Ch.5
Dread
"Oh, come on! Just for one night, that's all I ask!" Falco pleaded. The girl standing next to him, a cat-girl of about twenty in a red dress that showed off her curves, was sipping her drink as the avian pleaded his case. Typical of Falco, he wandered into the nearest night club that he could find, after busying himself at other risqué establishments. The cat-girl, however, did not return his advances, or the other advances he has made over the past half-hour.
"As I've said before, I'm not interested in inter-species relationships. Now beat it, before I show you the reason why cats are the natural predators of birds!" The cat-girl turned on her heel and walked off, her tail swaying behind her. Falco looked down at his own glass, feeling disappointment and frustration well up.
'Why am I still chasing after feline tail?' he wondered. 'Am I still torn up over Kat?' Falco just stared at his drink before gulping it down, and leaving the night-club. It was early evening when the avian stepped out, Solar and Lylat were just beginning to set into the ocean to the west of the town, throwing shades of red and orange into the sky, while purple and pink clouds floated lazily by. However, this splendor was lost on Falco as he headed back to his hotel room. He still had a good couple of days left before the team was scheduled to leave, however work seemed to dry up recently. While there was still the local pirate and criminal population to deal with and keep the finances going, they seemed to be rather discouraged as of late, and Falco had the suspicion that most of it was contributed to Jim. The Ultra of the team had a knack of making short work out of the scum bags who tried to cross them. And even if he didn't transform into his fourty-meter Ultra self, he was still a force to be reckoned with behind the controls of an arwing, possibly rivaling Falco himself. 'Nah. I'm still the baddest thing that ever flew…' the avian thinks to himself as he walks down the street to his hotel. Upon reaching the place, He checked in, and headed for his suite. One of the perks of being part of the famous mercenary team, is that General Pepper knows how to take care of them. The suite was lavishly furbished, and the king-sized bed in the master bedroom was suddenly starting to look most inviting. After removing his shoes and jacket, Falco plopped down on the bed and closed his eyes, wondering, if this calm kept up, whether or not he should go back to being solo again.
Back on the Great Fox, Calvin was being shown to the guest room, where he will be staying. While Fox did not openly object to this, he did wonder why this human would be staying with them, considering that they were due to leave in just a couple of days. However, after hearing about what had happened at the Zoness Shopping Center with the attempted burglary, and how Calvin single-handedly fought them off, he decided to keep his concerns to himself. However, it was Krystal who wanted Calvin to remain. She even set up the room herself. As Calvin was settling in, one thought pervaded in his mind. "Hey, Krystal?" Calvin asked, sitting down on the large bed. The vixen, still clad in her attire that she wore to the shopping center, turned to him as she was about to leave.
"Yes, Calvin?"
"Are you sure that this is alright?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, my being here. Are you sure that I won't mess up anything that you guys got going. I don't want to impose or anything…" Krystal smiled, and shook her head.
"Trust me, everything will be fine." she said as she left. Calvin sighed, and laid back down on the bed.
"What am I really doing here?" he asked aloud.
'To help you understand your power better.' Adara replied telepathically.
"But, couldn't you just teach me? Why else am I here for?" he asked. Adara sighed.
'Because, very soon, a great calamity will befall this reality. A calamity that only you can stop.'
"What calamity?" Calvin asked. "Will you please just stop talking in riddles and tell me?!" he shouted. Adara seemed to cringe from his outburst, but said nothing. "Adara?" Calvin asked.
'I'm sorry…but I can't…not yet…' Calvin thought he heard her crying, but then she cut the mind-link off completely.
"Adara?…Adara?!" Calvin called, but Adara didn't answer. He sat on the bed, his head hanging. "What's going on here?" he asked.
In another reality, on the plant Earth, the human race is still intact. In New York City, a loner among the crowds of people was walking, apparently aimlessly. However, he did have a purpose. Clad in a sweater, jeans and a cap, the figure walked through the crowded sidewalk, and past the dark alleys along the way. However, the inhabitants of said alleys took notice of him. After regarding eachother, they decided to follow him at a distance. Then, the loner turned into another alley that lead to a dead end. The loner turned around, and saw the group that blocked his exit. "Hey man, think you can help us out here?" the one in the lead spoke, his thick New York accent was almost a terrible cliché. He wore torn jeans, sneakers, a leather jacket over an AC/DC shirt, and his black hair was held back by a black bandanna. "My friend here, needs an operation."
"Yeah, a lobotomy." another said, snickering at his own joke and joined by the others.
"But, it needs the kind of money that we don't got, but you could probably donate." He pulled out a switch-knife, brandishing it. "If, you would be so kind." the others laughed a bit, but the loner said nothing. Underneath his hood his face covered in the shadow. "Hey pal, you stupid or somethin'? I'm talkin' to ya!" he moved over to the loner, still holding the knife. Then, he brought it up to the loner's face. "Why don't you say somethin' you retard." Then, a sound was heard, and it turned into a chuckle as a voice came from the hood.
"I'm afraid that I cannot help you. However, there may be something that you can do for me."
"Oh, yeah? What's that?" the punk asked.
"Die." he said. Before the punk could react, the loner's hand grabbed his wrist in a crushing vice. Then, the punk was brought to a knee, groaning in pain. Then, the loner's hand began to glow a soft white as it took in the same light from the wrist. The groaning became louder, until it ceased altogether and the glow on the loner's hand had died down. The punk got up on feeble legs, and turned to face the rest of the gang. What they saw, made their blood freeze in their veins; the punk had lost most his black hair, and what was left was either gray or white. His face, gone from youthful, was now covered in wrinkles and sagged. He took two steps forward before collapsing with a groan. The rest of the gang could only gape at what it was that had happened to him. Then, the loner lunged at them, his hands glowing the same terrible white light. In the shadows, there was only movement and the sounds of terrible pain and agony. In moments, only one of the punks were left, the rest of them ended up like the first one; each looked like he aged about two hundred years in the span of moments. The remaining punk fell on his rear, and tried to crawl away from the loner whose hands still glowed white. Beneath the hood and cap, the punk can see a terrible smile, but the rest of the face was obscured.
"Wh-who are you, man?" the punk asked, fear gripping his heart. The loner only smiled as he responded.
"I'm the Boogeyman." he replied as he grabbed the punk by the throat. He died painfully before he was released. The loner looked up into the twilit sky, one name going through his mind and one goal. "I'm coming for you, Calvin Daring…"
In Lylat: Slippy Toad was busy at one of the few places that he likes to be at, besides the beach at Zoness; inside the Lylan Science Convention, the amphibian wondered around the building, taking in all of the sights of gadgets, technological achievements, and the designs and diagrams of future technology. To him, it was close to heaven. He found himself at the advanced robotics section of the convention, where the supposed future of robotics and A.I. are said to start. Slippy saw the diagrams of the military's new fighting mech, said to be inspired after the Venomian Shogun, which was used during the Lylat War. While it did retain most of the attributes of its simian-like predecessor, the new mech, dubbed the LX-1A, had a different head design and sported a slightly larger beam weapon than the Shogun did. And that was just one of the things that he saw. New microchips that had larger amounts of memory, new types of robots that are said to be the new 'State of the Art' merchandise, and more. The amphibian was busy looking at a video demonstrating the combat capabilities of the LX-1A, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, and was actually surprised to see Jim standing behind him. "Jim! What are you doing here?" the amphibian asked. The Ultra smiled in return.
"I figured I'd find you here, Slip. I tried to find Falco, but then I figured at about this time, he'd be too drunk to understand anything that isn't monosyllabic." Slippy laughed at that.
"Yeah, he would be." he replied. Jim noticed the video.
"So, this is the military's newest fighting machine, huh?" Slippy was again surprised at this.
"You know about the LX-1A?" he asked. Jim shrugged.
"I heard that it's based off of the Shogun Warrior that Andross used when he invaded the Lylat System, but other than that…" Jim watched the video of the mech shooting at target dummies with its pistol, each shot hitting the target dead center. "Kinda reminds me of the MS-GM." Jim
said aloud.
"The what?" Slippy asked, looking up at Jim. That was when he realized something.
"Oh, that's right, I never really told you much about the media on Earth,
did I?"
"You mean, you guys had something like this on Earth?" Slippy asked. Jim shook his head.
"No, not really. The machine I'm talking about is actually a fictitious machine used in an anime called 'Mobile Suit'. I have the anime saved on one of my hardrives. I meant to show you it, but well, you know how it's been." Slippy nodded in understanding. "However, the likeness is quite remarkable, save for a few things."
"Like what?"
"Well, first of all, the shield that the GM used is not that angular. It was more rectangular in shape, and covered the whole arm. And the head, the visor on the head was facing the other way on the GM. But other than that, the similarities are uncanny. What else does this place got?" Jim asked, walking about while Slippy walked beside him. While walking about, Jim decided to tell Slippy about Calvin. "Hey, Slip, since you haven't been around for awhile, I might as well fill you in now; we just picked up a new guy while we were staying here."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we found another human on Zoness."
"What?! You said another human?!" Slippy asked.
"Mm-hm."
"But, I thought that the human race was wiped out, that you were the last of your-"
"I know, but this guy hails from another reality from our own. He has some sort of strange…I don't know how to put it, but rather peculiar feeling about him."
"Do you know how he got here?" Slippy asked. Jim wanted to tell him about Adara, but decided against it until he felt sure, and when Calvin's true potential was realized.
"I don't know. I just found him wandering around Zoness when Fox and Krystal were looking for me. He already met them and Peppy, and now you know about him as well. All that remains is for Falco to discover him, and I can imagine how that first contact is gonna go."
"Yeah. When you first came aboard, he sure didn't take to ya too kindly, did he?" Slippy said. Jim shook his head, and remembered how Falco treated him with suspicion at first, and even hinted that something might be going on between him and Krystal. It wasn't until later that his words would prove prophetic, but even he didn't know that. How would he take to Calvin's existence, Jim wondered. And even then, he wondered what it really was that Calvin was really doing here in Lylat, and why Adara chose to bring him here. All this was going through the human's mind right now, and wondered if his superiors on M78 might be able to help.
'Maybe later on, I can send them a message, and then shed some light on the subject.' he thought. 'Even so, I got a bad feeling that something really big is going to go down, and hard.'
In another reality, on a different Earth: The hooded figure was walking down the sidewalk, his face covered by the hood over his head. No one paid him any attention, and that was the way he liked it. With this power that he has, he feels that he can take the world on, and come out on top. There's just one thing that might stand in the way; Calvin Daring. Somehow, he knows that his rival got his hands on a power himself. Somehow, he knows that he is on a different world entirely, and somehow, he knows that he will face him. But whether or not he will defeat him, is not yet certain. However, there is a way to find that out. He makes his way to a hotel, and walks up to the clerk. The elderly man looks at the hooded figure, and the person pulls the hood down, revealing a young man in his late teens with jet-black hair, ice-blue eyes, and a slight smile on his young, boyish-like face. "Good evening, young sir. How may I be of service?" the clerk asked.
"I'd like a room, please. A suite, if you could." the young man said.
"Our suites are not cheap, you know. They're at least five thousand a night." the clerk replied.
"Ah, that's chump-change for me." the boy replied, fishing for his wallet from his back pocket. He pulled out his debit card, and handed it to the clerk. The clerk rang him up for the room, and was surprised to see the name on the card.
"Dear me… you're the Todd Ingram? Son of Joshua Ingram, owner of Advanced Ideas Mechanics?!" the clerk asked. Todd nodded.
"The same. Oh, and uh, if you were wondering, I'm sort of laying low from my old man. That's why I'm dressed like this. And, I would appreciate it if you didn't give me away." he said, wearing a slight smile.
"Of course, sir. Your secret is safe with me." the clerk replied. Todd nodded, and took his card key from the clerk and headed towards the elevator to his room. He stepped off, and walked down the hallway, and slid the key in the slot just above the door handle. The little green light flashed twice, and the door unlocked, opening up for him. The interior of the suite was lavishly decorated, having a den with a plasma screen, a large bedroom/bathroom combo and a kitchen. However, all of this was lost on the young man as he walked to the bedroom, and locked the door behind him. He turned the lights off, and took his hoodie and shirt off, leaving him bare from the waste up. He looked out the window, the sun setting behind the buildings in New York, as his hands began to glow a soft white light, and a malicious grin played about his features. "I'm coming for you, Calvin." he said, and then punched out the window, shattering it with just one blow.