by Angel Medina
“Hey if it isn’t Angel and Maria, glad to see you two are still alive.” Luis says.
“This joint is about to blow we maximized the pressure back in the mines, which means the pipes under here are ready to burst!” Dayvon says.
“Burst like what?” Maria asks.
“He means this place is about to blow! Come on Maria you seriously can’t be that dumb!” Angel answers Maria’s dumb question or at least in his opinion.
Everyone gets within a safe distance from the factory as it blows up and crumbles. However before the four could celebrate a huge vehicle heads in their direction. It was a giant prototype tank built by the gloobas that barely escaped the collapsed factory. The tank is code named “Destructor”. This tank has a more conventional look to it compared to the tanks that the four had faced before. However the top of the tank contains three pods when they go up reveals plasma turrets. To add the armor is much tougher than the previous tanks and the harvester no longer contains electricity. The tank immediately attacks the four with its plasma turrets. While the tank attacks the four, Angel is able to spot a weak spot. Angel sees red spots whenever the tank is in attack mode, but once the pods drop down the turrets and weak spots are covered.
“I see weak spots, but I get the feeling that those are the only weak spots we can shoot. Otherwise this tank is gonna to be impossible to destroy.” Angel describes the weak spot to his friends.
The tank is so big that its movement alone is strong enough to cause the surface to shake. In fact many earthquakes or in this case “Jupiterquakes” happen, that it is hard for anyone to get a clear shot on the weak spots. Also the tank is shooting plasma balls at the four. While none of the balls hit anyone the blasts are powerful enough to knock the four down.
“Listen I think we need to give this tank a diversion, while the rest of us shoot the tank. Are there any volunteers?” Dayvon asks and gets no response. “Ah! Fine I’ll go in, but you guys better cover me.”
The tank focuses its shots towards him and he with his good agility is able to dodge the plasma balls. Angel shoots one of the pods down.
“There’s one down!” Angel screams.
As Dayvon continues to run around ragged, Luis shoots the second pod as it collapses.
“Yes it’s working, only one more to go!” Luis says in excitement.
The tank instead of continuing to shoot plasma balls decides to move towards Dayvon. Maria who is close to him sees that he is ready to be crushed, risks her life to push Dayvon out of the way of “Destructor”. After the weak spot is exposed, Angel uses his final Devastator missiles to destroy the pod. After the final pod goes down, the tank begins to implode and eventually explode.
“Yippee you did it!” Maria cheers.
“Everyone report in!” Angel says as he does roll call.
“I’m here!” Luis responds.
“Wow I almost became a pancake just now. Thanks Maria I owe you one.” Dayvon replies.
“Good job guys the gravity towers are out of commission and the gravity has dropped big time in fact here on Earth even I’m beginning to feel lighter. I mean much lighter, in any case you should be able to get out without too much resistance. According to the map looks like the next planet is Venus that looks like to be the source of the foul smell that I have to smell everyday here on Earth. Anyway hurry because this gas is harmful to us Earthlings” Quentin explains the next mission.
The four take the long walk back to their ships. Once they get there they jump inside and begin their quest into middle space starting with Venus.
Area 3: Middle Space
Chapter 12
Venus
Angel, Maria, Luis and Dayvon head for Venus. The position of Venus is perfectly aligned with Earth. With Fincina back to its proper location, the heat of Venus begins to affect the temperature of Earth itself. While Venus would normally not have an affect on Earth, but the gloobas have changed the solar system completely. The temperature of Venus is also much hotter than normal. The normal temperature of Venus is 864 degrees, however the current temperature is double that. Also the gloobas are working on a bio-weapon. What is a bio-weapon doing in the middle of the toxic, volcanic and extremely hot planet of Venus?
“Wait a minute guys turn back! Venus is extremely hot and your ships may not be able to handle the heat. Besides I really don’t believe there is a bio-weapon there, we should turn back now!” Quentin pages the four trying to convince them to turn back.
“No can do Quentin, who knows what this bio-weapon is capable of!” Angel decides to go into Venus against Quentin’s orders.
“It maybe hot out here, but I rather be hot than freezing.” Quentin says.
“You mean you’ll be baking down there. According to the heat readings down there it’s over 100 degrees out there! Are you a fool Quentin? If we don’t take out the gloobas here, than you’ll be a cooked goose! Do you want that?” Dayvon rants to Quentin about the heat readings back on Earth.
“It’s ok here, I have air conditioning here and I’m nice and cool. I don’t have to go outside.” Quentin claiming that he is fine.
“Don’t be a fool Quentin! You’re cool now, but with that extra heat adding pressure to those already hot power wires there are bound to be power outages.” Maria responds.
Quentin and George go and prepare a sandwich until the lights go off. Quentin stays silent.
“Let me guess you lost power right?” Luis asks Quentin with sarcasm.
“Yeah…We just had a power outage…” Quentin says.
“Just like I said correct?” Maria asks.
“Yes…Yes ok you guys are right! I’m burning up already in here, just get rid of this heat. However please be careful and don’t go burning my spaceships!”
“Finally somebody has woken up. No problem Quentin we’ll be fine, come on guys we’re about to enter the oven!” Angel says he and his crew approach Venus.
Venus is a hot planet that contains many volcanoes and mountains indicating that once upon a time there was living life on the planet. The increase of temperature is the result of the toxic fumes that were created by the gloobas to feed their bio-weapon, what ever it is at least. The ships are labeled to take temperatures up to 1800 degrees, so the current temperature is really pushing the limit. As they enter the planet of Venus the four immediately begin to feel the heat and notice that there is no stable surface. All of Venus is covered in lava giving Venus its reddish color. Angel begins to wonder what the gloobas could possibly want with Venus.
The four see balls of lava covered meteors popping out of the lava surface. Not wanting to crash into the rocks the four shoot the rocks until they saw a clear path. Then a wave of lava begins to rise and crash towards the surface.
“Watch out everyone, do a summersault otherwise we’ll be toast.” Luis says to everyone.
After the lava wave passes, Angel says in a stern tone, “Don’t fly too low our ships can’t handle it, we’re already pushing the limit already as it is!”
The four see that the glooba presence is not huge at all. In fact the only resemblances of them are their ships, which are few and far between. However, these ships give the crew trouble as their armor is built tougher and with the increasing temperatures the four have trouble concentrating on the mission at hand. What is a much more common sighting are Venus Firebirds, which are birds or phoenixes that have adapted to the extreme heat of Venus. Their main mode of attack is to crash in to their targets, as even a touch from these birds would normally burn a human to a crisp. At first Angel and the crew have no trouble shooting down the birds. However the heat starts to become a bigger problem. Another lava wave approaches the four separating them for a few seconds. After that wave passes Angel spots Dayvon being tailed by three firebirds.
“Hey I ain’t your buddy go away!” Dayvon says angrily trying to get away from the firebirds. Angel along with Luis shoots the firebirds down, freeing Dayvon from their grasps. “Good riddance! I almost got burned!” Dayvo
n says in a relieved but angry tone not even thanking Angel or Luis for the save. However Angel and Luis don’t take his attitude seriously, they figure it’s probably just the heat.
Angel then goes on and sees that Maria is in trouble as she is being chased by the firebirds as well.
“It’s too hot! I can’t take it anymore! I’m sweating like bullets and starting to feel exhausted!” Maria screams as the heat begins to catch up with her. She is the type who can’t stand the heat and whose resistance to heat is poor.
Angel shoots down the firebirds and screams with great emotion, “Don’t worry honey I’ll save you!” Angel is able to shoot down the firebirds to Maria’s relief.
“Thanks babe I thought they had me for a moment. I feel a little better, but it’s really hot here!” Maria shows her gratitude, but reminds everyone that the heat is really bad.
Angel suggests that everyone tries to fly at a higher altitude to cool off just a little. That bit of advice helps somewhat, the temperature on the ships drops down to around 1650 degrees and inside a more tolerable 80-85 degrees. The four pass through many volcanoes that shoot lava rocks and plain lava up to the Venusian sky which is a nasty combination of yellow, green and orange. The sky color is probably the end product of the toxic substances used to build the glooba’s bio-weapon. The four continue on straight on until they see a huge mountain blocking their way, they all make a hard turn to avoid the rock. After turning left they see that the mountain formation ahead of them was huge had an opening below, while they could go above the mountain they did not have enough time and clearance to do so.
“Hate to say this, but the only place for us to go is down. Looks like its back to the oven for us!” Angel says in preparation of diving down.
The opening turns out to be closer to the surface than Angel thought. All of them head down and Dayvon’s ship makes contact with the surface causing the temperature inside the ship to spike up dramatically. As a result Dayvon catches a heat stroke and begins to faint on the controls although his ship is still flying. Out of nowhere the lava begins to be sucked in and Angel along with Maria and Luis can only think that they are about to meet the bio-weapon. None of them know that Dayvon has collapsed under the heat. After a few seconds the lava rises up and the bio-weapon is revealed it is code-named “VulcanScopio” named after Vulcan the roman god of fire and Scorpio because the creature has a scorpion look to it. The creature has two big claws it uses to attack, he also uses his claws to create lava waves and he is able to shoot rocks out of his mouth. He probably represents the highest order of the scorpion crawler’s species, perhaps as their king or lord.
“What the fu…this is the enemy bio-weapon?” Luis says in complete disbelief.
“These glooba are insane and are completely out of their minds!” Maria reacts to the gloobas creation on such an uninhabitable planet.
“Well believe it sweetcakes, there’s only one thing to do this to this scum and that’s to take it out!” Angel says confidently.
Angel, Maria and Luis are still unaware that Dayvon has suffered a heat stroke and is unresponsive. However they have to concentrate their focus on VulcanScopio, as the creature tries to hit Luis with its claw. The creature then tries to hit Maria, but she is able to barrel roll out of the way. Angel begins to shoot at the creature and quickly spots a response from the creature when he shoots the arms.
“Maybe it’s the arm, shoot the arms!” Angel screams out the creatures weak spot.
As the three attacked VulcanScopio, Angel begins to notice something strange. He notices that Dayvon wasn’t attacking along with the others. Angel screams out Dayvon’s name, but got no response from Dayvon. Angel understandably assumes that the worst has happened to Dayvon. Luis and Maria take out one of the creature’s arms. VulcanScopio goes back down into the lava and reappears further back. Then the creature uses his other arm to create a huge lava wave in an attempt to take out the four.
“Everyone summersault! Dayvon I said everyone summersault! Dayvon can you hear me, damn it boy respond!” Angel screams out orders and then his tone becomes more serious when he sees that Dayvon is unresponsive. “No… it can’t be… Dayvon is gone…”
Before Angel gets to finish his statement he summersaults out of the way along with Maria and Luis. With Dayvon unable to move out of the way, the lava hits his ship square on and he is pushed away. However he is not only pushed away a little bit. The force of the lava is so powerful and gravity begins to weaken in Venus, Dayvon ends up being thrown into a nearby planet. That planet is only known as Sahara.
Angel, Maria and Luis looks at Dayvon’s ship in complete shock and disbelief assuming that he is probably dead.
“No Dayvon, he can’t be gone! I know we don’t always get along, but please God don’t let him go like this! Please don’t let us burn in this hell hole. I rather freeze to death than to be burned alive!” Maria says while crying showing here true feelings for Dayvon, which were those of caring. Although they would constantly fight amongst themselves she still considers him a dear friend. The irony of it all is that Maria was in danger of freezing to death in Uranus and now she is in danger of the polar opposite in Venus.
“Dayvon… it just can’t be. You piece of shit, you were made from the most putrid of crap there is and I’m not talking about dog feces that would be too nice! I’m talking about the face you were made with plutonium the new gold standard for evil and hate. You will not get away with this! No…No…No!” Luis says in rage after witnessing Dayvon being thrown to the middle of nowhere.
“Come on guys let’s finish this freak of nature off right now. We gotta find Dayvon! Something tells me he isn’t dead just yet.” Angel says while holding out with confidence that Dayvon is alive.
The remaining three crew members take out the other arm of VulcanScopio. After that the creature starts to shoot lava filled rocks at the three. The three of them shoot the rocks and the head of the creature until its head is destroyed. While VulcanScopio is defeated the impact of the blast was extremely powerful. Angel, Maria and Luis have no time to react so the blast ends up sending them separate ways.
Meanwhile back on Earth, Quentin and George see that the bio-weapon in Venus has been defeated and the temperature in New York begins to fall back to normal. More importantly the power is restored to the laboratory to the cheers of the two. Quentin tries to call the crew, but is unable to get through with anybody.
“It’s too early to celebrate George, I can’t get an answer form anyone and there are numerous planets left to be explored. That blast is bound to have put them just about anywhere in the solar system.” Quentin says to George.
“According to my calculations the odds of our heroes surviving are very high, I have it around 94.8%.” George replies with a humorous line.
“Wow why such a number, besides George I’m in no mood for jokes. I’m seriously worried for these guys.”
“Quentin you just gotta have faith man, think positive and positive you shall receive.” George says while trying to encourage Quentin.
Back in the virtual world the explosion in Venus causes the crew to be thrown off course. Angel and Maria are sent flying to the planet of Koopia, the home of the Troopia species that attacked them back in Fortuna. Luis on the other hand gets sent to the hyperspace with the planet of Kong not too far out. However, Luis tries to make his way to Sahara in an effort to find Dayvon. His efforts are quickly cut off by an army of Kong spaceships that order him to surrender.
“By the order of the Kong leader surrender your self or we will shoot!” One of the Kong’s (Apes) says to Luis in a demanding voice. “And don’t try to boost your way out, we have you surrounded!”
“Shit they got me surrounded alright. Damn looks like I’ll have to play their game for now.” Luis says in his head as he prepares to give himself up to the Kongs. “Ok guys I surrender to you, I’m all yours.” Luis answers the Kong.
“Excellent you’ll make the perfect slave to our great leader, n
ow follow us and no funny moves!” The Kong responds content with Luis’s response.
Although the Earth is no longer an oven anymore, the four are once again separated. Angel and Maria head for Koopia, Dayvon is blasted to Sahara with his condition unknown to anyone, and Luis is captured by an alien species known as the Kongs who were intelligent primates including (Apes, monkeys, gorillas and baboons). What will be the fate of the four chosen ones? So far it’s fair to say the trip into Middle Space has been a rough one.
Chapter 13(L)
The Planet of Kong
Despite defeating the bio-weapon on Venus, Luis finds himself in trouble with another alien species known as the Kongs. The blast forces Luis into what is considered the hyperspace of the Kongs and he is being treated as a trespasser. The Kongs are a species that are very protective of their own and they usually have a hard time getting along with anyone from other races. They are currently in a war with the Troopias from the planet Koopia. The only question that remains, is the war between the two a real war or one that has been fueled by the gloobas. Luis only has one thing to be concerned about and that was to find a way out of Kong by any means necessary peaceful or by force.
Luis follows the Kongs to their planet and lands in a helipad on the planet of Kong. Kong is a planet which is a pretty mixture of jungle, plains and open grasslands. It’s just like Earth, but it is ruled by primates such as apes, monkeys and gorillas. Despite the beautiful scenery it is surrounded by a huge wall and a huge military presence. The Kongs are a very protective and militaristic race, they are not afraid of war.
Luis gets out of the ship and he is escorted at gunpoint to the emperor of Kong known as Krull. He is a huge sized gorilla standing at least 7 ft tall and he takes a look at Luis apathetically.
“Who is this human fool you bring upon me today? Krull asks sternly.