Chapter Text
There was never a better day before in Egon's mind. A balmy breeze swept over his taut muscles, while the sun shone brightly overhead. Even the sea's waves offered a relaxing noise to focus on. As Egon stood on the submarine's observation deck, his pale fur soaking up the sun's rays, he scanned the blue horizon for anything out of the ordinary. No landmasses, no approaching boats. Nothing, yet.
He fully expected something to arrive soon. No plan of his ever went without interruption. And today of all perfect days, he was counting on them to show up.
"Heidi." He called out, addressing his lounging sister from across the viewing deck. "Progress?"
The slender rodent shared the same pale complexion and red eyes as Egon did, along with an immense intellect. The similarities stopped there, however.
Heidi blew a smoke ring out to the side, watching it fly apart in the breeze.
"Coming along, brother. Patience is a virtue, they say.”
Egon sighed heavily, thumbing a flat box in his pocket. A small radio, for communicating with his troops.
"Today, my patience pays off. All our patience pays off. The whole of Tarvus will see our kind's superiority." sighed Egon, looking back out to the sea.
A black blip was there on the horizon line.
He smiled to himself, then quickly let it go. That smile was early. Soon, soon he could smile widely. Maybe it would be the smile he would show his prodgeny, as he told them of the great leaps he made for all of his people.
That smile would be saved for his victory. His people's victory.
"Call the mercenaries. Tell them to ready themselves. Our guests will be arriving soon. It would be rude of us not to have entertainment for them."
"Of course, Egon. Anything else?"
"...Have my gauntlets brought to the ready room."
The ship had moved faster than expected. The intel jockeys in their tower expected the ship, medium size with approximately seven passengers and one robot, to arrive in twenty minutes.
"Good," Egon said calmly while assembling the massive steel gauntlets in the room. "I was worried if it would only be the Owens that came for us. Pity that this is their last attempt to stop the coming of the future."
He turned around, examining the assembled menagerie of animals on his sub. The normal, calming smell of metal and smoke was lost with the overpowering stench of every collected animal in the small space. The noise, once just the typing of the jockeys and humming of the machines, was now clogged with laughter, crude jokes, and the sharpening of many blades. As much as it disgusted him to share the glory of change with these lesser creatures, he did have uses for them. All the better they too had grudges against the Owens.
"Is Tons-O-Fun gonna be on that boat?" Asked a low, smooth voice from the back. Light caught the flat edge of her machete as she tossed it up into the air. Up, and down. Up, and down. Roxanne, Egon pulled from his memory. An old flame of the alligator Dusty. The cougar's tail flicked behind her in time with each toss of her machete.
"Of course." Egon answered.
"Good. And uh, just to be clear, when this is all said and done, I get to keep him, and the snake for myself right?" She asked, stepping into the light. Her sharp eyes bored into his, yellows meeting reds under the harsh electric lights. Athletic frame contained in a snakeskin suit. The skins were caught, skinned, and sewn by her own hands.
"...Yes. To do with as you please."
Said Egon with a nod.
She smiled, baring teeth. Her machete slid into a leather sheath, next to the rifle slung behind her back. A distinctly alien rifle, taken from some long forgotten ruin. Like all technology on this planet worth taking, Egon thought.
A weapon too good for her.
Another voice spoke up. It was slow, measured. Like Heidi's, only a pitch lower.
The owner of that voice stepped into the light next to Roxie. Well groomed fur, slicked back tight to the scalp. A fine suit, though it had seen better days, on a thin frame. Wickedly curved antlers took up any space between Vincent, and anyone else.
"And I as well? Ah, what of my reward? My lovely? Dearest Owens?" Vincent asked, purring as he spoke 'Owens.' Vincent's eyes narrowed, the pupils unnaturally sharp. Cunning. Egon nodded his head towards the musk deer.
"Likewise, you too will have the coyote. If he stays alive in the crossfire."
"Oh, Shale is more persistent than you give him credit for, O employer. A trait I plan to savor like the finest of cuts."
"...So long as you prepare him on your own grounds, not my mess hall." Egon growled softly.
"Wouldn't dream of it." Vincent chuckled. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Egon looked around at the collected faces, those of his own men, who stood at attention in their battle gear, and his mercenaries, and deemed it time. He took a breath, held it for a moment, and exhaled. He spoke loudly, his voice strong, commanding respect and attention from all.
"This day.. will forever be remebered in the annals of history, friends and allies. This day will mark the irreversable start of a bright, new era for this world. An era we shall shape with our actions. An era that will be unsullied by hands of the past."
He pointed a finger at the radar screen, a single green blip drifting closer and closer to the center of the screen.
"This day, will begin with us. And end with the Owens family."
He paused. His gauntlets rumbled, plates shifting apart with ethereal energy taken from a dead civilization, and sealing themselves around his hands. He felt the cool metal on his palms, embraced it. The weight was nothing to him, but its presence kept him in reality. He grinned inwardly, imagining the day when he could put these weapons to rest for good, and they would be mere markers in history books. Perhaps even a memorial for this occasion.
"...Raise the column. Prepare yourselves for combat."
"You okay, kiddo?" Shale's voice cut through the loud throttle of the ship's engine with eerie calmness. The old coyote gazed down at his son, Karl, with concern. "You're quieter than usual."
Karl's gaze ducked away from the churning waters and back onto the floor. He tapped at a seam on his prosthetic arm before speaking.
"...I’m afraid. This is Egon's last chance to fulfill his father’s dream. He will not leave anything to chance this time." He whispered, more to himself than to Shale. His timid voice strained Shale's ears as he tried to pick up on what he was saying.
"Well, when has he ever hesitated? First it was the missiles, then it was the plague, what's so bad about this time?" He nudged Karl's arm, hoping to break him out of his own thoughts.
"...I won't know what's going to happen. Every other time, we had an idea, or a plan, or something more than just our hopes. But we're going in blind, with nothing other than the intercepted message Hustle managed to pick up." Karl sunk lower into his arms. "If I don't know what will happen, how can I be sure we'll overcome him?"
Shale sighed. He didn't know how to reassure Karl this time. He opened his mouth to say something, but another voice cut him off.
Karl and Shale turned around to see Dusty's ginormous, green hide approching them. The alligator had a roughly built sword at his side, and an equally cobbled-together gun in the other hand.
"Boat's almost there. You boys... okay?" He asked. His normally booming voice was dimmed, hesitant. It fit him about as well as a three-piece suit did, which was not very well. He looked from coyote to rat, and then forced his usual dopey grin onto his features.
"Don't worry about anythin', boys. It'll be easy, jus' like any other day. Just another obstacle we gonna dust, eh?"
Shale grinned, scratching his ears. "Of course, Dust. We've got you for a moving shield this time around."
Dusty feigned looking indignant, then burst into racous laughter, his enormous belly rolling with each gaffaw.
"'Ey, that's right, that is! Nothin' can take me down, so long as I have you lot to protect!"
He tried to gently pat Karl on the shoulder reassuringly, nearly sending him over the edge of the boat, before stomping off elsewhere. Shale also placed a hand on his son's arm, before walking away to join Pierce up on the deck.
Karl watched his father walk away, and shook his head. Everyone had unanimously decided to join this, decidedly, heroic mission. Karl, Rookie, Shale and Peirce, Dusty, Kara, Hustle and Alex... Even Overhead, Alex's lumbering robot choose to join them.
Karl couldn't wrap his mind around why they choose to come. It wasn't their fight to wage, they had lives beyond this pointless feud between a dying society and its sole defectors. But they ignored his pleas and came with him.
Karl sighed. It was foolish of him to have tried to stop them. They all treated this like war. In a way, it was. A secret war, just them, against impossible odds.
Karl looked at himself one last time in the water. Pale fur, red eyes, that damned ear tag, and the same shirt and pants he wore since he had escaped from the submarine all those years ago. He felt stuck in the past. Seeing the submarine becoming larger and larger as they approached the surfaced vehicle didn't alleviate that feeling.
He joined the rest of the group on the main deck, hiding behind Dusty while he listened to Hustle explain what the plan was once more.
He scanned the group, ticking off each animal he saw.
Rookie, his sister, tapping a long, curved sword on the deck impatiently, her hood flared out. The cobra's golden scales shone in the light, as did her eyes, black as night.
Pierce, his mother, sharpening her cutlass and observing everyone in silence. The sphinx cat found Karl, and nodded curtly.
Kara, the hare, white-knuckling the combat vest she wore. He still couldn't get past the unnatural, curved fangs she had jutting out of her mouth like tusks. 'Enamel disorder,' she had told him.
Hustle, a fellow rodent, speaking to the group. His rough, gravelly voice betrayed the months of going clean off cigarettes with the years he had already spent burning his lungs with the stuff. He flicked a lighter on and off in his hands, an old habit born from nerves. He caught himself, and stuffed it into the pocket on the front of his welding apron.
Alex, the manx cat, grey furred like Hustle, her own welding goggles pulled over her eyes, wrench clasped tight in a gloved hand. She hadn't bothered to change out of her working clothes since boarding the boat, pouches and toolbelts still clanking with her steps. Copious amounts of fur fell over the goggles, over her shoulders, and Karl worried she would get caught by it when time came for battle.
Overhead, the collossal robot Alex had built, stood next to her on guard. The misshapen automaton gazed stupidly at Hustle with empty sockets, a single cobbled arm weighing down one side of the already assymetrical machine.
Dusty, still wearing that stained undershirt and cargo shorts. Eating a sandwich like usual. And Shale, greying around the edges, wearing the same old green sweater and khaki pants, a single revolver holstered at his side.
This was it. The only animals standing between Gradus, and Egon's final bid.
The mercenaries and the rodents stood together on the last flat deck on the submarine's surface. A single, oversized pole draped in cables and batteries, stuck out of the sub like antennae on a cricket. Sparks shot out of the very tip, and the submarine rumbled as its turbines worked overtime to bring enough power to the device.
”So, brother. This will be the cataclsyt of a new age?" Heidi asked him while she assembled her pistol.
"Indeed, dear sister." He replied. "This machine, this engine, will bring our moon to the planet's surface. Drastic weather, higher tides, and meteors will wipe out most of the continental societies. And then, we shall clean up the rest."
"Hopefully, our submarine isn't struck by any falling meteorites..." Heidi said under her breath. Egon pretended not to hear her.
Everything was nearly ready. Roxie, Vincent, and the other hired guns stood near the railing, watching the approaching boat with eagerness. Egon did not blame them, in fact he too was eager. Eager to see the runt's life drain out of his eyes, as he saw the inevitable occuring without hope of stopping it.
Yes, he could not wait either.
"Hey, Egon?" Roxie called out to him, turning away from the boat. "How do you know this machine isn't going to kill us all too?"
"I've already prepared for that, Roxanne. We will descend with the submarine and wait out the armageddon." Egon explained with the air of someone with more important things to do. "If you don't like the idea of staying at hotel rodentia, you are free to use an emergency craft to leave."
Roxie pretended to contemplate the offer, tapping the machete against her chin. "Ooh, that sounds just lovely, doesn't it? But I think I'll take my chances sticking with you in the sub. How bad could it get, anyway?"
Heidi shouted, "Incoming!" just as the ship, and all its occupants, hit the side of the submarine. Steel ground against steel, the noise felt deep within their bones, rattling their teeth. Seawater was sent up, then cascaded in one solid wall onto the deck. Egon felt his hands clench reflexively, his gauntlets thrumming with restrained energy.
Heidi drew her pistol from its holster, tapping at her watch. It blinked with a brilliant glow, then her body morphed, and melted into the background. Roxie drew her machete with one hand, flexing her wrist to feel its weight. Vincent drew out a knife with one hand, and a borrowed pistol in the other. His fangs flexed like foul white fingers.
"Ready yourself!" Egon howled, already approaching the ship.
The arriving ship's loading bay fell open, and from it came four invaders. The monstrously large robot was first to appear. Clobbered together with what looked like scraps and ran on what Egon could only imagine was pure hope, it lumbered forward, ducking under a singularly large arm to take incoming fire.
Egon dove for cover, allowing his troops to return gunfire. Projectiles and laserfire scored the deck, some from the rodent soldiers, some from the Owens. Roxie fired at Overhead, blue lasers flashing from her rifle and exploding across the robot's face.
Heidi scanned the scene from her hiding spot, almost drawing her pistol out. She paused. Why only four of the Owens and their robot? Something was up.
Still invisible, she stepped back, taking a separate hatch back into the sub. She flicked her radio to alert the rodents inside the sub.
"We've got intruders inside the ship. Get all available men with weapons to the reactors now!" She shouted.
"This plan sucks, Hustle!" Alex growled at him, pounding down the cramped halls inside the sub behind him. "We should be topside, fighting with the boss and the rest of them!"
"We have no guns. We'd just be in the way." Replied Hustle. He slowed down at a crossroads, checking both lanes before heading left. "We've got to shut down this ship before that device activates anyway. They're just there to keep Egon and his boys busy."
"Ain't right, s'all I'm saying." Alex groused. "None of this is right. Kara, any word on-?"
"Nothing yet." The hare responded in a half-whisper. Her ears were stiff and alert, hands clenching and unclenching with the pounding of adrenaline in her head. "Are we close to the reactor?"
"Yeah." Hustle said, checking the valve on his welding torch. "Last I remember, there were two reactors that we gotta shut down. Me, Alex, Rookie, we'll take the aftmost reactor. Karl, Kara, foremost. Should be a straight, clear course from here."
Hustle nodded to Karl, who nodded back. He looked at his sister, who smiled at him. "Don't worry. After this, we'll get some sandwiches at uncle Dusty's. Like normal."
"...Yeah. Like normal." Karl said, trying to put a brave front for her. "Good luck."
The five parted ways, heading down separate hallways towards their targets.
At the same time, Heidi was rushing down the stairs to the engineering deck with a dozen armed rodents left over from the reserves. "Hurry the hell up!" she shouted, checking the chamber of her pistol. "They could be anywhere!"
Suddenly, her radio squawked on her hip. "Miss Heidi!" The voice on the other end shouted. "They've killed some of the engineers on the halls towards the reactors! We've got them on the cameras!"
Heidi could feel her face heating up, and the noise dimmed in her ears. She was losing composure. Nothing had happened yet, she told herself. This mission was not yet over. "Perhaps you should stop them then," she growled.
"Keep firing! Don't let them advance!" Egon ordered. He had ripped off a sheet of metal and was holding it front and center like a shield, absorbing fire. The firefight hadn't been in the rodent's favor, with the Owens making headway across the deck and towards the tower. Many of his men lay dead in puddles of crimson, baking in the heat.
The sweet, sickly smell of their bodies thickened the air more than any bullets. How could he be losing to three animals?
Roxie and Vincent were with him, ducking behind the improvised shield. Both had run out of ammunition already. The same was coming for the Owens.
"Dammit, outta rounds!" Shale spat, holstering his pistol. "Dusty, you got anything?"
"Nah!" He shouted back. "We're back in the good 'ol days, fighting the way the Guardian intended!"
"Tell that to the rats!"
"Oh, I plan on it!"
One last crack of the musket, and Pierce tossed it aside, drawing her cutlass. She looked over to her husband, and to Dusty, and then back at the approaching wall that was Egon's cover. ‘G-O-I-N-G T-O S-H-I-T.’ She signed quickly.
Overhead had long since fallen. Bullet holes riddled his chest, face, and arm, smoke poured from the engine chassis in black plumes. The end was approaching steadily, Pierce thought to herself.
"So, we jsut waiting for those three gits to get close or what?" Dusty called to Shale.
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "...Yeah. Yeah, mostly.." Come on, kids, he whispered to himself, shut down that damn thing...
"Alright, we're here." Hustle gasped, trying to force air back into his burnt, atropied lungs. "Rookie, seal that bulkhead. Alex, help me get this panel open."
"Aye."
The first reactor room was unbearably hot. The oversized engine was being run to its limits, thunderous noise worming through Hustle's ears. He could just barely see where the panel that he needed to cut through was, with the dim red emergency lights overhead.
Being back in this room, Hustle was awash with nostalgia and vitriol. At least he wouldn't have to see it ever again after today.
He flicked the switch on his torch, and its blue flame lit up his face. Smiling, he lowered his welding mask and began to draw a square into the panel. God, how long had it been since he'd burned something? He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to hear a welding torch burn through something again.
Karl and Kara didn't fare so well with their reactor. A welcoming party of five rodents was blocking the doorway. Two of them were sealing the door with welding tools, the other three firing at them.
Their aim was terrible, but the close hallways made ricocheting bullets just as dangerous.
The hare and the rat hid behind opposite corners, ducking from the incoming fire. Karl cradled a boxy object to his chest, wiping sweat from his brow. Kara looked equally uneasy.
"So, tell me that shield of yours can reflect bullets?" Karl asked. His voice was eerily calm as he spoke, none of the usual stammering or nervousness in his speech that Kara was used to.
"...Unless you wish to use that bomb of yours to kill them all, a head-on assault is rather unwise." Kara said, peeking out momentarily, and just as quickly yanked her head back. A hailstorm of bullets whizzed by where her head was just at.
"Not like you to tell me what's wise and unwise, Kara." Karl said with a chuckle. "I thought it would be right up your alley, deflecting bullets and such with your shield."
"I would, if we had someone to fire back at them too. Can't you make another bomb?"
"Not enough time. And I ran out of material too. Maybe-"
A sudden boom shook the entire boat, knocking all of them off balance. Alarms blared overhead, and the red emergency lights flickered on. Kara seized her chance, scrambling back up to her feet and down the hallway, Karl following close behind. She threw her shield, sending it flying right into the nearest rat's head with a crunch. More shuddering explosions rocked the sub while Kara wrenched the pistol from the unconscious body, firing twice at the other armed rat. Blood arced from the fresh hole in his chest as he fell, and the last two rats who had sealed the door shut raised their hands in surrender.
Kara, still holding the pistol in her hand, glanced at the two engineers on the floor.
"What about them?" she asked, waving the pistol in their direction. Karl looked over, and spoke to them in rodent. They scrambled to their feet and dashed off.
"You aren't worried about them coming back?"
Karl shrugged, grabbing one of the discarded torches to melt the seal on the door.
"There will be more of them heading for us regardless. I'm more worried about our situation if we don't hurry up and get off this boat."
Suddenly, the entire ship began to shudder and groan. Karl looked around worriedly, as did Kara. The inside of the ship suddenly felt much heavier, like the air itself was being pulled back towards the ocean.
"Like now."
"You didn't!" Heidi shouted into her radio. Sections of the ship were starting to break apart at the seams, rivets and bolts popping out of the steel. "Egon, what did you do?!"
Egon's voice came through a cloud of static, calm despite the sounds of chaos and upheaval on his end. "I did what was necessary, sister. You should head to a lifeboat now."
"No! You damn fool! This will kill us all! There isn't enough power to sustain-" Heidi began, before another seam broke inside. The staircase she was descending began to shred, forcing her to jump to the lower level. She landed hard, dropping her pistol and radio on the floor. She lunged for the radio first, letting her gun tumble away and clatter on the pipes as it fell.
"Egon!" She shouted again, dragging herself to her feet, forcing herself to run. "Where are you?"
There was a pause before Egon spoke again. heidi could hear him struggling to speak between breaths now. "I am- was-, on the deck. I'm unsure of my location now. The ship fractured when the portal opened."
"Can you get to a lifeboat?" She pressed.
"...No. Not in this moment. Just leave the ship now. I will handle myself."
Egon cut his connection before Heidi could talk sense into her mad brother, and she silently fumed to herself.
She was running out of time now. The ceiling was starting to peel away like bad paint, exposing the red sky to her sensitive eyes.
"Red?" She muttered to herself. The sky was a harsh, blood-red color, and right there, like the rotten corona of an eye, was a portal drawing everything in the vicinity towards it. She swore to herself as chunks of the submarine floated up to the portal, swallowed up by the darkness.
Heidi forced her gaze away from the sight, suddenly feeling very weak. Her brother had just killed them all. She could see and hear her fellow rodents being drawn up into the portal along with the debris from the ship.
Jumping ship had seemed like a good idea until she saw three rodents try to do exactly that, only to be drawn towards the portal anyway.
Lifeboat. Lifeboat, now, she thought.
"Damn it! Fucking hell- Fuck!" Alex shouted, dangling precariously from a single exposed pipe. "What the bloody hell just happened?!"
Hustle groaned, feeling sweat collecitng underneath his gloves. "Egon's activated that tower early. It hit the fan."
Rookie tightened her coils around Hustle's torso, gazing up at the portal above with equal parts curiosity and fear.
"Karl and Kara haven't finished with the other generator, right? Can't we still stop it?" She shouted to Hustle.
"...Yeah. Yeah, of course." Hustle responded, looking around at the hailstorm of metal around them. The pipe they all held onto made a horrendous groan, and bent further towards the portal. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.
"For all our sakes."
Karl and Kara sprinted down a disintegrating corridor, nicked by flying metal on their faces and skin. No matter how fast they seemed to run, the sky and sea below them kept with them. Funnily enough, Karl could swear that the sea was getting bigger with each second.
"Karl..." Kara panted, pointing a finger ahead. "What is that?"
He looked up, and saw the portal in the sky. His heart stopped for a beat, and he stumbled on his next step. He could see great swaths of the ship being torn off like paper, crumpling to fit through the portal with an agonized squeal.
"Ah, no... no, no, no!" Karl screamed. "What has that fool done?!"
"Only what had to be done!" Came a voice from overhead. Kara looked up too late, as Egon suddenly dropped down from his perch, landing in front of them. The hallway shook and began to spin up and over itself, towards the portal.
"Go Karl, I'll deal with him!" Kara said gleefully. She drew her shield from her back, licking her lips. "Go, Karl!"
Karl stood there, half frozen in fear. He couldn't will his legs to move, only to watch Egon striding towards them. Behind them, the hallway had disintegrated to open air and sea.
Egon scoffed, his hands clenching then unclenching. "Please. This is a family matter, hare. See yourself out!"
Egon lunged forwards, one hand outstretched. Kara prepared to take the punch, bracing against her shield. But instead of feeling the blow connect, metal against metal, she felt herself become lighter.
Egon had grabbed the sides of her shield, hoisted her over his head, and promptly threw her into the sky. Egon watched her sail in an arc towards the ocean, then arcing back towards the portal. He watched her try to fight against the portal's gravity helplessly, watched her be swallowed up by the darkess.
"...Interesting. Not quite the result I expected." Egon said to himself, looking back at Karl, who had turned a shade paler at the sight of Kara dissapearing into the portal. "No matter. It will be your turn now."
"Do you think this will actualy work in your favor, Egon?" Karl asked. "We're all going to die here. And for nothing."
Egon's face twisted into an ugly scowl.
"Not for nothing. It will not be for nothing." Another step forward. Karl's eye flicked between Egon and the portal above.
Egon lunged for Karl, who simultaneously leapt away from the crumbling hallway. He hung, suspended in midair for the briefest of moments, before he could feel inertia pulling him upwards. A sudden weight then brought him back, where he saw Egon's hand clenched around his calf.
Karl's eyes widened in panic, and he kicked and swiped at Egon, trying to force him to let go.
All the while, the portal continued to attract everything towards it.
Karl's foot connected with Egon's eye, and he let go for a moment to howl in pain. He spun in midair, the odd feeling of weightlessness twisting his stomach. Thw world around him blurred into shades of blue and gray, and trying to pick out anything discernible was a nightmare.
And then, he felt his ears go cold, followed by his head, aand his torso. He looked up, or whatever direction could be served as up, and saw...
Beauty. A carpet of white clouds covering a shining blue ocean. This couldn't be Tarvus, could it?
He focused on the view of the planet before him, and saw four, perhaps more landmasses scattered across this ocean. He could see high, stony mountains clawing though the clouds, wide stretches of pale desert, and more shades of green than he knew were possible to see.
He kept staring at the sight until something hard and cold connected with his head. The ship's debris was being pulled toward this planet, he saw. Another chunk of metal slammed into his neck, and he watched it fly off and start to burn up in the sky.
It was the last thing he saw before he succumbed to unconsciousness. His ship, his people, everything, falling, burning, nothing but dust.