Tech replies defensively.
Suddenly Lexi is brought to the fight arena next as Lord Zorak announces the next fight match-up.
'Next we pit two fearsome beauties upon one another! It's the warrior woman of Amazonia, 'Furie', against our next new contender, 'Ravishing Rabbit'!'
'What did he just call me!' Lexi questions in annoyance.
Before Lexi has a chance to say anything else, Furie, a Greek Amazon-like warrior woman, draws a long sword from a silver girdle and charges at Lexi. Lexi somersaults out of her way and launches a brain-blast at her whilst in the air. But the Amazonian raises her sword and deflects Lexi's brain-blast back at her. The reflected brain-blast strikes Lexi in the stomach, and she falls to the ground hard, landing on her side. She clutches her painful belly and tries to get up, but Furie then strides up to her and picks her up by her long ears. Furie then hauls her up with inhuman strength and spins her round in circles. Lexi cries out helplessly. Finally, Furie lets go of Lexi's ears and she goes flying into the wall surrounding the arena. She slumps onto the ground unconscious. Furie raises her arms up in victory and lets out a battle cry. The spectators cheer once again.
'LEXI!' Ace screams in shock from the holding room.
'And the winner is: Furie!' Lord Zorak's echoing voice rings.
Lexi's unconscious body is brought back to the holding room in her containment vessel. Then Slam is transferred to the fight arena next.
'Now we will match slime against muscles as 'Oozer', the slimy sludge slug, faces off with our third new contender, 'The Tasmanian Terror'!' Lord Zorak announces.
'Agabaturubah!' Slam blabs in anticipation.
Slam sees a giant slug alien that oozes acidic slime from its body facing him.
'Let the third fight…BEGIN!'
Oozer opens a large sticky-looking mouth and spits a blob of corrosive acid slime at Slam. Slam instantly twists himself into a tornado and deflects the acid slime spit away. He then whirls right over to Oozer and sucks him into his tornado. The giant slug spins dizzily in Slam's whirlwind and lands with a thud to the ground when Slam abruptly stops spinning.
'The Tasmanian Terror wins!'
Slam grins with glee at his victory as he is taken back to the holding room in his containment vessel.
'Well-at-least-Slam-seems-to-be-getting-a-thrill-from-being-forced-to-fight!' Rev observes.
Rev is then taken to the fight arena.
'Now we introduce the Aviathan aerial wonder, 'Icawren', against our fourth new contender, 'Racing Pheonix'!'
Rev finds himself facing a turquoise-suited, tanned-skinned man with light blue gloves and boots. As soon as Zorak starts their fight, Icawren takes to the air and light blue energy globules glow in his hands as he flies towards Rev's position. Rev dashes out of the way as the flying man fires a volley of exploding energy globules down at him. Rev speedily dodges in and out of the rain of energy balls. Then as soon as he gets the chance, Rev launches himself into the air too, extending his fiery wings and flying straight for Icawren. Icawren flies straight for the road runner as well. The two flyers speed through the air in a direct crash course for one another. They collide in an explosive clash which ends with Rev tumbling out of the air and down toward the ground. He crashes into the ground hard, leaving an imprint and knocked out cold.
'Icawren is the winner!'
As the alien crowds cheer once again, Rev's shallow-breathing form is taken out of the arena and back to the holding room.
'NO! REV!' Tech cries upon sight of his battered friend.
And before he can say anything more, Tech is transferred to the fight arena.
'For our fifth round, we'll be throwing 'Roboto version 10.5' and our last new contender, 'Crazy Canine', at each other's necks!'
'I'll give them crazy alright!' Tech mutters angrily.
A stocky wheeled robot with extending arms appears in front of Tech. Tech tightens his right hand into a fist and the techno-gauntlet around it extends further up his arm, encasing his whole right arm, just past his shoulder, in silver metal plates like medieval armour. Zorak begins the fight. A machine gun emerges from Roboto's shoulder and it starts firing rounds of bullets at Tech. Tech lifts up his armoured right arm and a series of metal plates that form themselves into a wide-spanning circular shield, emerges from his gauntlet. The shield protects Tech from the continuous stream of bullets. Roboto starts wheeling forward toward Tech, not letting up with its machine gun fire. From behind the protection of his shield, Tech pulls out two short, sharp stinger blades from somewhere along his techno-gauntlet, grasping them between the fingers of his left hand. He then rolls to one side, out of Roboto's line of fire, and throws the stinger blades at the robot. The blades implant themselves through Roboto's metal head and emit a crackling short-circuiting current. A second later, Roboto's head explodes and is sent flying right off its stocky metal body, landing with a hollow clonk on the ground.
'Crazy Canine is the victor!'
Meanwhile, on another side of the vast expanse that is space, Danger Duck is frantically pushing buttons on his escape pod's control panel in a vain attempt to redirect the pod's course away from the planet Mars. His pod enters the Red Planet's atmosphere and starts burning up.
'Ooo! Oww! Hot! Hot!' Duck gasps as his pod starts turning red hot.
Duck's escape pod crash lands on some barren wasteland part of Mars. Duck wobbly steps out of his wrecked pod.
'Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!' he splutters dizzily.
With that, Duck collapses exhausted onto the red sands beneath his feet. But then suddenly, a circle of particle guns is aimed at his head. Duck sits up startled and looks around himself. He sees a troop of black-faced, Roman-style-armoured Martian soldiers holding the particle guns to his face.
'Eerrr…I come in peace?' Duck meekly croaks as his pupils dart from gun point to gun point fearfully.
'We will let our Queen and Head Commander determine whether that is true outworlder!' one Martian soldier states firmly.
Duck swallows hard. 'Well y'see fellas, I kinda have an emergency on my hands and am in somewhat of a rush to get off this planet, so if you don't mind…'
The Martian soldiers push their guns closer to Duck's petrified face.
Duck gulps. 'Well I see reasoning isn't going to work with you gentlemen, sooo…'
Duck teleports himself out of the ring of particle guns and outside of the group of Martian soldiers. Then he starts running away from them screaming loudly. The Martian soldiers pursue him, guns blazing.
Back at the Intergalactic Duelling Coliseum, Slam is fighting Furie, the Amazonian warrior woman, in his second match. Up in their holding room, Ace looks on helplessly at his friends from behind the transparent walls of his containment vessel. Lexi has regained consciousness and is sitting tiredly with her back slumped on the wall of her vessel for support. Rev slowly opens his eyes, sits up on his knees and rubs his head with a hand. Tech is squatting down on all fours and is busy tampering with some electronics at the base of his containment vessel in an attempt to find a way of opening it up. He finally gives up and grunts in frustration, banging his fist on the vessel's wall angrily.
'Ruugh! I can't open up this thing! This alien technology is too foreign! I'd need time to study it more in depth! And time we don't have!' Tech yells.
'Easy Tech!' Ace tries to soothe the green coyote. 'Getting angry ain't gonna help any of us outta this situation! We need you to keep a cool head!'
Tech puts his fingers to his temples and takes in a few deep breaths. 'You're right Chief. I'm sorry. But Lexi and Rev have sustained injuries from their battles and it may not be long before one of us is put out of our misery, permanently!' Tech states pessimistically, 'We can't keep on fighting like this!'
Suddenly, Ace, Lexi, Rev and Tech see Slam thrown into the arena wall by Furie. Then being punched mercilessly by her crushing fists. He slumps down onto the ground defeated.
'Oh no! Not Slam too!' Lexi gasps.
To be continued…
The End of Episode 4!