Proofreading by Rogue Rover and ArmedKevin117.
The pines were roaring on the height.
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red. It gleaming spread.
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon.
The dwarves; they head the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein
One Year Later (that's seven in dog years)…
In a tucked-away corner of Camden, Maine, off on a lonely portion of coast by the woods, stood a small white house with a brown roof built in a typical homely fashion. A dog's plaintive barking could be heard within.
"Rarararararararrr… rarf!" The source of the sound, a little yellow cocker spaniel, pawed anxiously at the door. Then she turned to her owner and whined out a plaintive, "Rrrrmmm?"
The dog's owner – an older woman named Mrs. Fletcher – looked piteously at those soulful brown eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, Fluffy," she said helplessly. Old and arthritic though she was, she walked her dog whenever possible and always asked her home health aid to let the dog out for a jog when she stopped by. Fluffy was used to running outside whenever she wanted as long as the sun was up, until recently.
Recently, news around town had begin to worry Mrs. Fletcher. Word was that dogs around town had been disappearing at an alarming rate for the past several weeks. Phone poles and local bulletin boards were so covered with notices that at a distance the black and white made them look like birch bark, Rewards dominated the local classified ads. Police had been on the case with no leads, and even some of their own dogs had turned up missing. No one knew what to make of it, but everyone was getting worried. In the past week alone ten dogs had vanished, including the local fire department's dalmatian and the police chief's pet bloodhound. Even the dogs that hadn't vanished were acting strangely, as if they knew something was wrong.
Fluffy, however, seemed to have no idea anything was amiss except that her mistress was keeping her – literally and figuratively – on a shorter and tighter leash. Mrs. Fletcher sighed, still held by her dog's pleading look. She knew there was no way for Fluffy to understand her concerns, and that the dog was simply used to running outdoors left to her own devices. Then again, the little spaniel had always come back before and was pretty good about staying out of harm's way.
Besides, supper was almost ready. Surely Fluffy wouldn't go too far with that on the horizon.
At last she relented. "Alright," she allowed with a smile. "Go chase a rabbit, but don't go too far. It's almost dinner time."
She opened the door, and the dog darted out.
Fluffy frisked to and fro, did her business, and sniffed all over the place. It wasn't long before she picked up the scent of a rabbit close by, and spotted it nibbling a patch of clover.
"Rarf! Rarararf!" she yapped, charging down the hill.
The rabbit flicked up its ears and bolted, not even bothering to see the oncoming dog. Fluffy's heart raced as she pressed on its heels. She wasn't even concerned about catching it; this was fun!
The rabbit zigged and zagged towards the woods, then all at once disappeared into a tangle of shrubbery. Fluffy darted after it, only to get her collar caught on a twig.
"Rarararararf!"she yapped, outraged by this sudden twist of fate. She managed to pull herself loose, but the rabbit was long gone by that time. Fluffy groaned in annoyance, scratched herself, and started sniffing about for any trace of her quarry or some fresh entertainment. Soon, however, a new smell caught her attention; something she had never smelled before in her life. It was sort of like another dog, but different. She liked different, and she liked other dogs. With her nose to the ground, she followed the scent.
Alas, her knack for staying out of trouble had failed her at the worst possible time. She heard a rustling sound nearby, looked up, and saw a massive hairy animal covered in spots bearing down on her like a huge ocean wave looming above a little fishing skiff. Panic seized her as the creature – which had to be at least eight feet tall and as wide-chested as two body builders – fixed a pair of baleful eyes on her.
She turned and ran, but the beast was hot on her trail. She ran faster, ducking through small spaces in an effort to hide or slow down her pursuer, but the thing just jumped over or plowed through everything in its path as if the whole forest were made of balsa wood and paper mache. Then, as she was ducking through a thicket, it made a great leap and thudded to the ground with a force that seemed to shake the very woods. Its feet landed on either side of her, she stumbled, and a huge hand slammed down pinning her to the forest floor.
A half-hour later, Mrs. Fletcher was just dishing up her dog's dinner when a terrible roar broke the silence and seemed to rock her house all around her. She jumped, dropping the bowl and spreading dog food and shards of ceramic on the kitchen floor.
"What was that?" she asked in amazement. Then a pit of terror seized her. "Fluffy? Fluffy!" She ran to the door, fearing in the depths of her soul that whatever made that sound had gotten her dog.
The truth was much, much worse than she could have guessed. That awful sound had come from her dog.
As the coming night fell, a scene unfolded like something out of the quiet town's worst nightmares. From the woods near the town came a chorus of blood-curdling howls unlike any beast had uttered in the history of the world. People fixing supper and those getting out late from work looked up toward the hills from whence the sound had come.
At first nothing seemed to stir in the shadow of the woods. Then a portion of that shadow seemed to detach itself and move toward the town, but what at first seemed to be a shadow soon proved to be far more dangerous.
Gleaming fangs, burning eyes, and terrible howls and roars heralded the approach of a mass of hulking figures storming down from the forest. It looked at first like an army of Sasquatch, but these beasts had claws, tails, and the heads of dogs.
Screaming in terror at the sight, people raced for whatever cover they could find: trees, rooftops; anything. Those who had phones on them tried to call for help, only to discover to their horror that there was no signal anywhere in town. One man, caught close enough to recognize the brutes as specific breeds of dogs in the moonlight, darted under a nearby truck. Then he screamed as one of the brutes, which looked like someone had crossed a werewolf and a bulldog, tipped the truck like a cardboard box and roared down at him.
Others, rather than flee, chose to fight. People indoors and out rushed for their guns, taking aim from behind large objects or out the upper windows of their homes. Bullets made for everything from rabbits to bears and moose poured onto the brutes from all sides, but they hardly seemed to even faze the brutes. On and on they marched like so many juggernauts, picking up and throwing aside everyone and everything that stood in their path. Cars flew into the fronts of homes and businesses without a care, and people were hurled onto rooftops like rag dolls and frisbees.
The police had never before faced such a threat, but they rallied to form a barricade with cars parked and guns at the ready.
"Prepare to fire and aim for the eyes," ordered the chief, trying to muster up his own courage in the face of this nightmare. It was like something out of a movie; an army of werewolves too vast to be numbered. He climbed onto the roof of a cruiser and took his stand like the Colossus of Rhodes, raising a bullhorn to his lips.
"I don't know who you are," he called out, "but I order you to stop where you are or be fired upon."
The beasts did halt, and a figure wearing a full-faced helmet stepped out from among them. Whereas the brutes ranged from eight to twelve feet tall, this man was clearly just that: a man, though a large one and powerfully built. He bore himself with cold self-assurance, as though the arsenal pointed his way were no more than so many Nerf guns.
"Commendable response, officers," he called out calmly and even almost warmly, "but we're on a schedule and there's no stopping my pets. Step aside and let us through."
The chief scowled. "Who do you think you are," he asked, "telling us to move?"
"Judging by that army he might as well be the Antichrist," an officer remarked under his breath. The chief did not find this remark comforting, but he decided to chastise the man later – assuming they lived that long.
The figure thumped a fist to his chest. "I am the master of these creatures… and very soon, of the world."
"I don't care if you're a Master of the Universe," snapped the police chief. "Tell your whatever-they-are to put their hands up or we''ll shoot you where you stand."
The man laughed derisively and vanished among his forces in a moment. The only token he gave in parting was a single command.
"Attack!"
The brutes surged forward in a mass, roaring in their savage fury.
"Fire!" cried the chief, scrambling to the relative safety behind the cruiser on which he stood.
It was nothing short of a massacre. The police put up a valiant struggle, but their defense fell apart and their forces scattered like a sand castle. The mutants waded into their barricade, treating the cruisers with no more dignity than they had any other car. The bravest of the officers took a battering as if they were the disorganized mob, and the chief found himself face to face with a baggy-jowled monster which, for just an instant, he recognized as his own missing dog.
"Rex?"
The brute barely hesitated before knocking him on the head, and then the chief knew nothing more.
Far away, in an underground fortress, a lone man witnessed the events in horror.
"Impossible," he gasped. "This soon... it's just not possible."
"Negative," the computer's vaguely female voice replied. "Analysis confirms presence of cano-sapien life forms. Logic dictates that anything which happens..."
"Yes, Iris, I know," the man replied, pushing a bit of hair back into the unkempt mass that decorated his head. The entirety of said hair had been prematurely whitened by a terrible shock years before, adding to the eeriness of his eyes, which still glowed from an accident concerning one of his many experiments. He shifted his gaze to another monitor and hesitated.
"It's too soon," he uttered. "I haven't had the chance to run a test yet. Iris, what are the chances that the authorities can handle this?"
The computer paused, then answered. "Allowing for all known factors, approximately forty percent."
"That's not good. What about the chances of the program working on the first try?"
"Ten percent."
Professor Shepherd's heart sank, but the next question demanded to be asked. "Chances of further casualties if the authorities aren't helped?"
"One hundred percent."
Well, that pretty much tore it. "Initiate launch sequence now."
Somewhere in the bunker, machines whirred in response to the computer's electronic commands. Five miniature aircraft prepared for launch.
"Please provide voice command code for final launch," Iris requested.
Professor Shepherd answered with four words.
"The time has come."
Five small planes launched, taking with them the hopes of the free world.
Half a world away, in the wastes of Siberia, a wolf pack roamed the snowscape in search of food. They were growing desperate; they had not eaten in days, and their bellies gnawed with hunger.
Suddenly, one of their number – a husky, rather than a wolf – sighted something in the sky and barked. The others all looked up as a shining object descended like some strange spacecraft.
The pack ignored it at first, but when a loud crack boomed through the skies above, they looked again and scattered. The husky, separated from the rest, ran for whatever cover he could find, but the craft seemed to follow him.
Then, as it reached the ground, the husky's ears pricked up. He heard a strange whistling sound coming from the machine, and a voice saying a name he had not heard in a long time.
"Exile, you are needed."
The husky suddenly felt no fear of the strange object as it settled into the snow and opened up. With a few tentative steps, he walked up to it. Following the whistling sound, he stepped inside.
The craft closed, and shot toward the stars.
In a back alleyway in London, a rough collie was scrounging in the garbage for scraps. Her brown and white fur had once been splendid and silky, but it was now course and matted from long neglect. Her belly, on the other hand, was doing well; the streets offered ample food if one knew where to look.
As a case in point, she had just overturned a garbage can and found a massive bone within; undoubtedly the femur of a horse. It was old and worn, but still looked to have some good chewing in it – and perhaps marrow if she could get it open. She had just picked it up when two growls sounded behind her. She turned to see two other strays zeroing in on her prize.
With a mind born and bred for sizing up livestock and predators alike, she took in her two attackers: both bristling and muscular.
The first one lunged, jaws aimed squarely for her face. The collie leaped to one side, leaving the attacker to crash into the garbage. He floudered for footing in the slippery mess, and she easily knocked him away.
The second stray came charging at her like the Hound of the Baskervilles come to life. Without missing a beat, the collie rolled onto her back as if in surrender. Instead of yielding, however, she caught him in the neck with her back paws, using his momentum to throw him over her head to a crash landing against a brick wall.
The dogs both got up growling, but the collie bunched her fur and seemed to double her size. Suddenly a rushing sound came from overhead, and all three looked skyward as a strange craft, like the one the husky had seen, came down among them. The two bigger dogs fled, and the collie had just started to run when she remembered a bone she had left in the alley. No one, and nothing, would cheat her of a prize like that; not after she had fought to keep it. She darted back in hoping to get back out, but turned to see the vehicle blocking her way. Doors opened on its front side, and a voice within told her, softly and gently, "Colleen, you have been chosen."
Collen regarded the strange craft, then slowly entered to examine it. Like the first, it closed behind her and launched toward the sky.
In a field in Switzerland, a large white sheepdog paced anxiously, his stomach growling and his mouth loosing whine after piteous whine. He had been brought to that country to fulfill the hereditary office of his breed, but after a ewe was injured and miscarried on his watch, he was left outside without dinner as punishment. So it was that he found himself out alone, cold and hungry.
Across the sky streaked a light, descending on a hill nearby. The sheepdog looked at it in wonder, and his curiosity grew when the object, which seemed to have landed, grew brighter still and gave off an enticing whistling sound.
"Rrr?" he whined.
"Shag," came a voice from within, "You must come."
Shag took a few steps toward it, then stopped and looked back at his home as a growl from his stomach reminded him of his food bowl.
"Shag, now!"
Shag wavered until an enticing aroma came from the vehicle, mastering his hunger and drawing him on. He followed the smell of food into the craft, and was taken in an instant.
"I'm sorry, Shag," said the voice. "I'll make it up to you later."
In a junk yard in Germany, two teens slipped quietly up to an old, battered car on top of a heap of other garbage.
"You sure about this, man?" asked one, glancing around nervously. "I mean, I heard what happened to the last guys who came in here."
"Stop whining," said the other. "The place is between managers, and I saw them taking the dogs outta here three days ago after the old man died. Now get the sound system."
The reluctant one opened the door, which creaked and swung uneasily on its hinges as if it might come loose.
"I don't think we're gonna get much outta this car," he remarked. "Looks like my aunt's Daschund could blow it down, never mind the Big Bad Wolf."
"Get the dogs off your brain already," snapped his friend, talking so loudly that the footsteps approaching behind him were totally inaudible. "If it's a little loose, that'll just make it easier to strip it for parts."
A long tongue flicked over pointed teeth, and a low growl sounded unnoticed except by the same that gave it.
"Now pop the hood and get started pulling out the sound system. Parts on this model sell for AHHH!"
The speaker jumped in the air, stumbled on landing, and tumbled down the pile clutching his backside.
"Hey, what the-?!" cried his partner just before a lean brown-and-black shape pounced up onto the hood to snarl at him through the broken windshield.
Apparently, the authorities had missed a dog.
"Eh heh heh heh," chuckled the punk in barely contained terror. "Uh, listen, pooch, I didn't even want to be here, so- no; no, nice doggy..."
The next few moments were a cacophony of screams and snarls, and then the battered teenager made a mad dash out of the car, racing so quickly across the heaps of garbage that his feet hardly seemed to hit the ground.
The Doberman chased him to the hole he and his partner had cut to get in, tearing a massive strip out of the teen's pant leg in parting. The other, battered and cut from his fall, dashed up a pile in the opposite direction and vaulted over the fence.
Daht's right. Run away, girly-mahn! Dis is Blitz's yahd! sneered the doberman in his thoughts. Or at least, that was the English version of what he was thinking. He stopped to bite an itch in his side, growling in satisfaction at the victory.
A loud noise overhead caught his attention, and he looked up from his gloating to see a streak of light plunge toward the ground like a meteor. As it neared the earth, it rapidly decelerated to reveal a shape like a very squat yet streamlined airplane.
Blitz jumped up, snarling and bristling at this intrusion, strange as it was. "Hey!" he barked. "Go away! Dis is my yahd and you ah bothering me!"
Heedless of the doberman, the craft cooled its jets and landed.
"I said get out of heah!" barked Blitz, racing toward it.
The plane did get out of there – after Blitz, charging headlong, found hiumself suddenly inside a cockpit which slammed shut upon him like a Venus flytrap. Its engines roared as it carried him toward the unhearing sky.
"Hey! Hey, let me out of heah! Let me out now! I said-!"
Suddenly he got a look at the ground hundreds of feet below.
"You'd bettah not drop me, you heah?! You drop me and I will bite you so hahd!"
At a dog pound in New York City, two staffers strolled past a series of kennels, coming at last to an enclosure holding a yellow mixed breed with obvious traces of yellow Laborador heritage. Wagging his tail, the dog dashed to a corner of his kennel and retrieved a tennis ball, which he pleadingly dropped at the gate.
"Do we have to do this, Rick?" asked one of the staff, a red-haired woman.
The other one, a man with brown hair, sighed dismally. "We tried to find him a home, Babs. I've got all the dogs my place'll take, and I know you;d have taken him weeks ago if you could."
That was true, alas. Barbara's place was barely big enough for a terrier, let alone a retriever.
Rick opened the door, fixing a collar and leash onto the compliant dog's neck. "His time's up. Let's get this over with."
Hunter, the dog in question, made no fuss at being led through the halls. His calmness turned to confusion and then evaporated entirely, however, when he saw they weren't headed for the door. He had been down this way once on an 'unscheduled' walk, and found himself near a certain door which carried smells of cleaners, strange chemicals, and a dog… recently dead. He no more understood it than a caveman would understand a flying saucer, but ever since that day he had regarded that part of the building with horror.
Hunter drew back as they neared the ominous door.
"Hey, now, come on," urged Rick, pulling steadily as Hunter began to twist his head this way and that. "It'll all be over soon. Hey! Hey, grab him!"
The woman grabbed the dog's collar, but the instant her fingers touched that strap he went totally nuts. With a frantic twist, he wrenched her around and knocked her into her colleague like a bat into a baseball.
"Yaaaoow!"
The leashed slipped, and Hunter ran for dear life.
"Go! Get after him!" yelled the man as the two of them rose to their feet, chasing after the errant dog.
Hunter tore through the halls, going faster and faster around or through the feet of passing staff, volunteers, and visitors. Cries of "Grab that dog!" echoed behind him, but he and his leash slipped through hand after hand like the wind. Hotly pursued, he entered the main area and rounded the desk. He was free!
About a minute before...
Outside the animal shelter, the guard from the New Mexican laboratory glanced at a photo in his hand. Does he really think this one dog is going to be right here, right now? he wondered. It seemed like a fool's errand, but he owed that much at least. If this was what was asked of him, so be it.
He opened the door.
"Grab him!"
"Rowrowrowrowrow!"
The sight of a yellow blur shooting his way startled him half out of his mind. The other half, being the mind of a soldier, didn't startle that easily and instinctively stepped back. With a quick move, he shut the door and caught the dog at the waist.
"Arrrr!" came a sharp, pained whimper. The fugitive looked up at him with sad, helpless eyes; very familiar sad, helpless eyes.
What? He glanced down at his hands, but found them empty. The photo had slipped from them and lay at his feet.
That's crazy, he thought.
At that moment, strong hands pulled the dog back through the door with a yelp, holding him fast. Shaking off his surprise at this twist of serendipity, the man pushed the door open.
"Hold it!" he shouted over the general hubbub.
All eyes turned to him, and with the chase being freshly ended there were a lot of them. He stopped for an instant to take in the absurdity of the situation before pointing to the crowd's prisoner.
"I'm here for that dog."
There were questions, of course, which the guard deflected with a hasty story about having recently moved several states over. The dog had escaped at the airport and ran home, only to be chased off by the new tenants. His family had been worried sick, but it had taken weeks to get away from work and fly back, then several days of combing every animal shelter in the area before finding Hunter. It was a crazy story, but he did have the photograph and the dog responded to his call of "Hunter." Besides, no one was in a hurry to hold onto a dog whose only future at the shelter involved a fatal injection. Ten minutes and a modicum of paper work later, Malone left the animal shelter with 'his family's beloved pet,' whom he'd never seen before in his life.
All in all, it was a very strange day.
Hunter frisked at the end of the leash, neither knowing nor caring how or why the man had arrived at that particular moment. He was free! He had a master! The man even knew his name was Hunter!
He had no idea what he was in for.
Strolling several blocks to an isolated parking lot at the back of a school which was presently closed, the man approached a large truck and drew out a remote. Hunter had seen cars opened like that before, or so he thought. At a push of the button, the whole back of the truck unfolded to show a small, streamlined, plane-like object which quickly unfolded a pair of wings.
Cool! thought the mutt.
His rescuer led him up a set of steps which had unfolded from the sides of the truck. The plane's cockpit was open, and Hunter smelled dog biscuits inside. He looked up at his new master, as he supposed the man to be.
"In," came the command, and with a signal to back it Hunter jumped into the cockpit, nosing around for the biscuits.
The guard who had protected the ill-fated laboratory patted the dog on the head. "Good luck, boy," he told him, and pushed a button on his remote.
To the dog's confusion, the plane closed up around him. A ramp underneath rose up, tilting it towards the sky just before it launched.
Closing up the truck again, the guard looked off after the rapidly vanishing craft. "I hope Professor Shepherd knows what he's doing," he uttered. If what he'd heard about the events in Maine was true, that mixed breed and four others were mankind's only hope.
Chapter two, folks. Could have made it longer, but I wanted to keep on pace.
Fans of the original show will probably note that this chapter is a bit darker than the original version of these events; more like SWAT Kats, maybe, with implied-but-unshown casualties and lots of gunfire. Don't worry; the humor and witty banter are on their way. We also removed Muzzle, who in the series was brought along by Hunter, because we want to make his introduction to the story line a bit more special. Also, with the way the Rovers got to HQ for the first time (which was never really explained in the series), it would have literally been hard to squeeze him in.
Speaking of squeezes and arrival, the planes mentioned here are somewhat based on reality. As of 2014, the world's smallest aircraft with a jet engine was a home-built Bede BD-5J Microjet owned by Juan Jimenez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA. Being about as long as a car with a 17 ft (5.7 meter) wingspan, it weighed in at 358 lb (162 kg) and could reach speeds of 300 mph (483 km/h). This being based on a cartoon, I (Omnitrix 12) pictured something like the plane in Spy Kids, but hey, Professor Shepherd runs a company in this story and figured out how to rewrite biology. I figure he could manage a smaller plane.
To Spundreams: Thanks for pointing out that little detail. Yes, this story is set in modern times, though we'll probably be keeping a lot of the older pop culture refrences. Speaking of which, joke ideas welcome.
Thanks a bunch for all the support, everyone! Stay tuned, and don't forget to fave and review!