Punk 1: "We switch sides, and we might as well tie on the toe tags ourselves."
Green Goblin: "I'm good with knots too. As for the Big Man, the party's over."
Spectacular Spider-Man
Professor Shepherd watched as five small aircraft, guided by lasers and slowing to a halt supported by VTOL jets, landed side-by-side on a platform in an upper level of his new hidden laboratory. Monitors in front of the scientist showed him the dogs looking around in confusion. Fortunately, they all seemed to be unhurt by their flight.
Unfortunately, there wasn't time to take them gently to the machines which awaited them.
"Initiate emergency transfers," he told IRIS.
"Yes sir," droned the computer's feminine voice. The planes – triggered by a remote signal from the computer – taxied up to five peculiar booth-like machines. "Transferring canines."
With a sudden pop, the cockpits shot open and the seats bucked like mad stallions, launching the dogs into the open booths. Shepherd winced. "Sorry!" he called softly.
Before the dogs could do more than stumble, the doors of each booth whirred shut. Hunter jumped around, trying to climb out or catch some scent from the container, but the glass-like walls yielded no traction; just the smell of strange chemicals and ozone. Blitz and Colleen both tried to fight their way out, with matching non-success. Exile stared in confusion, and Shag simply cringed at the strange confinement.
A ring of light rose up and down the inside of each capsule. "Scanning canines."
As he watched the procedure, Professor Shepherd was praying desperately that it would work. He also made a mental note to turn off the vocal part – or at least personalize it with the dogs' names.
"Transfiguration."
A blinding light flashed inside the cylinders, and a moment later, a pair of doors on each one slid open.
Out of the first four stepped figures each about six feet tall, dressed in uniforms resembling blue jumpsuits augmented with white body armor. From the neck down, they looked almost perfectly human, but their heads were still almost completely canine, and there was nothing human about their tails. Professor Shepherd frowned; he hadn't meant for the tails to remain. He just hoped nothing else had gone wrong with the transformation – speaking of which...
There seemed to be a commotion inside the fifth cylinder as a big, white thing tried to get loose. A moment later the machine split apart like a sardine can being opened and the occupant stumbled out: an eight-foot-tall creature resembling a yeti with a dog's snout. Neither was he wearing any sort of uniform, though thankfully his thick fur saved him from immodesty.
Perhaps I shouldn't have done such a rush job on the last transfigurator, thought Professor Shepherd, watching from the next room. Unfortunately, he had no time to worry about that detail. Almost as soon as they stepped out, the dogs tripped and fell flat on their faces with a unified "OW!"
Shepherd's stomach twisted. Please let the neural reconfigurations work.
One of them – Hunter – rose to his hands and knees. "Whoa. Not used to the ground being so far a- hey, I can talk!"
"You can?" asked Blitz. Then his eyes popped. "Hey, me too! And ohh, look at me! I'm handsome!"
"What the bloomin' heck?" asked Colleen, managing to stand and staring down at herself. "How did I get this tall?"
Professor Shepherd tried to explain. "That would be because of the…"
The Rovers, however, were paying him no attention as they each rose to their feet. The good news was that it looked like the rewiring – meant to let them function as humanoids – was kicking in. The bad news was that they were totally unprepared to wrap their minds around their new abilities.
Exile rubbed his eyes as if the light in the room were too bright. "And why everything look so... colorful?"
Blitz finally took his attention off himself long enough to notice Colleen. His mouth spread into a hopelessly undisguised grin. "Ah you doing anyth-" his words were cut off as Shag, struggling to walk erect, stumbled into him. Shag uttered something in an unintelligible babble of half-human, half-dog sounds.
"Uh, anyone going to tell me what's going on here?" asked Hunter.
"I'd be happy to, Hunter, but there's not..." Professor Shepherd trailed off. They still weren't listening. Hesighed. "Perhaps I should have considered cats. IRIS?"
IRIS obliged with a blaring siren and flashing red lights. All the dogs abruptly stopped talking and put their hands over their ears.
"Thank you, IRIS, that's enough," the Professor called.
The alarm shut off, and IRIS announced that it was downloading new alarm tones.
"I really need to fix her software," the professor murmured to himself before addressing his new 'recruits.' "Please forgive the confusion, Rovers, but there's no time to waste. My name is Professor Shepherd, inventor of the Transfigurator."
"You mean that thing that just rearranged us?" asked Colleen, spreading her arms. "Because that wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do today."
"Hey, I'm not complaining," Hunter replied with a shrug. "I was just about to get deep-sixed at the pound."
Professor Shepherd struggled to stay calm. "Yes, Colleen, you are correct. My machine can re-arrange the structure of potentially any living creature. I used it to change your purely canine forms into, for want of a better term, cano-sapiens."
"Why?" asked Blitz.
"Several reasons," the professor answered evasively, "but the main one is because someone else forced my hand." A large screen came on behind him, showing helicopter footage of a troop of beasts storming a large office building. They looked like some horrible mixture of dogs, werewolves, and WWE wrestlers. As the Rovers stared, the view switched to a security camera showing two of the monsters ripping the door off of a laboratory, thundering in, and stealing a strange-looking device.
Shag immediately dropped to all fours and hid behind the others. Colleen frowned and rolled her eyes.
"Whoa," Hunter gaped. "Who's cleaning up after them?"
The screen switched to another view of a small army of similar monsters. They marched through the streets of a large city, scattering cars, mailboxes, and even light poles like leaves in a wind storm.
Ahead of the mutants, a cluster of tanks moved into position, flanked by squadrons of soldiers. A captain at their head shouted through a bullhorn for the mutants to stop, but before the soldiers could do more than fire a few rounds, they were swarmed. In seconds, even the tanks had been flipped over. The Rovers watched in amazement as one of the massive vehicles, gripped by what had once been a Dalmatian and a cocker spaniel, was torn apart like a Styrofoam stage prop.
Hunter cringed. "So, uh, let me get this straight. You want us to go fight them?"
Professor Shepherd nodded. "That's about the size of it. But you don't know-"
The Road Rovers all beat a hasty retreat back to the booths, fighting to get inside.
"Road Rovers!" Professor Shepherd bellowed, "Heel!"
"No wayski!" protested Exile, struggling to fend off Shag. "I am not fighting those things!"
"There are people in danger because of these monsters, and if they succeed then soon no place on the planet will be safe."
None of the Rovers liked the idea of facing creatures so menacing, but somewhere deep inside each of them, something stirred.
"Come again?" asked Hunter, pausing in mid-shove to look back.
Professor Shepherd's voice was grave. "If you don't stop these creatures," he told them, "people will die. No one on earth will be safe. Not you, and not anyone you know."
Hunter turned back, and so did Colleen. Exile wavered for a moment, then followed.
"Your risk," Professor Shepherd added, "won't go unrewarded."
Blitz hesitated a moment, then came and stood with the others. Finally, Shag gave up trying to get into the booth – either because of the professor's words or because he realized there was no way he could squeeze in anyway – and joined the rest.
"Very good," Professor Shepherd said, trying to stay calm. Time was short, and dissention in the ranks was not an option. "Should you succeed, you will have use of this base and all its facilities, three square meals a day, training to master your new bodies and abilities, and a carpet by the fire."
The Rovers talked it over among themselves. Hunter was about to say something for the group, but Blitz cut him off.
"Carpet by the fire? Change it to a sofa!"
"You will stay off the sofa," Professor Shepherd answered, his voice echoing.
Blitz cringed. "Okay, okay, the carpet's fine."
Softening a little, Professor Shepherd added, "And if you like, I will do my best to find each of you a home."
Home. The word had a magical effect on every one of them.
"Count me in!" called Hunter.
"I'm up for it," added Colleen.
"Me also," Exile chimed in. "I almost forgotten what home is."
"Okay, okay," said Blitz. "So what exactly are we supposed to do?"
"And how do we take these blighters on?" added Colleen.
"I've used the transfigurator to give you human-level abilities – dexterity, intelligence, speech, and eyesight – while retaining your natural canine abilities such as smell and hearing."
"Is that why everything looks so strange?" asked Hunter.
The professor nodded. "I was hoping to give you a chance to adjust to color vision, and to all the other extras, but there's not enough time now. I've also elevated one natural ability for each of you to super-human – and super-canine – levels: Hunter's speed, Colleen's agility, Exile's vision, Blitz's teeth and claws, and Shag's strength and resilience. These, combined with your higher intelligence, should give you a chance against the cano-mutants."
"The what?" asked Exile.
"The creatures you saw on the screen."
"Oh," they chorused.
An alarm sounded, and Professor Shepherd's face took on a worried expression. "You'll have to use the pods that brought you here," he told them. "They'll be cramped, but there's no time to test your abilities with the other vehicles. Now go!"
The Road Rovers dashed to the pods and squeezed in; no easy feat, especially for Shag. As the pods closed, Shepherd's voice sounded through on-board intercoms. "I'll help you out as much as I can from here, but once you get to the train it's up to you."
Hunter struggled to reach the microphone and pressed the talk button. "Roger that, Master."
"I'm not your master."
"Yeah, but it's easier to call you that."
"Speak for yourself," Blitz put in.
Professor Shepherd didn't answer that. "Prepare to launch."
A moment later, five pods rocketed into the air. The scientist watched them go with an anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"God be with you," he uttered. "You'll need all the help you can get."
And there you go: the Road Rovers, in their new bodies and armed with new powers, against an army of cano-mutant juggernauts. Will they survive?
Oh, who am I kidding? It'll take a miracle.
So, thanks to everyone who helped with this chapter - particularly someone who answers to Refi-chan and volunteered to help me with Exile's lines. As you can see I'm not very good at writing in accents. On that line of explanation, btw, I did an informal survey and got the impression that most fans would want to see the original voice cast reprise their roles in the event of a reboot, so I'll be working with those voices in my head. Of course since this is purely written, you can imagine them with other voices if you like. I'll be adding some OCs later on, with their voices to be stated as they come up. I can't recall if I or anyone commenting had a voice in mind for IRIS (sorry; I pureed my brain yesterday over taxes and I'm still recovering), but your basic SIRI voice will do.
Happy reading!