by Eurostar
Three Basilisks arrive, stopping in front of the four caged heroes. "Your death hasss been decreed by our Lord Viper, the Warbringer," hisses one of them. "And your sssacrifice will send through hyperssspace a call for all the Basssilissssksss ssshipsss that roam the galaxy. Your combined powersss, Rhyme Guardian, Exile and Disssco SSStave, will open a portal through hyperssspace, to reach every ssship, and allow them to arrive here in a matter of minutessss. And then Earth will be under our Lord Viper!"
"They were expecting us! How can that be possible?" shouts Rhyme Guardian.
"It's a trap?" wonders Spark.
"It was a trap," says Exile, reading the truth inside the extraterrestrials' minds, "but not for us -- for the Seven Senses. General Forrest, the American military head at the American-Russian base, is one of the acolytes of the secret society. He called in the Seven Senses so that they would be captured by the aliens! Their reality-warping powers would have been as useful as ours."
The aliens use many strange apparatus and machines with metallic tubes to encase the four heroes, while, in front of them, a big portal opens. Behind it lies an utter void.
"Do you hear a noise?" asks Rhyme Guardian while trying to free himself, to no avail.
"Yeah!" shouts Spark. "It seems..."
"Water!" shouts Disco Stave, right when a big mass of sea water enters the big chamber of the ship.
The aliens hiss in their incomprehensible language, just as out from the water comes the Trout, followed by the two Venetian kids and their dog, all in scuba gear.
"I thought you might be in trouble, guys," says the Golden Age hero, smiling.
"But... why'd you bring the kids?" asks Rhyme Guardian, still tied.
"Hey, those kids saved my ass!" shouts Disco Stave.
Meanwhile, the Trout closes the gates from which he and the kids enter, surfing the wave. "We've flooded the whole ship!" shouts the Trout. "All those rats have died!" But the three aliens in the chamber remain alive, and run toward one of the wall to grab a huge laser cannon to fire at the newly arrived hero.
"Trout, quick! Free us!" shouts Exile, just as the portal into the void is about to engulf the four imprisoned heroes.
"What should we do?" asks Vendia, the girl from Venice.
"Cut these ropes!" shouts Rhyme Guardian, while the portal enlarges second after second. The aliens keep shooting at them, their laser nearly cutting the kids in half, but it is obvious that these aliens are inexperienced with weapons, having only commanded others to fire them.
"Kids, free Rhymer and the others!" shouts the aquatic hero, running with full force at the aliens. A laser beam shoots him right in the forehead. The Trout falls to the ground, dead.
"NOOO!" screams Rhyme Guardian, just as one of the kids frees him from the stasis field that caged him. An orange aura surrounds him, and then he flows a big blast of energy from his hands toward the three remaining aliens, incinerating them. He keeps blasting them until they are destroyed.
When he finally turns back to his friends, he finds Disco Stave standing alone in front on the closing portal. "Disco! Where are the others?"
The young, blue-dressed hero points to the portal. "I-I was about to be sucked into it," he explains, his voice cracking with emotion. "They formed a chain, hand-in-hand, to reach me. They reached me and brought me to safety, only to be... sucked into that void themselves."
Rhyme Guardian is speechless as he thinks of the loss. Exile, Spark, and the two teenagers from Venice with their dog, all lost. "Maybe they're safe... maybe that portal was only a gate to another dimension. In time, maybe they’ll return." But it was evident that even Rhyme Guardian himself was unable to give any credit to those words. The mission, overall, was a success. An alien invasion was averted.
"There is one last thing to do. We have to take this ship away from Earth, so that General Forrest will not try to take it for himself. Come on, Steve! We must locate the control room."
Hours later, the massive, mountainous Basilisk ship slowly levitated toward the sky, its motors powered by Rhyme Guardian's rhyme energy. Huge amounts of water falls down from one large opening on the surface of the ship. At first very slow, then faster and faster, the ship rises through the sky, and then flies into open space.
"Where are you going to take this ship, Rhyme Guardian?" asks Disco Stave.
"There," says the Rhymer, pointing to the natural satellite of Earth. "To the Moon!"