He released the trigger and a sphere of red energy flew out of the cube 
and toward Lance. "GET BACK!" he yelled to Shara, they both took shelter 
behind a boulder as Lance in his blind rage, collided with the slow 
moving star of pure uncontrollable energy. Then, it seemed like hell 
spewed forth as it blew, shockwaves then rocked the area for about a 
mile and the whole sky seemed to turn red. Then they saw the resulting 
waves from it and soon the small earthquake was over with. 

	They both peeked over the rock to see the retreating and faltering form 
of Lance. He survived the attack, but he didn't leave the battle 
unscathed, that was for sure. From the looks of it, even Shara in her 
weakened condition  could take him out, but decided not to press their 
luck. They had already stretched theirs far beyond the limit.

	"Ringo. What was that?" Shara asked as they began their trek from 
behind the rock. 

	"It's a little something that the boys in the lab made for me. It's 
called the Fusion Bomb, next to Slade's Anti-Matter Warheads, it's the 
most powerful weapon we got. Only problem is: it takes up quite a bit of 
Z-Tron from the powercells. That's why I brought this with me," he said, 
gesturing to the spare energy pack that he took from the soldier and 
began to install it. Once the installation was complete, he held out his 
armored arm and said in a suave voice, "Well, shall we go?" she laughed 
a bit and took his invite. They both flew back to the Command Center, a 
bit more relaxed than before. 

*************************************************

	Meanwhile, at the edge of the Solar System, a gravity well formed out 
of nowhwere. Ice that had been removed from the planet Pluto, was sucked 
into the middle of the growing vortex, into nothing. The black hole-like 
gate continued to grow and grow, and just as it was about to reach the 
point where it would explode, it faultered and dissapated. The only 
thing left in the gate's wake was a single figure. It floated to the 
surface of the planet and stared off into the distance, where the sun 
and other planets were. 

	The figure stood for what might have been minutes before it's eyes 
glowed a dull silver. It had searched for quite some time and now, it 
now felt his presence here. It saw in the distance, the moon that the 
infamous Teknoman was hiding and thought, <I finally found you, 
Darkon....Your fate is sealed.> Then, it's body was covered by a silver 
corona and in a powerful burst, flew from the surface and toward earth 
at a pace where most would think impossible. In other words, it was REAL 
fast. 

*************************************************

	That night, there was a feeling of safety that was never there before. 
Except Tina, she had been looking for Slade ever since the battle ended. 
When she changed back, she found an diamond shaped sapphire crystal in 
her hand. She needed to tell Slade about Neigas and the Teknos and quite 
frankly, was on edge. She called his name again and again through the 
halls, but still found no trace of him. 

*************************************************

	The place where he really was, was talking with Shannon and Commander 
Jamison, in the loading bays. A ship had been cleared to land and the 
three were there waiting for the ship to land. Shannon and Ness had 
faces of utter confusion on their faces. Jamison had told them that he 
had someone to meet them, and said that they would know them. 

A gale force like wind blew through the bays as the ship slowly floated 
down. A small rumble went through the bay as the ship finally hit the 
ground. A doorway had appeared on the side of the ship and steam blew 
everywhere. The siblings walked forward to see a figure exiting the 
ship. She was a rather tall, late middle aged woman, her wavy, greying, 
auburn hair was all let down in a small mane that went to the small of 
her back, in a similar way to Shannon's. 

The woman saw them both and tears began to well up in her eyes. She 
whispered "Ness...............Shannon. You're alive." with that both 
siblings gasped at who it was. Their mother, Harri Carter. The siblings 
then ran to their mother and embraced her dearly, all three of them 
crying. Jamison merely smiled and left the remaining members of the 
Carter family to discuss everything that had happened in the past 3 
years. 

For the next hour and a half, their mother had learned of the fate that 
Cain, Conrad, and Katherine had suffered. They didn't want to tell her 
about what happened to their father, because they feared  that she 
wouldn't be able to handle the shock of his sacrifice, but told her 
anyway. She only looked down and then then let out several tears at the 
loss of most of her family and also the fate of her only daughter. 
Angela screamed internally, WHY? Why, did this happen, why?, her tears 
continued as both of her remaining children hugged her in an attempt to 
comfort her. 

"SLADE!  SLADE! Where are you?" Tina yelled at the top of her lungs, 
unlike her previous attempts, thie time, the man in question heard her. 
He turned to see Tina standing on the railway on the floor above the 
docking bay. Seeing him, she continued "Oh good, there you are. Slade, I 
need to talk to you. You've got a minute?" He turned to his mother and 
sister, they both nodded and he ran up the stairway. Before he could 
even say hi, she grabbed his arm and said quickly "C, mon, follow me," 
and practically dragged him outside the loading bay. 

*************************************************

"Ow, ow. Hey! What's wrong Tina, get up on the wrong side of the bed 
this morning?" Ness complained as they went into the outside night sky. 
Her face seemed to have lost the country girl smile she always seemed to 
have as she began to speak in a silent tone. 

"Slade, while I was in the teknopod, I met someone. Other than from 
Shara, did you ever hear of the name Neigas?" He shook his head. "He was 
the creator of the Teknos, and surely you remember him from Shara?" He 
nodded. "Well, before Darkon, teknomen were guardians of countless 
peoples, and now, Neigas wants us both to continue that protectorate." 
His eyes widened a bit, and was about to speak before he was interrupted 
again, "But that's not all. When Darkon came here, he wasn't only 
running from other teknomen that were hunting him, but peoples that were 
hunting the Teknos." 

 Finally getting in a word or two, he said "If it means what I think you 
mean, then..."she nodded, then continued again.

"We need more Earth made Teknomen, if we can survive Darkon, we might 
have enough time to get earth ready for whatever is following Darkon. 
Then we might just stand a chance against whatever is out there." she 
finished, taking a deep breath. She leaned against the wall and sighed 
while looking up at the sky. 

Ness whispered, "More fighting.....will it ever end?" he said to no one 
in particular. He looked up to the sky and stared at the moon, he 
thought <Darkon you bastard! You just live to make our lives miserable, 
don't you?>  He turned around and found himself hitting the wall in 
front of him, it didn't hurt, but it did have an annoying feel to it. 
She turned to him with a frown that rivaled his own. 

"Slade, calm down! We got plenty of problems to worry about and it won't 
do us any good if you just hurt yourself like this." she grabbed his 
hand and threw it from the wall. Their eyes bore at each other with 
evident distaste with the other. Ness never truly wanted to fight and 
with the news of more of it coming, he liked everything just as less. 
Tina, had chosen this fate and now needed all the help she could get, 
and Slade's attitude wasn't helping matters. The air was rather thick 
between them both as Tina turned suddenly and stomped back inside. When 
she left, he backhanded the wall again in more frustration than before, 
things were not going well. Then, realizing that continuing this fit 
would get him nowhere, he sighed and walked back inside, a bit slower 
than usual. 

*************************************************

She slammed the door behind her as she got back to her room. She paced 
around her room like a caged animal and it the wall with her fist., it 
did hurt and the fact that she was angry at Slade didn't help at all. 
<That......that.......SON OF A...> she never finished her thought. They 
both had a job to do and he was wimping out. That was the LAST thing she 
needed. Humanity needed all the strength in defense it needed and all 
Slade wanted to do was get revenge, he didn't even see the bigger 
picture and humanity was at stake. There had to be a way to show him how 
that if he didn't come out of his personal samurai story and get back to 
reality and think about the future that might not happen. 

She yawned, forgeting how much the changing process took of of her. 
Changing into her set of oversized shirt and shorts, she climbed into 
bed and fell asleep almost instantly. Sleeping a dreamless sleep. 

*************************************************

	Meanwhile, on the darkside of the moon.

	Saber was growling like a caged animal that had been poked just a few 
times too many. He screamed, "How could I lose?!" and threw his armored 
fist into the ground. Axe and Rapier, had stood by, contemplating their 
loss against another teknoman, Scythe. Lance on the other hand was still 
rejuvinating in the Teknosystem. Their loss had not only hurt their 
bodies, but their pride as well. They, four of the mightiest warriors in 
the galaxy, beaten by a bunch of apes. The thought sent Saber into 
another fit of anger as he punched a hole through one of the walls. 

	"Well, it seems that your strategy of brute force has finally failed. 
Well, it came as no surprise to me that all four of you failed." Another 
voice remarked as it entered the room. The voice belonged to a more 
feminine looking teknoman that all the others, but still had the pure 
bulk of being well defended. 

	"Be silent Sword. We don't need your useless commentary." Axe growled 
to the other teknoman. What he didn't even know was that Sword's power 
was on par with Saber's, and since he was the most powerful soldier 
Darkon had, speaking in such ways to one more powerful than himself 
would be considered suicidal. She paid him no mind and walked to Saber. 

	"Master Darkon wishes to see us. And I think it would be best to pray 
to the human gods for safety, he did not appear to be happy when he saw 
you four lost." She ended with a small cackle and tuirned to the exit. 
He followed slowly, still in his rage. Ever since Sword had been 
hatched, they had been competing for Darkon's favor. This incident 
didn't help things at all. He knew that if things like this kept up, she 
would become more powerful than him. His sense of competition would 
never allow such a thing.



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