Rage Alone III: Ambitions - Part Three

      Sloth yelled out to his minions, "I don't want to see any slacking from any of you. The sooner we make progress, the safer you all are."

      A green Grundo with his laser cutter holstered at his waist, his scanner in his left hand, and a small crystal shard in the left, ran to Sloth as fast as he could. After stopping beside Sloth, he quickly bowed and excitedly said, "Master, I found a piece of it. It was sitting on top of a pile of rocks."

      Sloth immediately reached out and snatched the crystal from the Grundo's hand. After examining it with his eyes for a moment, he looked down at the Grundo and asked, "Are you sure this is from Fethva?"

      The little Grundo nodded and added, "It's of a unique element that I've never encountered before. The scanner had trouble with telling heads or tails of it. Hairline fractures suggest that it was shattered like you reported, sir."

      "It's a start," Sloth said to himself. He then looked out over the other Grundos and announced out loud, "Readings from the crystal itself will be sent to everyone's scanners. I want everyone to isolate and recover and pieces you can find. In the meantime, I will have some of you assemble the proton drill. And make it quick."

      The Grundo then asked, "Did you want me to take the crystal to one of the pods for you?"

      Sloth answered, "No, I'll keep it until we get the rest of it. Did you find anything else where you found the crystal?"

      The Grundo shook his head, "No sir, only two bodies. Neither one has any vitals, and one appeared to be more recent than the other from what I got from the scanner. There's nothing out of the ordinary about them."

      Sloth placed the shard into pocket, "Then get back to work. The others still need those readings."

      During that time, Draicus, Simpha, and Gorrem rushed through the house to get what equipment they felt was needed. Gorrem and Simpha gathered elemental wands, lightning guns, and daggers while Draicus got rope, two-foot strips of cloth, and communication helmets. When they looked at what one another gathered, Draicus shook his head slowly and said, "You two need to put more thought into things."

      Simpha sighed, rolled his eyes, and responded, "When you come across a Grundo armed with a really big gun, our stuff will actually help. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I plan on having us stick together."

      Draicus placed one of the helmets on his head and told Simpha, "Well I'm not wanting to take any chances. I plan on having the two of you in contact at all times."

      Gorrem walked towards the door and told them, "We're wasting time by talking, so it's my plan to get this over with as soon as we can. Now let's get out there. We can make a plan on our way back to the mountains."

      The three of them walked out the front door while covered in weaponry. Draicus and Gorrem immediately took flight while Simpha had to stick to the ground; although, he was fully capable of keeping up with them. As they moved, they noticed some familiar Neopets headed for their house. There was a blue, female Shoyru, a red, male Poogle, and a red, male Peophin. Draicus and Gorrem landed in front of them and Simpha stopped next to the others.

      The Shoyru started spoke first with, "Word is out that the Virtupets are back. The Neopian government won't do anything until they can estimate the danger, but a lot of people are already preparing for war."

      Gorrem nodded and said, "Understandable, Miermah, but we're not waiting. We plan on going out to the landing spot in the south."

      The Poogle looked across the two of them and asked, "Where's Jyrados? Shouldn't he be fighting with the rest of you?"

      Simpha rose his arm and started to rub the back of his neck with a nervous look on his face. "Umm, yeah, about him..."

      Miermah grew a look of concern on her face. In a soft voice, she said, "Something's wrong with him, isn't there? What happened?"

      Gorrem looked down and told her, "Jyrados was taken by Sloth. That's why we're going there. We figured that Jyrados might be held amongst the group down there if he's not on the cruiser."

      Draicus then asked, "Any news on what the government is going to do about the cruiser in orbit?"

      The Peophin answered, "They sent the Space Faerie to investigate, but she was found unconscious in space. A small freighter had to recover her. There's no real news about the cruiser or what'll be done about it."

      Draicus then said to everyone, "Then it's best we get moving, Depthcharge. Thanks for the update. We'll be sure to come back with Jyrados safe and sound."

      Tumarche simply told Draicus, "We're coming with you."

      Simpha decided to interrupt with, "Sorry, but we're a little less than covert as it is. Too large of a crowd will make it so they spot us before we can even see if we have a chance at succeeding."

      Miermah looked over the equipment on Simpha alone and said, "Looks like you've got enough stuff for all of us. We're coming and I don't want to hear you complaining. I want to know exactly when Jyrados is safe."

      Gorrem reached out with a paw and put it on Miermah's shoulder, "Look, we would love to debate this, but we're in a hurry. You have my promise that he'll be fine."

      Depthcharge just told them, "Look, we can either follow you, or travel beside you. Either way, you're not getting rid of us. Now why are we still standing here?"

      There was a moment of silent stare between the six of them. Then, rather suddenly, Gorrem jumped into the air with his wings outstretched and glided over everyone as he said, "Then let's get moving already."

      Draicus and Miermah took to the sky to join Gorrem's side while the others ran along the ground with great speed. In the air, Gorrem pulled out a wand from a belt around his waste and tossed it to Miermah. She caught it and held it close to her chest as she flew. On the ground, Simpha removed two Lost Desert Daggers from his own belt and tossed them to the sides. Tumarche and Depthcharge caught them by the hilts with their mouths as if they had done it before.

      On board the Virtuclaw, the Grundo who interrogated Jyrados sat in the captain's chair quietly. The Grundos around the bridge looked through control panels as usual. The lead Grundo wore a bored look on his face until a smaller Grundo behind him said, "Sir, internal sensors have been picking up some unusual power surges in sector five off and on for the past ten minutes."

      The Grundo rotated his chair to look at the smaller one and casually asked, "Is it a problem with the generators in that area?"

      "Negative," he answered, "it's coming from the prisoner cell. The shields are running at one-hundred percent, but it's periodically interrupted by one percent by a sudden spike in the energy matrix."

      The Grundo followed up with, "Can you isolate the energy pattern?"

      The smaller one told him, "It's not strong enough for an analysis. However, I might be able to isolate it if it occurs a few more times. I'll keep you updated when I can, sir."

      The Grundo turned back around and said, "See that you do. Just don't forget to keep an eye on the station while you're at it."

      Jyrados sat on the bench in the cell with his back against the wall. His eyes stared at the shield with focus and rage. His heart raced almost as fast as his mind, which could only think about what he would do to the Grundo and Sloth when he gets out. He knew it would come sooner or later, and that he would savor the actions committed by him.

      While he stared, he would blink every few minutes. Whenever he did, the outer edges of the shield would flicker with blue energy for half a second. Jyrados never noticed because of his blinking, but did feel slightly warmer for a moment after it happened.

      Out of boredom, Jyrados stood up and outstretched his wings. He then placed his hands close together and attempted to focus on his darkness. Although he wore the collar, he was curious about whether or not it worked as much as Sloth wanted. For a few minutes, nothing happened at all. He even held his breath to stress his body while focusing. As before, it gave no results. He finally exhaled and gave up, and for a second, the Grundo passed through his memory and between his hands, a blue light flashed for just an instant, and shocked Jyrados back onto the bench. He had no idea what just happened, but he didn't want to find out at that moment.

      On the bridge, the small Grundo jumped back for a second and yelled, "Sir, we just experienced a large spike, but not in the energy matrix. I've isolated it in the same cell as the prisoner is in."

      The commanding Grundo turned around quickly this time and asked with a demanding tone, "What type of energy signature is it?"

      The smaller Grundo answered, "Unknown. I'm running an analysis now and will tell you when I get the results. It's not elemental, so it'll be a couple minutes."

      The commander told him, "Make it so, and tell me immediately. I don't want any complications when Sloth returns."

To be continued...