Chapter 9
. . . . .
"My father never got to see Lucius again," Ranaron told the trio somberly. "He was arrested, tried and executed for aiding in the escape of the Galalunans. I don't know what happened to the others, but I assume that they were executed as well, if not sentenced to life in prison."
Ranaron hung his head and cast his eyes downward, as if he felt too weak to speak any longer and ashamed of what he had said.
"Thank you for your information," Lance told him. "I guess it's only fair that we spare your life for all of this. But what are we going to do with you?"
"He can stay here," Ilana suggested. "We have plenty of room in the house for one more person."
"I don't wish to trouble you 3 any longer," Ranaron replied. "So I will have to decline. I understand that there are marshlands on this planet. Perhaps I could settle there, far from human habitation? I could survive on Earth's indigenous insect life, I think."
"I would discourage that," Octus told him. "You have just given us vital information. You may have 'served your purpose', in Modula's eyes, and the next time a Mutradi arrives, you could be one of its targets. Modula would not permit someone with your knowledge to last long on Earth if he could help it."
"Indeed. If Modula had known that G3 could de-mutate me and make me a vital asset for you all, he never would have sent me," Ranaron said. "And yet…"
"And yet what?" Ilana asked.
"I cannot help but think that he…wanted me to tell you all of this. When I was telling the story, I wanted to stop at some point because I felt like I was being…compelled to, by the Achillacasus. Come to think of it, Modula has been able to control the Mutradi remotely before. He does so in every fight against you."
"So, every time we fight a monster we're fighting him?" Lance asked. "Good to know. But if you think he still has a grip on you, then why did you get all your words out? Why haven't you attacked us yet?"
"Because he wanted Ranaron to tell us about the Hat, something that we couldn't have known before," Ilana reminded Lance. "But why?"
"Because you must be fully aware of his plan before he crushes you," Ranaron cryptically warned. He then covered his mouth in shock. "I didn't mean to say that!" Lance glared at him, pulled Ilana back behind him and turned to Octus.
"Scan his head, see what's going on there," he told the robot. Octus did so.
"His brain activity appears normal. However Modula is able to control what he says, he's doing so in a way I cannot detect."
"What about his actions, though?" Lance pressed. "Are we in danger of him snapping?"
"Ranaron, answer them!" Ilana pleaded. "I'm getting tired of them freaking out at every little thing."
"I don't know, princess," Ranaron told her, hoping that by saying "princess" he could reassure them of his loyalty. But just then…
"The Rift Gate has opened!" Octus announced. "Our upcoming opponent is headed towards the house."
"Everybody out, and armor up!" Lance cried, shoving his comrades outside. Turning to Ranaron, he added, "You stay inside. They're probably coming for you."
The trio went outside to form Titan, hoping to meet the Mutradi in the air. They managed to take off and see the Mutradi before it could land, but its sheer weight and force rammed into them before they could get initiate any weapons. Titan managed to stop itself as it plummeted downward, however, landing on its feet and creating large craters in the road where it landed, not far from the Lunis house.
Ranaron cautiously opened the door to look outside at the Mutradi that was now being held up by Titan, its body stretched out so that he could get a good look. It looked like a giant brown caterpillar, with 8 stubby legs, no eyes, and a thin, cavernous mouth. Its body felt squishy, and it was covered in what appeared to be bristles. Ranaron, familiar with this species and shocked that Modula was able to get it over here, cried out:
"That is a Tardiguard! Modula sent it to take me back to Galaluna! Those things can survive the vacuum of space!"
"How do we kill it?!" Titan asked as the Mutradi gave a hiss, trying to squirm out of the robot's grip. The Tardiguard broke free when it shot out some of its bristles like tendrils, slapping and punching at Titan so that it could wriggle free. When Titan's grip was loosened the Tardiguard leaped onto Titan's face, tackling it and almost causing it to fall backwards.
"There isn't much you can do against it!" Ranaron replied apologetically. "The only thing that works is to just—"
But Ranaron's words weren't able to be listened to, and the Tardiguard lifted out its lower body and slammed it into Titan's chest, knocking it over backwards so that the robot landed on its back, its body facing upward with the Mutradi in its face.
"This one has a lot of raw power," Octus remarked.
"It's just fat, no muscle at all," Lance muttered in reply. "Nothing to get excited over."
"Who cares?!" Ilana cried. "We have to fight this thing before it captures Ranaron and we lose the only major advantage we have against Modula!" She activated Titan's sword and had it rake its blade across the Tardiguard's thick hide, to little avail. Upon seeing that Titan was still functional, however, the Mutradi jumped sprung backwards to get off the robot, readying its tendril-like bristles once more. It wrapped them around Titan's legs as the robot tried to get up, lifting the robot into the air with great strength. Titan tried to rocket away with its jets, but the weight of the Tardiguard prevented it from flying. So instead Titan slashed at the tendrils with the sword it still gripped, and although the bristles were severed the Mutradi didn't appear to be in any pain from it.
"Initiating Alpha Cannon! We've got to kill that thing!" Lance cried as Titan ascended slightly to get out of range of the Mutradi. Titan's arm that held the sword quickly transformed into the cannon, but then the Tardiguard did something that made them stop.
"Wait!" Ilana cried as the Mutradi's bristles tore a hole through the wall of their house, evidently searching for Ranaron. The Mutradi then withdrew its bristles, gripping a small, dark green object.
"It's got him hostage, we can't let the enemy take him back!" Lance cried with outrage in his voice. Given his personal experiences, this was now personal.
"You both are taking this so personally," Octus mused. "But I can understand why. However, based on my analysis of this creature and Ranaron's calm state…"
"Calm?! How can you be calm in a situation like this?" Ilana cried. She gasped when Ranaron's small-looking body dove towards the creature's mouth. The Tardiguard, for its part, simply opened its jaws and swallowed him.
"Did he just let himself get eaten?!" Lance cried in shock. Ilana had a similar reaction, although she was too stunned to say anything.
"I think it is best for us to trust Ranaron," Octus stated. "He knows more about these creatures than we do. Perhaps he knows of some internal weakness the Mutradi has. The esophagus of the Tardiguard seems to contain no corrosive acids or anything he needs to be afraid of. In fact, this species was probably tasked by Modula to house Ranaron on his journey through space."
"That's not happening!" Lance cried, firing the Alpha Cannon once again at the Tardiguard. The blast hit at point-blank range this time, but still seemed to have no effect. The Mutradi glanced at Titan for a moment, then proceeded to curl up in a ball and rolled away at surprising speed. Titan hovered overhead after it, using its Sonic Boomerang in an attempt to try and damage it on the go. But not even the boomerang seemed to have any sort of effect on the creature, just bouncing off its thick hide and returning to Titan's hand.
The group followed the monster until they came to a spot where a large rocket stood tall, poised for takeoff. It was several times larger than Titan and large enough for several Mutradi as well as itself to fit inside of it.
"The rocket is programmed to launch when the Tardiguard enters it," Octus told the teens. As he was speaking, a doorway in the rocket opened automatically, and the Mutradi rolled inside, just barely fitting through right before the door closed behind it. The rocket then began to activate as Titan approached the scene.
"Initiating Cronus Chain!" Octus ordered. "All we have to do is delay the rocket's launch!"
"What about the Mutradi?" Lance asked.
"According to my biological scans," Octus replied, "The creature is vulnerable to de-hydration. It's been out of the water for weeks, most likely, and if we can hold it off for just a bit longer it may become weak enough for us to kill. But I'm not sure how long that could take."
"I guess we just have to trust that Ranaron knew what he was doing," Ilana decided.
Titan hooked its chain around the rocket's diameter, getting the chain to wrap around the rocket completely before grabbing the other end and gripping it tightly. The rocket began to emit smoke as it attempted to launch into the air, and Titan struggled to keep it weighed down.
"I'm transferring all power to the arms!" Octus cried.
"Does anyone else think we should have just stopped this before it happened?!" Lance asked. He got no answer, though.
The rocket made a lot of noise in its attempt to launch itself automatically, but Titan used the force of its own weight to weigh it down, preventing it from getting any higher than a few yards into the air. Minutes passed, and Octus periodically informed the teens of how much fuel the rocket had left.
"We have to keep gripping it, though," the robot told them. "If the rocket launches off into space but runs out of fuel before leaving the atmosphere, it would simply return to orbit and likely kill Ranaron and the Mutradi."
"But how long do we have to keep doing this?" Lance demanded. He got his answer once he heard the door of the rocket being rattled on. Eventually, the door gave way and the Tardiguard burst out, bowling over Titan and causing the chain it had been gripping to fade away when it broke the weapon. The Tardiguard rolled away back towards Sherman, and Titan gave chase right after it destroyed the rocket with a well-placed shot from the Alpha Cannon.
Once it was able to get right above the Mutradi Titan readied its Cronus Chain once again, this time slamming down the blade at the end right in front of the creature's path. The Tardiguard crashed into it, squealing with pain as its skin was finally cut and it began to bleed.
Titan landed on the ground in front of the creature, taking the blade and raking it across its stretched out body. Colorless blood gushed out everywhere as the Mutradi was finally killed, its stomach having been split open from the attack. Once it was made certain that the creature was dead, the trio spilt back up and reverted to their normal selves.
"Ranaron? Are you ok?" Ilana called into the entrails of the of the beast. She heard some slick noises, and moments later Ranaron emerged from the Mutradi, looking a bit shaken up but unharmed.
"It wasn't fun being in there while it rolled," he said. "Perhaps I didn't think my plan through."
"Were you crazy?!" Lance cried angrily. "That thing could have taken you back to Galaluna, where Modula would have just mistreated you again or even killed you!"
"Not if you 3 were able to keep the Tardiguard around here for too long," Ranaron said. "The rocket had plenty of fuel to go through the atmosphere, and Tardiguards can withstand the vacuum of space so the rocket needn't have lasted the whole trip, but they can't survive being dehydrated for more than a week or so. That rocket had only a minimal water supply, and the stupid thing must have drunk it all too early in its trip. It was incredibly thirsty when it fought you, but Modula was holding it back with the power of the Achillacasus. I could tell that the creature couldn't last a day longer without water, though."
"Guess we got lucky with that one," Ilana replied quickly. "Listen, I forgot to ask you…my father is still alive, right?"
"Well, yes, of course. Why would-?" Ranaron asked before being quickly squeezed by Ilana. Octus separated the two.
"I'm picking up a transmission from Solomon," Octus announced.
"An ongoing one," came Solomon's voice from Octus' speakers. "Listen, Ranaron, we would like you to join us in G3's airship. You'd be of great assistance to us."
"I don't know if your human staff would be able to accommodate me," Ranaron replied shyly.
"This isn't a suggestion, it's an order," Solomon replied sternly. "I know you've gotten a lot of those in the past, but trust me, Edward and I manage things here with a gentle hand. Well, 3 gentle hands and one metal one, but we're not like Modula. We need to know everything you know about your planet and Modula's plans for it, perhaps even more so than the Titan crew does."
"I suppose I have no other choice, then," Ranaron admitted. Turning to the trio, he added, "I must thank you all for letting me tell what needed to be told, and you especially, Ilana. You were willing to trust me even when I had done nothing to merit it. I hope you will live on to lead your people one day. Galaluna will be safe in your hands, once this war is over."
Ilana's eyes watered a little as she hugged Ranaron again. "Thank you, Ranaron. I never thought I'd hear that from a Mutradi. I guess my father was right."
Octus took Ranaron and enveloped him in a bubble to take him to G3's airship, while Lance and Ilana began the journey home. They decided that they would walk rather than fly—taking a bus was out of the question, however, due to the state of the roads. Thankfully, Sherman's construction crews worked around the clock to repair damage like this.
"What exactly did he say?" Lance asked as they started for home.
"My father? He said that sometimes it's best not to judge someone by their appearance or even their behavior. 'There might be a lot more to their story than you realize', he told me," Ilana replied. "I didn't think much of it, but now it's come true. I miss him so much."
"We'll see him again," Lance reassured her. "Trust me on this one." The two broke out into grins at this, in light of the day's events involving that very thing.
AN: Hey, guys! Sorry that it took like MONTHS to update. I had so much going on with personal issues and other fanfics, but I promise I never forgot about this!
This episode will have to end a bit prematurely. It could have meandered too much, anyway, and I figured this was a good place to stop. In the meantime, the next episode might be out fairly shortly, but I have to revise it a bit since I wrote it earlier. Or perhaps I'll write some fresh episodes and put the one I have on hold for later. Either way, I haven't forgotten this. Sorry if this last chapter seemed a bit rushed or unusual, I just haven't written for this in quite some time so I might be a bit rusty.
And yes, we WILL get to the story about what happened to Modula once he got the Hat, and the history surrounding it. But it will have to be another time. See you then! :)
Also, what did you think of the Mutradi monster? It was based off a real-life creature known as Tardigarde (I just changed the spelling, I know). And yes, it can survive the vacuum of space.