Chapter 9

This was not going well for the hyperforce and they knew it, though they never stopped trying. While the others were on the floor badly injured, Antauri, who was the only one that was left standing, was still fighting the formless and undead creatures a few minutes ago until he got outnumbered. Now badly beaten, Antauri could only watch as one of the skeletons was about to spear him down with its sword. Just before it had a chance, a whip came out of nowhere, coiled around the sword, and pulled it out of the skeleton's bony hands. It was confused at first to where the sword went until it turned its heat to the left and saw something that shocked it. Wondering why, Antauri gently turned his head towards where the skeleton was looking and realized who were over there. Who he saw was Alex holding a whip and the skeleton's sword with the gang and their animals (except for Gigi) beside them. Each of them were carrying really dangerous weapons.

"Hey numb-skull, why don't you pick on someone your own size!" Raven taunted at the skeleton soldier while Alex was fiddling with its sword like a toy.

"Hey nice come-back Raven!" Eddie complimented since he always loved taunting the bad guys.

"Thanks! Now let's see if this bone-head can shed a few bits," Raven then said while smiling at her joke.

The skeleton was about to attack when Alex threw the sword at the skeleton like a spear and the blade hit directly on the creature's chest, making it shatter into millions of pieces.

"Man! That was a good shot," Raven commented.

"Thanks Rae, I've been practicing on my aims," Alex said.

Just then, all of Skeleton King's army saw them and began marching towards them, leaving the hyperforce wounded.

"Does anyone have a plan?" Kyle asked while readying himself.

"I've got one, Kyle; you go and help the hyperforce. And as for the rest of us; get them!" Raven shouted while she and the others charged towards the army leaving a crestfallen Kyle behind.

Why is it always me that has to take care of somebody while the rest fight off bad guys!? Kyle thought while rushing towards Antauri to heal him up with his healing powers.

"HIYAH!" Amber screamed while giving a skeleton a kick in the chest while shooting a couple of them in the head with Yang fighting beside her.

"Nice shot sis!" Riley shouted while using some of her martial arts by using her staff on five formless with Yin fighting beside her.

"Thanks!" Amber replied to her twin sister while taking out two more skeletons with her acid gun.

The others were doing pretty well too. Eddie was taking down three formless and three skeletons with his staff and some martial arts with some help from Blaze. Raven was taking down five formless with her long nine-tailed horse whip and three skeletons with her special atlantican sword with some help from Palo. Katelyn was taking down four formless with her excellent archery skills and two skeletons with her whip made of vines that had a bit of toxic poison ivy on it with some help from Ivy. And Alex was taking down four formless down with her long whip and five skeletons with her crucifix gun which contained a bit of holy oil in each bullet with some help from Midnight and. Including Kyle who took down two formless with acid which he sprayed with a specially modified water gun and two skeletons by strangling them with his bare hands since they tried to stop him from helping the hyperforce with Cabro backing him up.

While they were still fighting, one of the formless transformed itself into a large insect with stingers for hands, making it look like a wasp without wings. Once it finished transforming itself, it walked slowly towards Alex. That was the biggest mistake that it ever made because Alex was afraid of insects, especially large ones with stings. And when she saw the insect-like formless, she began to panic and started backing up until she backed up against a wall and realized that there was no-way out. This made her panic even more. Before the insect-like formless got even close to her, she did one thing that was so unlike her; she screeched.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Alex screeched while closing her eyes. Little did she realized that her screech was so loud and horrible, it destroyed the insect-like formless completely, including three skeletons that were right behind it. Though it was also so loud that her friends and the hyperforce had to cover their ears.

"Whoa Alex! When and where did you learn to do that!?" Amber asked, looking shocked like the rest.

"I have no idea," Alex said after opening her eyes and realized what she done. While she was still in shock, a giant formless with giant blades came up right behind her.

"Alex look out!" they all screamed at her.

"What!?" Alex asked while turning around to see what they were talking about and saw that the blade was coming down straight towards her!

"MONKEY MIND SCREAM!" Antauri screamed as he went in between Alex and the formless and attacked the formless which destroyed it completely.

"Whoa! Thanks Antauri," Alex thanked him after the formless was completely destroyed.

"That's alright, I thought we told you and your friends to stay in the super robot," Antauri said in his usual calm voice..

"Well we would of but then we saw you guys in trouble and we just had to; plus we fought things like this before anyway," she then said while noticing that the rest of the hyperforce (including Jinmay) were fighting again.

"How could you see us fighting when you were inside?" he then asked her.

"Uh...well...umm...we had Eddie hack into your computer to get to the video cameras outside," she explained, feeling embarrassed. "But only because we were worried about you guys."

"Did you look at any of the super robot's battle specifications?" Antauri asked.

"No of course we didn't man! Were not that stupid! Anyway, do you know where Chiro is?" Alex asked, looking around to see if she could find him on time before her vision came true.

"He's somewhere in the crowd but why do you need to...?" Antauri started asking but Alex had already ran off somewhere in the crowd to find Chiro. Seeing that she already left, he decided to ask her later and went off to fight some more formless.

"Hey Eddie, do you see Chiro anywhere?" Alex asked, talking into her walkie talkie watch while searching for him and fighting off some more formless and skeletons (with Midnight backing her up) which seemed to be decreasing a bit now.

"No I'm too busy fighting off these back-and-white creatures and these stupid bone-heads!" Eddie replied. "Anyway, we don't know if he's gonna be attacked by one of these so-called formless!"

Just then she saw Chiro attacking a few formless next to a building that looked like the one that she saw in her vision. She then saw one of those formless that had a body covered with spikes coming towards him!

"Hey Eddie I'm gonna have to call you back later," Alex said, hanging up before running towards Chiro while attacking a few formless that were in her way.

Just at that moment, the formless then released at least fifteen spikes directly towards Chiro!

"Chiro look out!" the whole hyperforce shouted towards him looking scared.

Before the spikes made any contact towards Chiro, Alex manage to push him out of the way in time before the spikes came (which hit directly on the wall of the building) but since she was up in mid-air, she ended up crashing on the floor on her back.

"Oww!" Alex cried out while gently sitting up and rubbing her back while Midnight came by her side to see if she was alright.

"Are you alright?" Chiro asked.

"Well my pride's okay but my back is killing me," Alex said before realized that the formless was about to attack again. So she stood up quickly and with her quick reflexes, she ran towards the formless, jumped up in the air with Midnight as a boost, produced her staff and threw it down at the formless like a spear. It then connected with the formless and got destroyed immediately including a few more skeletons that were around it.

"Whoa! How did you do that!?" Chiro asked when she landed back down.

"Well it's kind of hard to explain right now, I'll tell you later," she said while she, Midnight and Chiro watched the hyperforce and her friends were finishing off the rest of the formless and skeletons. After Skeleton King's army was completely destroyed, Alex and her friends did their victory hand shake while the hyperforce went over to Chiro to see if he was alright.

"Chiro you okay?" Jinmay asked, looking worried.

"I'm fine Jinmay, but if it weren't for Alex, I wouldn't have been," Chiro explained while looking towards Alex who went over to Raven who was badly hurt from fighting the other formless with spikes all over its body. She had a couple of spikes imbedded deep in her left shoulder.

"Raven, you okay?" Alex asked.

"Oh yeah, never been better," Raven sarcastically replied, looking slightly pale.

"Uh is there a Doctor in the house?" Eddie asked while joking at the same time, although no-one was laughing.

Gibson then rushed over to them to have a better look at Raven's shoulder with the other hyperforce behind him.

"The wound looks quite deep; I think it fractured her shoulder bone and possibly broken her arm," Gibson explained while gently examining her arm. "Could someone help me take her to med bay?"

So Amber helped Gibson take Raven to the bed bay while the others were checking everyone else. Though the hyperforce were a bit puzzled to how they were healed so quickly and how the seven could fight so well.

"Uh excuse me, but where did those staffs come from?" Nova asked suspiciously.

"And how come we're all healed up, because before hand we were all beaten up and now we look as good as new!" Sprx explained.

"Why, aren't you guys thankful that you guys don't have anymore major injuries?" Katelyn asked.

"Yes we are but that's not the point, we want to know why we healed up so quickly and how come you children could do things that normal people can't do," Antauri explained, looking stern.

"Hey Alex, how many spikes did that formless shoot out?" Riley asked while looking at the wall where the spikes were and changing the subject.

"Uhh...about fifteen; why?" Alex then asked, looking confused while feeling slightly light-headed for some reason.

"There're only ten spikes on the wall," Riley replied back while pointing at the wall.

"Well maybe they melted into ooze or something," Eddie suggested since he didn't get why it was such a big idea.

"Not without making any contact with the wall and I don't see any marks on it," Riley explained to them and the others realized that she was right again.

"Well if they're not on the wall then where are they?" Katelyn asked.

"Okay guys let's just not panic and figure out where they might have gone to," Alex said while realizing that she was mysteriously feeling a bit sick.

"Okay let's just back-track; there were fifteen of them," Eddie started saying.

"And now there are ten," Sprx finished his sentence but that wasn't really helpful.

Well that's helpful! Alex sarcastically thought while putting her hands on her hips. Before she had them relaxed, she felt a great surge of pain on her left hip when she put weight on it, making her remove her hands off her hips. She was confused at first until she realized what might have happened to the spikes and began to look really worried.

"Umm...yeah I think I might know what had happened to them," Alex said with a worried tone, making everyone turn around to look at her.

She then slowly lifted her jacket from the left-hand side to reveal something horrible and shocking that proved that she was correct. Imbedded in her on the left-hand side of her waist were the five missing spikes! She winced in pain when she saw them. Everyone else gasped when they saw her side (which was covered in blood, even on the spikes) and realized what had happened.

"Uhh...funny, they must have went into me when I pushed Chiro aside," Alex said, laughing nervously while looking at her wound.

"Alex why didn't you tell us that you were injured!?" Riley asked while she went over to her to take a look at the wound.

"Well I didn't know; I was too busy preventing my vision from coming true! And anyway I'm perfectly alright you know," Alex said with an annoyed look since she always hated it when somebody gets worried with her.

"Vision?" Chiro asked looking confused.

"As in sight seeing?" Otto asked which made the others give him an odd look.

"I don't think she means that vision," Nova said.

"What do you mean by 'vision'?" Antauri asked Alex, making sure that she didn't collapse all of a sudden.

"Uhh...well...umm...I don't really know how to describe it to you really," Alex explained, realizing that she accidentally blurted out one of her deepest hidden secrets. "And Riley could you please stop looking at my wounds; as you can see I'm perfectly alright!?"

Just then, without any warning, she collapsed to the floor from all the blood she lost. Luckily, Antauri and Nova both caught her on time before she made any contact with the floor.

"Alex!" the others called out to her when she collapsed but she didn't respond to their call.

"We need to get her to med bay right now!" Antauri shouted to the others while leaning Alex's right arm over his shoulders while Nova did the same thing on her shoulders as they both dragged her quickly to the super robot with the others behind them.

Meanwhile, in the med bay,

"Well that should do it, though I think for now you should get some rest," Gibson said after bandaging Raven's shoulder which had to be stitched up since she had two spikes in her shoulder which had to be pulled out with large tweezers.

"Thanks Doctor Gibson," Raven thanked him (making Gibson blush) who was still in pain and was lying down on the Med Bay bed.

"Yes, thank you though I wonder what's taking the others so long," Amber wondered after helping Gibson with Raven.

"I wouldn't need to worry about them, they're probably just asking each other questions or something," Gibson suggested while putting the stuff away.

Just then, Antauri and Nova came in with Alex on their shoulders with the others following behind.

"Oh my goodness, what happened to her!?" Amber asked when she saw Alex looking really pale and had a lot of blood all over the left-hand side of her shirt and jacket.

"Some spikes went into her when she pushed Chiro aside!" Riley explained while Antauri and Nova gently put Alex on the med bed. After that was done, Gibson carefully examined the wound.

"This is quite more serious than I thought it would be, I'm gonna have to do an operation on her immediately," Gibson explained after looking at the wound and went over to one of the cupboards to get some equipment.

"An oper-what?" Alex asked who managed to regain consciousness but was very weak.

"Alex, you're awake!" said Raven who was on another med bed beside her.

"Yeah, just barely though," Alex explained, looking really pale.

"Okay Alex I'm gonna put something in you to make the pain numb now," Gibson said while taking out an injection that had some liquid stuff in it. Unluckily, Alex saw it and the minute she did she shot straight up and began to back away from it.

"Oh no there is no way that I'm gonna have that thing injected in me!" Alex shouted which surprised the hyperforce since they couldn't understand where she got all that strength.

"Alex please don't make this hard on yourself and just allow him to inject that in you," Amber said calmly while trying to reason with her.

"There is no way in heaven, hell or on earth that you're gonna put that needle in my skin!" Alex shouted.

"Okay Alex, you leave us with no choice," Riley said in a threatening tone while her other friends surrounded Alex.

"You wouldn't dare!" Alex said, now looking really angry.

"Restrain her!" Eddie shouted while lunging out at her.

Unluckily, Alex managed to escape from their clutches by jumping off the med bed while transforming herself into a Black Panther (at this point, her eyes had turned green) and ran to a corner of the room. This shocked the hyperforce a lot!

"Great! Even when she badly injured she still manages to have enough strength to escape!" Katelyn said while Alex was growling and hissing at them.

"Well I've got one solution to get her," Gibson said while activating his drills.

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked since he was worried that Gibson was gonna shoot Alex.

"No need to fear, it's just a tranquilizer dart," Gibson explained while pointing it at Alex.

"Uh...I wouldn't do that if I were you," Raven said.

Even though Raven told him not to do that, Gibson still shot the tranquilizer dart at Alex, who was concentrating on the dart more than him. Strangely enough, the dart didn't make any contact with her when it stopped zooming towards her but was still hovering in mid-air! The hyperforce were shocked at this and couldn't understand why it didn't make contact. Then after a few seconds, the tranquilizer dart fell on the floor with a clang between Alex's feet which then she kicked it away from her.

"Impossible!" Gibson exclaimed when the dart didn't make contact with Alex. "No one could make an object stay in the air without making any contact!"

"No one except for Alex and Raven since their both psychics," Katelyn explained.

"KATELYN!" her friends shouted at her for blabbering about Raven and Alex's secret.

"Well they should know our secret, now that Alex has transformed herself into a panther and that Kyle used his healing powers to heal them," Katelyn explained.

"Hey I only did that because you guys told me to!" Kyle said in defense. "Blame me why don't you when you should be blaming Alex!"

"Hey! I only did that to defend myself!" Alex explained while growling at them.

"Okay Alex we can do this the easy way or the hard way," Amber threatened her while the others were walking towards her.

"Not without a fight!" Alex growled at them while surrounding herself with electricity, making her friends stop walking towards her.

"Great! Now she's using her powers to shield herself!" Katelyn exclaimed, looking rather annoyed. "How are we gonna get her now?"

Then Antauri all of a sudden had an idea. Deciding not to tell the others what he planned to do so she wouldn't know as well, he slowly walked towards Alex!

"Hey Antauri what are you doing!?" Raven asked when she saw him walking towards Alex.

"Antauri are you out of your mind!" Kyle exclaimed.

Even though the others tried to talk him out of it, Antauri still went towards her. Alex noticed this and began growling at him.

What is he trying to do, get towards me so he could inject something inside me or something!? Alex thought while growling at him still but was slowly getting a bit nervous.

When Antauri was just a foot away from her, he slowly lifted his hand up and reached towards her as if he was gonna stroke her.

"ANTAURI DON'T!" they all shouted, worried that Alex would hurt him.

Strangely enough, when Antauri almost touched her, she immediately stopped using her electric powers (though was still growling)!

What is he doing!? Alex thought still while growling still while he was stroking her head (even though she was slightly enjoying it).

Few minutes later, she slowly stopped growling and began to purr. Once she began purring, she slowly began to relax.

This surprised her friends a lot because as long as they knew their friend, she was always in a bit of a bad mood (apart from Raven, who can get a really bad temper) now and then but it would take a long time to calm her down.

"Wow, that's the first time she's ever calmed down!" Amber exclaimed when Alex slowly lay down on the floor, transformed back to her human form and slowly went to sleep.

"Hey Antauri, how did you know that she wouldn't hurt you?" Eddie asked him, looking confused.

"I didn't, but I knew that if she cared about others getting hurt, then she wouldn't harm me," Antauri explained calmly though was breathing slightly fast.

"True, so what should we do?" Eddie asked them while he and the others were looking at Alex who was still sleeping (which they all thought was so cute that Kyle took a lovely picture of it as a memory (well in his case; so he could use it to blackmail her)).

"I suggest we start the operation immediately before her condition becomes critical," Gibson explained but hardly anyone understood what he said.

"Say what?" Eddie asked, looking really confused.

"He means that we better do it before she gets any worse," Amber explained so they could understand what he just said better.

"Ohh!" they all exclaimed (except for Gibson and Riley).

"Yes, thank you Amber, now could someone please hold her still while I put this into her," Gibson said while holding an injection in his hand.

Antauri and Riley then gently but firmly held Alex (who was still asleep) down in case she woke up and ran away from them while Gibson put the injection in her. Alex winced in pain when she felt the needle go into her left-hand side. Before she even had a chance to wake up and run away from the needle, she felt a reassuring hand on top of hers and squeezing it gently. So that calmed her down instantly and before she knew it, she fell into unconsciousness.