by TheTimeTrust
The Tower of Cuccubao, Brazil:
"All right," Chance said, clenching his jaw. "You asked for it..."
BLAM!
"FUCK!" X-Acute shouted as he felt a bullet enter his left shoulder from behind. Spinning around like a dervish, he popped four shots into the foreheads of the two hired guards in the hallway, killing them both in less than a second. Spinning back just as fast, he shot two rounds back where Chance had just been before realizing that he was already gone. "Asshole..." he breathed, backing up warily to the doorway to take a peek into the corridor in case there were any other guards nearby.
Just as he turned to look back into the room in order to find his opponent, he was blinded by a flash of light, accompanied by the sounds of shattering glass. Moreover, his hands were empty.
"My guns!" he shouted in shocked realization when he found he was weaponless. He looked around warily, ready to leap into the fray of battle at a moment's notice, but all he could see were stars due to the bright flash of light when the bulb blew out.
A wicked grin flashed across his face as he glanced at the fallen guards, all of whom carried guns. "Should've shot the bastard outright..." he mumbled to himself. Of course, he knew what this Kristofer Schanz's abilities were, and knew that, if he had successfully shot a bullet at point-blank range at the man, the force of the bullet would have lodged into his own body rather than Chance's. Omicron had warned him as such. He took a look back into the dark room and crouched down to reach over to pick up the guard's gun.
WHAM!
"Gah!" he cried out as the full force of Chance's weight drove into him from above, smashing his head backward onto the stone floor. X-Acute's quick hand grabbed the guard's gun, however, and shot wildly once just as Chance landed on him, knocking the gun out of his hand and down the corridor. "OOF!"
"Ya kinda fight like a WOMAN, don'tcha, b'y?" the ghost of Pete Glover said mockingly. Chance didn't answer. He had taken the opportunity of the guard's shooting at X-Acute to leap up to the metal girders on the ceiling, which was thankfully much lower than in the laboratory he'd so recently been in.
X-Acute was dazed, but he wasn't out. A split-second after Chance landed on him, knocking the wind out of him, the gunman kicked his legs up into Chance's back, knocking him into the corridor wall. Chance was startled by this, but he took the opportunity to bolt, not noticing that a piece of paper had fallen from his hand as he hit the wall.
"Ha!" X-Acute laughed as he jumped up and went for the guard's gun again, firing off several rounds toward Chance from the spot. "Little weasel..." he said as he stopped and bent down to pick up the map. "Looks like you dropped your m--" he began, cutting himself off as he unfolded it and realized that he was actually looking at what seemed to be an inventory list for this store room. He paused only to utter a string of curses before deciding what to do next -- go for the map or find his .45s first.
"Aw, hell!" he spat as he ducked back into the room to retrieve his guns. No way was he leaving Betsy and Frieda behind!
Chance rubbed his face in horror as he ran down the passageways -- that redneck back there had actually managed to hurt him! For the first few moments after he had hit the stone wall, his nose, jaw and forehead felt so raw that the skin seemed to be broken. Yet, while he was running, the pain began to diminish even as he stopped bleeding. There was still a sensation where the injuries had been sustained, but there seemed to be no sign of the injuries at all on his face any longer. They had healed.
Yet the fact that he had sustained the injuries in the first place left him wondering what had happened to his force-redirection ability. Perhaps his body had undergone some kind of chemical reaction when he experienced that shooting pain throughout his whole body not long ago! It seemed as though things were somewhat different in this world than in his own -- had his own body also adjusted itself somehow to this world now after all these months? Or was there some other kind of explanation? Whatever it was, Chance knew he couldn't count on his extra-normal abilities again until he had a chance to test them fully. None of the many bullets that X-Acute had shot in his direction had found their mark, however, so his luck was still holding.
"Not expectin' that, were ya, me old son?" Pete said, laughing. "O' course, I could'a told you what was happenin' to yer body back then, but that would'a spoilt all'a my fun, wouldn't it, me boyo?"
The Swede rubbed his jaw again enough to know it wasn't broken -- at least any longer -- and opened his mouth, not to reply but to retrieve the parchment piece of the map. He'd stuffed it in his mouth at the same moments he had leaped to the ceiling and disarmed the redneck gunman back there. "Let me get a good look at you," he said to no one in particular as he shook the piece of parchment open and took a good look at it as he ran past torchlights on the corridor wall.
He stopped looking at the map when he saw light up ahead and several dead, blood-covered guards lying before a gaping hole in the wall through which the moonlight shone. A few of them were decapitated.
Chance stuck his head out through the opening and looked outside to see Drax flying through the air with the Cyclops hanging off of him, trying to hang on tightly. He also saw Crasher sitting up from the ground, slightly dazed but seeming to be all right. It looked like she'd taken a fall. Luckily for her, the soil surrounding the tower in this, the Amazon rainforest, was anything but hard -- most of the decaying vegetation would have broken her fall. Lastly, he saw Euro dueling with the leader of the other team he'd recognized from the Uffizi Museum -- both held swords, but Eurostar's sword was a heavy broadsword, while his opponent's seemed to be merely a collapsible one which, while it seemed to be made of a durable substance, was fit only for dueling against a sword of comparable size. While he seemed to be holding his own, the sword Eurostar held in his hands moved of its own accord -- if the other man had only his sword to rely on, he didn't stand a chance.
The Luckiest Man Alive leaped from the several-stories-high wall opening down to the ground, landing in a tumble-roll.
Johnny Omicron was startled to see a completely naked man land on the ground by the tower, though he quickly recognized the man as Chance. He hoped that there weren't any other members of this team somewhere here. His information on this other team was very limited, as there seemed to be almost no information whatsoever about them on the Internet, and the records the La Perditan government had on the team were sparse and out-of-date. The recent hurricane likely had something to do with that.
"Need some help?" Chance shouted at Edulcore Cicciotto as he ran over to check on the dazed Crasher.
Cicciotto never took his eyes off his opponent as he savagely thrust his sword at his enemy, intending to lop Johnny Omicron's head off at his earliest opportunity. "I need no help from thee, d'Artagnan! Porthos can hold his own in a duel with Cardinal Richelieu! Ha-ha!"
"You're completely nuts!" Johnny said finally. A split second later, the broadsword shattered Omicron's collapsible sword in two.
Cicciotto lifted his Ladnikia to Johnny Omicron's throat, a grin on his face. "Prepare yourself to meet your maker, foul villain!"
"Have it your way, then," Omicron said with a shrug, firing off his still-raised gauntlet and firing off a concussive blast, which sent Euro and his sword flying backward some twenty feet into the air and back down onto the ground with a thud. He began walking over to him.
"Hold it!" Chance shouted as he placed himself between the two, holding his left palm in the air.
"Look, Kristofer Schanz, or whoever you are," Johnny Omicron began, "we really don't have any interest in any of you at all. We only want the map. It's business, is all. Just business. Now give me the map before anybody else gets hurt!"
Chance stared him down for a few moments, and then grinned. "No."
Omicron sighed. "Fine, then, be that way..." he said as he raised his gauntlets again and prepared to fire.
It was then that a large, furry tail slammed him off his feet hard into the side of the Tower of Cuccubao.
"Thank you, Drax," Chance said, laughing. "Now help me get the Raptor and Crasher into the Stormloader, and we'll be on our way."
"What about Ameristar?" Drax said.
"Oh, shoot..."
"Hey assholes!" the sneering voice of X-Acute shouted as he walked out from the tower.
"Want me to fry 'im?" Drax said with a snarl.
"No, no, wait," Chance said, pointing, "look!"
"That's right, Buck Naked!" X-Acute shouted as he held one of his two Smith & Wesson .45s to the side of the unconscious Ameristar's head, whom he dragged roughly with one arm. He wore a wicked grin on his face.
"X!" groaned Johnny Omicron as he struggled to get himself up from the ground, his flight suit fizzling slightly and obviously damaged somewhat.
"I'll make you pansies a deal -- it's a real sweet deal, too," X-Acute went on, ignoring his leader. "You give us the map and let us go freely..." He looked down at Ameristar and pulled her up against him in an embrace, still with the cannon of the gun cocked at her temple. "...and I promise I won't put a bullet in your cute, unconscious friend's brain here!"
"X... no, don't..." Johnny said, standing up weakly.
"Shut up, Omicron!" X-Acute said hotly, still staring at Chance. "Well, Buck? Do we have a deal?"
Chance's eyes almost glowed with anger. He clenched and unclenched his fist at the thought. But finally he said, "Fine. The map and your freedom for the girl's life."
"Heh. Well... I'm glad to find some reason in this godforsaken place!" X-Acute said. "Omicron -- the map." Johnny Omicron walked with a slight limp over to Chance. "AND NO TRICKS OR SHE DIES!" X-Acute added quickly.
"He means it, you know," Johnny Omicron said as he walked up to the Swede, who handed him the map with a great deal of reluctance. "It really didn't have to be this way," he said as he began walking back over to the hovercraft. Arges had just become conscious and was shaking his head as Johnny motioned him to get aboard.
"Now give us the girl," Chance said.
"Nuh-uh-uh, Buck," the gunslinger said as he walked backward toward the hovercraft, dragging the limp body of Ameristar with him. "The deal is -- we get away, and then you get the girl!"
"I've given you my word. Leave the girl alone!"
"Hey, I gave you my word, too, Buck. And I'm good for it. Just watch me!"
"What are you doing?" Euro shouted angrily at Chance from just behind him. "You just GAVE them the map and let them walk away!"
"Trust me," Chance whispered to his ally, whose mind seemed to be back in the real world again.
Johnny Omicron powered up the hovercraft, and X-Acute jumped in through the side door, still holding onto Ameristar. The Stormloader rose up into the air and circled back over the heroes.
"You want her?" X-Acute shouted from the side of the Stormloader. "Come an' get her!" At that, he dropped Ameristar's limp body out the door from a height as tall as the tower.
"DRAX!"
"Got it," the fuzzy white dragon said as he pushed himself off the ground and into the air after the girl. He quickly caught her in mid-air and brought her safely back down to the ground.
"Well, that's just great!" the Raptor shouted, raising his hands in the air. "They just took off with both the map and our only means of transport!"
"It's not so bad, Euro," Chance said. "Ameristar's still alive, isn't she? And we don't need the map. I've got it all right up here," he said, tapping the side of his head. "Photographic memory. Comes in handy sometimes."
"So what are we going to do with Ameristar, anyways?" Drax said. "She needs to get to a real doctor quickly, and there's no way I'll be able to fly her to one at this point. That fight really took a lot of energy from me. I can't stay in dragon-form for much longer."
The Raptor sighed impatiently. "So much for our only other possible mode of transportation!"
"I'll take her," Crasher said. "She's my responsibility, anyway."
"But your armor's in bad shape, Crasher," Chance said. "And you look none too healthy, either."
"I can manage it just fine. I'll just take a Jeep -- there are a few around here -- to the nearest town and get a flight out from there. Just go without me. Ameristar would want you to find that book before the other team does."
"Then it's settled," Eurostar said. "Let's get going now. There's no time to waste!"
"I think I should stay with them," Drax said then. "If they run into trouble, they need someone to protect them."
Chance stopped Euro from responding to this angrily. "Okay, Drax. I agree. It's the right thing to do."
Chance and a still-angry Eurostar said a quick farewell to their allies and found a Jeep of their own that would carry them farther west into the jungle for a little while, at least. It was still a long way from Peru from there.
Drax changed back into Drake Marshall and helped Crasher carry Ameristar and Ameristar's ruined armor into their Jeep, and they watched as Chance and Euro drove off westward into the brush. It was still a couple of hours before dawn.
"This was supposed to be my first mission with these guys, you know," Drake said to Crasher as she started up the engine. "Didn't exactly go as well as I'd have liked it to."
"Life's a bitch," Crasher said as she backed up the Jeep and turned at the same time. She started moving forward until a figure dropped just in front of her headlights.
"Hello."
"Who the hell--?!" she said, tensing up again and ready for another fight. She looked at the gray-haired man. "Marc? Is that you?"
"Hello, Crasher," said a smiling Marc.
Half an hour later, as Chance and the Raptor drove in silence through the back country, they were suddenly startled as they heard a loud thumping sound coming from the rear seat.
"Mind if we join you?" the girl with the red boots said as she made herself comfortable in her seat.
"Crasher?!" Chance exclaimed, stopping the Jeep. "Well, I'm glad you could make it, but what did you do with Ameristar? Was Drax able to fly her to the hospital all right?"
"Even better," Crasher said smiling. "A friend of mine came by to pick her up -- I think she'll be all right, now. Oh, and, uh... Drax? He's... he's around here somewhere..."
"...aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -- OOF!"
"Drake?" Chance said as the human form of Drax plopped into the seat next to Crasher after changing back from just a few feet above the Jeep. "Way to make an entrance, buddy."
"Thanks... ouch! ...but I think, in the future, I'll just leave the crashing to our friend, here," Drake said.
"Enough chit-chat," the Raptor said then. "We have a mission to do. Let's go find the Lost City!"