Homeward Bound: Animal Kingdom

Wisp kicked off her shoes and let her pale and delicate feet brush against the slightly damp grass beneath them. The soft and lush landscape reminded her so much of the Fairealm that she wanted to go barefoot like everyone did there. She wiggled her toes slightly, letting the grass tease her soles and gave a slight giggle.

Owlet nudged Billy in the side to break his focus on this scene and he tore his eyes from her pretty peds and led them across the field they’d found themselves in. They were all enjoying the calm and beautiful environment and the sundripped sky, but, now that he wasn’t distracted, Billy was all business.

“After the dark and harsh places we’ve been this place makes a nice change,” Britainia admitted.

“Yeah, we could maybe have a little break here and relax a while,” Wisp added as she flexed her foot, stretched her back and gave a little yawn. She disn’t notice how this draws Billy’s attention again, though he quickly looked away, trying not to go red.

“Paradise might be a little too green for me,” he admitted, trying to focus his mind on the matter at hand.

The quartet pushed through the shrubs at one end of the field and were confronted by the exact sort of thing Billy had been worried about. He saw a man with light blue skin and scales wearing an armoured face mask and wielding a katana-like blade surrounded by a quartet of androids. He was the prince of the seafolk and he was a proud warrior, but Billy wasn’t convinced even he could handle four machines that were both bigger and looked better armed than him; especially when he was a fish out of water.

Without a word the trio of superheroines leapt into action. Wisp and Britainia began flying towards the machines. Britainia balled her fist up and unleashed a powerful right hook against the nearest one, punching a hole clear through it. Wisp unleashed an icy blast against one, freezing its chest. She then hit it with a fireball. The rapid change of temperature shattered the outer shell, allowing her to scatter the insides with a gust of wind. Owlet took a more basic approach using her bo-shuriken style throwing weapons to piece the metal surface before dropping blasting caps inside, damaging the internal workings beyond compare.

The final android was left to Prince Dolfan. He charged it with an angry yell, sliding his blade across the machine’s chest. He was breathing heavily as he fell to his knees across the battlefield from it, but the robot slowly slid apart after he had sliced it clear in two.

“Well that was an easy rescue,” Wisp grinned, “we did that in record time.”

“And with pretty much no fuss or interference with the world’s timeline,” Owlet added proudly.

“Your highness,” Britainia stepped forward to greet him, bowing slightly. She had been trained from being born how to handle social situations like this and she had met the British monarch more than once, she understood how she should behave. “We’re here to rescue you and take you home.”

“No,” came his simple reaction.

“No?” Wisp was a little less adept at handling the social niceties than Britainia, “What do you mean no? We came here to save you now march your butt to the portal pronto.”

“No, and if an overgrown fae like you tries to make me you will feel my blade.”

“Okay, okay, no need for feeling of blades,” Billy said as he and Owlet stepped between Wisp and the swordsman, “care to tell us why you won’t return to your people?”

“I gave my word of honour to the heroines of this world that I would deal with the latest death machine of Kommandant Fox.”

“Oh great,” Wisp moaned a little, “even in a paradise like this Fuchs is messing things up for… wait did you say Kommandant FOX‽”

Before anyone could push the questioning further, a large tank that looked a frog’s head with spinning sawblades protruding from its mouth and laser cannons in its eyes burst onto the scene. The group struck a combat pose ready to fight the machine but suddenly it stopped and seemed to be reduced to simple scrap metal. Hovering in the air was the creature responsible. She was dressed in blue sweatpants and top, a white cape fluttering behind her. Wisp got excited for a moment until she realised it was far to small to be Ubergirl, plus she had a tail. She moved forward out of the shadows and the woman in the outfit of Wisp’s favourite role model was, in fact, a cat.

“Hi,” she declared placing her paws on her hips, “I’m Ubercat.”

“Ubercat?” Owlet was unsure what to make of it, looking to Billy for an explanation.

“Things just keep getting weirder,” Britainia rubs her eyes in disbelief.

“That is just so cute!!!” Wisp declared as she ran over to hug her, only to find herself being picked up by the biggest eagle she’d ever seen. Its powerful talons were impossible to escape from but it was holding her with such a lightness of touch that she was never in any pain despite the amazing power. She was quickly dumped with her friends, that was when Wisp noticed the red and white colour scheme to the costume the eagle wore.

“Look but don’t touch little one,” the eagle told her, a hint of a Polish accent to her voice.

“Okay, this is just plain freaky now,” Britainia shook her head.

“You’re telling me,” came a voice within a blur of motion as it moved round the newly arrived quartet, tugging on Wisp’s wings, searching through Owlet’s pouch and even peeking under Britainia’s mask before coming to a stop in front of them. It turned out to be a hare in a fur tight blue and red ski suit. “So what are you guys some kind of mutated hairless baboons?”

“They are humans,” a white owl explained as she fluttered in to join them, “not from this world, but not from the same one as Prince Dolfan if I’m guessing right.”

“White Owl?” Owlet looked to Billy even more confused and then back to this strange elseworld version of her mentor.

“Judging by your costume, and your reaction to me, as well as what I’m guessing is a slightly young age, you would be your world’s version of me’s sidekick? And the winged girl is the sidekick of Ubercat.”

“More like number one fan,” Billy gave a slight chuckle.

“Oh a bit like me then,” a surprisingly large and glittery butterfly said, “I’m Glisten and I’m Ubercat’s biggest fan as well as Rush Rabbit’s partner in Team superfurryfriendship.”

“That’s an even worse name than the one you and Lily picked,” Billy laughed a little, "I mean your ganger doesn't even have fur."

“Now you sound just like my gecko friend Will,” the hare, apparently named Rush Rabbit added, “are you his ganger?”

“Quite probably,” Billy admitted, “we’re actually only here to take Prince Dolfan home and then go home ourselves…”

“But I told them I had given my word to stop Kommandant Fox alongside you and I would not be going until I did so,” Prince Dolfan explained

“So is he an actual fox?” Britainia asked.

“What else would he be?” Glisten shrugged.

“So I guess we’re here until his latest death machine is taken care of,” Owlet agreed, still not totally comfortable with the strange aniverse they’d found themselves in, “so do we know what his actual machine is?”

“I take it he wants to use your key to power it,” Britainia pointed, basing it on the current form they’d been through, “so taking you away would scupper it without even having to act.”

“He would find another power source,” The White Owl pointed out.

“Yeah,” Rush Rabbit cut in, “he’s the stereotype of the sly old fox, he’s really sly and he’s really old, but still very dangerous. The talk is this machine is a hypno field, it’s going to put the whole world under his power. He had a weaker version and he nearly had me on my knees for him. That’s why I called in the back up.”

“Well I think the ten of us can handle whatever he can throw at us,” Wisp said with a happy grin.

“Don’t jinx us,” Glisten pointed out, “you guys have that in your world, right?”

Soon the group settled down and began heading off to find Kommandant Fox’s secret base, beneath one of the tallest trees of the Forest of Peka, which Billy pointed out made no sense, firstly that they knew where his secret base was, and secondly that the forest was called Peka as Peka had its linguistic roots in the word river. The White Owl pointed out that it was likely due to the nature of the multiverse that certain patterns would repeat throughout even if the individual roots in each universe didn’t quite match up. Billy took note that he really wanted to get to know White Owl in his world, he could see why Owlet was such a big fan of her. Still he figured he had to get through this adventure first.

They quickly make it to the place Rush Rabbit last fought Fox, finding his base still pretty much as it had been the last time she’d been there. The major difference was the large machine with strange lights at the top, alongside powerful looking speakers.They had to take out a couple of large and dangerous machines before they could get to this point, but Billy was still concerned about the lack of security they’d seen.

“I know this might sound a cliche,” Billy explained, “but this was easy, a little too easy. We shouldn’t be able to get this close to his new superweapon without facing something more dangerous than his android drones.”

“He’s crazy over confident,” Rush Rabbit reminded him, “he probably thinks we wouldn’t dare take the fight to him like this.”

“Or this could be a trap,” The White Owl agreed, “not wanting to sound as cliched as Billy, but it’s quiet, too quiet.”

“I’m not suggesting we don’t destroy the machine now we have chance, but maybe, just maybe, we show a little caution before we charge headlong in there and set off the trap.”

“Oh I think I have a scanner on my belt that we cooked up a while ago,” Owlet suggested as she reached for it and set it going, “I can check out what the machine is made of before we…”

“Enough talk,” Prince Dolfan declared, “I will destroy the machine myself.”

He drew his sword and charged at the machine, just as the scanner revealed the machine was in fact a bomb filled with sleeping gas. Owlet shouted the warning out just in time for Rush Rabbit to grab her and Glisten. They were only just out of range of the gas as Dolfan drove his sword through it, releasing the fast acting and powerful toxic cloud. One by one the group fell, even the massive Cracovia. As soon as they were down, extractor fans began clearing the space and an old looking fox in a labcoat and gasmask walked in, flanked by three large robots. He stood over Prince Dolfan and leaned in to rip the key pendant from his neck.

“We have to get back in there,” Owlet suggested, adjusting her mask to work as a filter to protect her from the gas, “we can’t let him take our friends captive.”

“We can’t,” Rush Rabbit pointed out, “the gas is clearing but I’d make it about six steps before I was out cold too, and I can’t let the two of you face him and his robot horde alone.”

Owlet stared at her for a moment, she knew that she was right and that the chances were he’d want to use them to test his hypnosis machine so they wouldn’t be hurt. Still she turned and ran in, grabbing the nearest person she could. It happened to be Wisp, and began dragging her away. Before she could make it she was attacked by robots and had to let her go. She flipped out of the way and launched an owl bomb at them, taking them out, but they were quickly replaced forcing Owlet to retreat. The trio of escaping heroines managed to still avoid them, mostly thanks to Rush Rabbit going into hyper mode and carrying them off. She was not impressed by what she saw as Prince Dolfan levels of impetuousness.

“What was that all about?” Rush Rabbit complained, “I thought we’d just agreed that was too dangerous to try and save them.”

“I know, I know, but…”

“I get that you’re young by hairless ape standards, but heroines aren’t indestructible, I know that too well.”

Glisten hugged Rush Rabbit’s shoulder in sympathy for some tragedy that she’d been through. It reminded Owlet of the things her own world’s version of Rush had faced already.

“I know that’s why I didn’t want to lose any of them.”

“By rescuing one more?” Glisten looked at her quizzically, “I mean I get that the one you were saving is your world’s me and I can see why that might be good to have, but I don’t think that would tip the scales all that much.”

“No,” Owlet grinned, “but planting a tracker on her so we know exactly where they are might be a bit more useful.”

Rush Rabbit’s frown broke into a grin at this revelation.

“Yeah, I can see how that might help. Want to take us right to him?”

______________________________

Wisp groaned a little as she awoke. She glanced around and wasn’t pleased to discover she was tied up once again, this seemed to be becoming more of a habit the more she was hanging round with Britainia, though she understood it was an occupational hazard as a heroine. She noted that her hands were bound to the arms of the chair she was in and her feet were tied to the chair legs. Another rope was round her waist, pinning her to the chair and trapping her wings, leaving her without her magic and she had a gag over her mouth. Looking to the others, she discovered this was true for all of them too. They all seemed to be waking up and were all confused. Wisp was surprised by how well the wings of The White Owl and of Cracovia worked as arms when tied up, it seemed to be one of the rules of what her group were now thinking of as the aniverse that wings acted like they were anthropomorphic arms when they needed to be and physics could go hang.

In the middle of the room was a large metal post with a strange looking sphere on the top. The sphere only had one feature on the outside, otherwise it was just a silver coloured ball, and that was a docking station that Prince Dolfan’s key was plugged into. Lights on the post were starting to turn on, making their way up the post as if it were powering up. Kommandant Fox was prowling round the post, waiting for them all to wake up before he began to gloat. When he was satisfied they’d all hear him he started.

“Ah good,” he said with slight snarl of satisfaction, “I do like a captive audience. You get the honour of being my first true slaves, totally under the power of this device behind me. It is powering up and once it reaches full power it will start broadcasting a wave of will suppressing energy. I know it will take different times to enslave each person depending on the frequency that the brain functions on, but the machine is going to constantly change to hit every frequency meaning everyone will fall eventually. The range will keep increasing exponentially as well, meaning that soon no where will be safe. Don’t worry, I will always remember my first victims...”

As he spoke Ubercat snapped the ropes holding her down and charged at Fox. She grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the post as it charged. He hit it just as the final light came on and it began to broadcast. Ubercat raised her paw to strike him down. She reared back to unleash the powerful strike but then her hand went limp and dropped by her side as her eyes became glassy and unfocused before totally blanking.

“Ah,” Fox said as he brushed his coat down, feeling satisfied that he’d gained control of the situation once more, “it looks like the mighty Ubercat has succumb to her much mentioned weakness. She is the first which one of you will be next? Or maybe I should show my control over her by having her dismantle one of you. Who should I pick? Maybe Cracovia, you two are as close as sisters, right? Surely she can’t beat on you.”

Cracovia just glared at him with anger, she knew she could break the bonds but if she did Ubercat would be set against her and she didn’t want to fight her friend. He knew this too, that was why he was taunting her, but she knew she was going to make him pay for this. She just had to bide her time. She didn’t know how long that would be though, she, like the others, could feel the waves tugging at her brain already.

“Or maybe it should be a hairless ape, one of you dresses in the colours of my old enemies and another has the stink of the spy upon you. I’m sure my Ubercat will be able to handle either of you, maybe both.”

“Shall we see?” Came the bold declaration from the shadows as Rush Rabbit stepped forward, her paws on her hips in the same heroic pose Billy and Wisp had seen their Rush do thousands of times.

“So good of you to come to me,” Kommandant Fox snarled happily, “saves me the hard work of tracking you down. Ubercat get…”

“Nope you said about her facing Britainia and Billy together, let’s see how that goes, in fact let’s see if she can take on everyone.”

With that Rush Rabbit began darting between the prisoners in hypermode, moments later and they were all free. Naturally Ubercat and a bunch of robots were sent against them, but the heroines were not going to go down so easily this time. Even Prince Dolfan, despite not having a weapon, was fighting hard. The only two on the scene that weren’t were Billy and Rush Rabbit. She was exhausted from saving them all and, even if she wasn’t his Rush, his first priority was to look after her. He’d reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the emergency chocolate bar he kept in case Rush needed a burst of fuel after pushing herself too hard and handed it to her animal doppleganger.

“You do know with a burst of speed like that you might have made it to the hypno machine and dismantled it?”

“Maybe,” she admitted, “but I’ve felt it’s power before, I figured I’d be better off causing a diversion, and having the others getting closer with the bomb.”

“You mean to tell me this very public and obvious attack is just a diversion?”

“Fox isn’t looking at his machine right now,” she gave him a wink.

Owlet and Glisten slipped through the air ducts that traced round the building with silent grace. Glisten was able to flutter through the ducts, while Owlet moved with gymnastic skills honed through long hours of practice with her White Owl. Finally they reached their destination and waited for the distraction. As all the heroines were freed, they dropped into the scene behind the hypnosis machine. They started to arm the bomb they brought.

While most of the heroes battle the robots; The White Owl showing her incredible skills, spinning in midair and hitting four of them with her wings and claws; Prince Dolfan using his combat skills to toss the machines with martial precission; Wisp launching gusts of wind to wipe some out, launching fireballs at others; two heroines, Cracovia and Britainia, use their not inconsiderable strength to corral Ubercat. It was not an easy process, as they were focused on not hurting their friend and ally, made even more difficult when the equally powerful Ubercat was not showing them the same mercy.

Rush Rabbit was about to rejoin the fight when she dropped down to her knees again. Billy tried to comfort her, but he knew there was little he could do if she was actually injured. She smiled bravely up to him.

“I don’t think you should have given me the recharge,” she told him, “I can feel my will slipping away, in moments I’ll be as much Fox’s puppet as Ubercat is, and now I have the strength to be involved in the fight.”

Billy squeezes her shoulder comfortingly for a moment, he then reached up and took a clip from his ear and pinned it to Rush Rabbit’s. She looked unsure for a moment but instantly looked happier.

“Kommandant Fuchs, the version of Fox on our world, used something similar to hypnotise people, he had this machine that protected him, I managed to miniaturise it and work it into an earpiece. It’s why his machine wasn’t going to work on me. It should protect you too.”

“But you…”

“On my world Rush would kick his ass, I know you can to, I know I’m safe because Rush is here.”

He smiled to her and then clutched his head as he felt the machine trying to affect him.

He wasn’t the only one being affected either. Glisten was fluttering up to the hypnomachine, ready to grab the key and attach the bomb. Owlet was watching her back, making sure no robot tried to stop her. She had just reached the machine when she felt something hitting her in the back. Owlet, now totally under Fox’s control, had thrown something at her. The human heroine had now drawn a bo-shuriken style feather, ready to take out the little butterfly. Glisten dropped the bomb, letting it fall to the ground and explode just too far from the machine to damage it. Both heroines were thrown to the side, allowing Glisten the chance to make a wall of ice between her and Owlet.

She wasn’t the only one either. Cracovia felt a powerful kick hit her in the chest as Britainia moved away from stopping Ubercat and towards helping the hypnotised heroine hurt her closest friend. Cracovia began to fight back, but she knew she’d be no match for two superstrong women focused solely on taking her down. That was why she began to back off.

Cracovia moved closer to The White Owl, hoping that together they might be a match for Britainia and Ubercat. It was too late that she realised what a mistake this was. The White Owl’s eyes were already as blank as Ubercat and Cracovia was now too close to avoid the powerful kick being unleashed against her, putting her in the clear path of both Britainia and Ubercat who hit her with powerful punches at the same moment.

Cracovia hit the ground hard, slumping slightly, she was stunned and she knew that by the time she’d recover she’d be under Fox’s control. She then realised she didn’t need to worry about that, the trio that took her out were coming to finish the job. The only thing that stopped them doing just that was the double blast of wind released by Wisp and Glisten together as they grouped together to protect their fallen comrade.

This didn’t last long as the two fairy like beings moved from being back to back to being face to face, both slipping under the trance and instinctively following the instruction to take the other out. They began matching each other for elemental attacks.

Rush Rabbit took all this in and knew it was her turn to act. She entered hyper mode and began binding her friends so they couldn’t hurt one another or her. She knew it wouldn’t buy her much time, Ubercat would soon break the bonds she had on her, and when Cracovia recovered she couldn’t hold her down. But it gave Dolfan a chance to reclaim his key.

Instead of doing so he attacked Fox. Fox just grinned and shot the seafolk prince with a taser. He crumpled to the floor and the battle seemed lost. Fox could not see anyway for the fight to go any way but his. As such he walked to the once more exhausted Rush Rabbit, telling her that she had been a surprisingly worthy adversary but it was ending the only way it could.

“You’re right there,” Rush Rabbit told him as she used the last of the speed she could muster to snatch away the device he was using to protect himself from the hypnosis.

The effect was almost instant, his eyes went wide, then glassy then finally blank as his will was overtaken by the machine. Rush Rabbit was fast to give him his instructions, he was to dismantle the hypnomachine and then forget how he’d made it. After that he’d go to the police to admit what he’d done. She knew it was a longshot that the hypnotic conditioning would last long enough to carry out the last step but she was confident that it would at least be the end of the machine.

Almost an hour after the machine was turned off, those affected began to come round again. Rush Rabbit was able to return Prince Dolfan’s key, advising him not to be so rash from now on. They took the rest of the day to recover before heading back to Avalous. This gave Owlet a chance to train with The White Owl, learning a few different skills even her mentor didn’t have. Wisp and Glisten got to have an afternoon enjoying themselves too, Wisp even introduce the concept of the slushie to the world, something Glisten was sure would catch on quickly. Rush Rabbit and Billy got a chance to talk too.

“It was good to work with you,” Billy told her as they were ready to go their separate ways again, “things between myself and my Rush are a little strained at the moment.”

“I’m sure whatever it is you can work through it,” Rush Rabbit assured him, “any heroine would be lucky to have you in her corner, especially when you believe in her so much that the trust extends to her animal ‘ganger in another universe. Gods our lives are weird.”

Billy laughed.

“It’s good to hear you laugh, I know you’ve had a tough time, but keep the faith, keep hope, good things will happen.”

“I think they already are,” Billy hugged her tight, it was time to go.

“And if she doesn’t forgive you, you can always come back here, you’re always welcome on my team.”

Billy smiled and gave her a wave as he joined the others at the portal, heading to Avalous, and ready to be going home.