🚀 go-pugleaf

     "Look, dammit, I'm getting about ready to hurt you."
     "I'm sorry, but I have my orders! No civ-"
     "Piss off!" Roger screamed into the face of the TONNGuard in front
of him, "I'll look after my own safety, thank you _very_ much. C'mon,
guys."
     "Look, if they're already fighting, why don't we go, get something
to eat, and _then_ come back?" Fractalman suggested.
     *You aren't going anywhere.* said a voice. A blue, glowing shield
snapped into being, starting just behind Force Ten and completely
surrounding the entire battlefield.
     Ultima appeared, scattering the TONNGuards, who deserted their
posts in terror. Three Royal Command Battler Specials landed behind her,
their armaments gleaming lethally.
     "Oooh, dramatic." Prizm commented.
     "I give her an...uhm... 8.3" Burnout offered.
     *Laugh all you want!* Ultima shouted in their minds, *I...AM...
_ULTIMA_!*
     Roger gasped. "You're the one Shannon was talking about! The one
with all the weird powers!"
     *Weird?! Ok, that tears it! You will be the first victims of my
'weird powers'!*
     "Oooh, scary scary, don't we look _mean_." Burnout deadpanned.
     "Burnout! Look out, she isn't kidding!!" shouted the Red Bandit,
running from the woods. Ultima raised her hand, and before the Force
Tenners could react, a blast of energy obliterated the Bandit and
Burnout.
     "You... you... you _killed_ them!" Fractalman gasped. Behind them,
Sanka and Shannon struggled to get the Killer RV turned correctly so as
to bring its' armaments to bear.
     *Hmm... Whoops, did I use the teleport or disintigrate utility? Ah,
who cares. Troops? Kill.*
     "YOU KILLED THEM!!! RRRRAAAA!!!" Roger roared, launching into the
air on powered thrust.
     Marie and Wayne stepped forward to the attack, the muzzles of their
plasma cannons glowing hellishly as they charged.
     The Invid fired, flurries of annihilation disks spiralling towards
the Killer RV. Roger saw it on his rear-viewer, started to shout a
warning to Shannon and Sanka...
     The discs exploded, yards from the RV, doing no damage to it
(although they did blow up quite a bit of scenery).
     "Where..." Roger pondered, "...did that giant boom-box come from?!"

                    FORCE TEN EPISODE FORTY-ONE
                    The Final Battle, part One
                         by Jesse Taylor

     "Never give up, never slow down, never grow up, and never, ever
      die young..."     - James Taylor

<----->

     "OOOOoooh!" Prizm clapped, "You guys get a '9' for that entrance!"
     "Thanks!" Burnout said, smiling grimly. Seemingly out of nowhere
(although they actually just beamed in before Ultima brought the shield
up) she had appeared, flanked by Tealeaf, Melbaman and Ha'Veluri.
Floating above the Killer RV was a small, somewhat imposing, and
inexplicably boom-box-shaped Sonyite spaceship which had been loaned to
Ha'Veluri by Ixnay and Onay after they had landed on his old ship. In
its' cockpit, Check Off retracted the ship's fields from around the
Killer RV, having preventing the vehicle's destruction. Standing over
the two heroes, one heroine and one alien, was the massive, black-
painted form of the Shadow Beta, which struck a dramatic, anime-like
pose as it flicked off the four Invid.
     "I believe..." Ultima said, noting the change in the tactical
situation, "I believe that it is time to make a withdrawal..."
     "Like, uhm.. what?" Wayne asked.
     "RUN AWAY!" Marie and Garth shouted as the Beta and the Sonyite
ship opened fire. The four Invid vanished in a puff of energy.
     "What... I just saw you go 'pif'!" Roger gaped, hurrying over to
Burnout.
     "It's a long story." Burnout shrugged. "Look, Ultima is more
powerful than you think -- unless we blow up that Hive thingy of hers,
she's going to destroy the entire world!!"
     Roger's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?"
     "Yes! Look... I can explain everything, but it'll take time that we
just don't have!" Burnout insisted. "Look, I can explain on the way, but
we've got to get in there, and now!"
     Roger paused. "Ok, then. Let's do it!"

<----->

     "This is unbelievable!!" Morgan raged, as the vid-monitor displayed
yet another of her ships being blown up by the Invids' main gun. "We've
poured enough fire into that Hive to annihilate the entire east coast!
I'm down to two ships!!"
     "Energy emissions from the enemy are peaking!" shouted a tech.
Morgan and Gerbre looked up to see a glowing blue field appear,
surrounding the entire battlefield.
     "Communications status?!" Gerbre shouted.
     "W-we've lost our connections to positions outside the field! I
can't re-establish!" shouted a comm operator.
     "Damn." Gerbre grumbled, sitting down in his Kirk-style command
chair and pressing a random button. "Gerbre to R&D Command.. Deploy P
unit! Repeat, P Unit deploy!"
     "This is pointless..." Morgan shouted, storming out of the command
center. Gerbre breathed a sigh of relief as she left -- however
'inspirational' to the troops it might be to have her here, she
constantly complained about everything.. and who knew where her true
goals lay?
     "Shana! You're in command! I'm going down to Intel Division and see
if we can come up with some way of beating those bastards!"
     "Right, Sir!"

<----->

     Ray Sterling eased his Alpha Fighter through some banks and turns
as he flew towards... Well, actually he was just sort of flying. He was
trying to delay leaving the Earth for a few more minutes. Eventually,
though, he would have to activate the Dimension Gate and be on his way.
     Ray blinked, noticing a red, bleeping display on his controls -- it
was one of the new systems Jake had installed -- the Protoculture
Sensor. Odd.. It showed massive amounts of Protoculture discharges to
the south... The Invid must be up to something!
     Almost grateful to his old enemies for giving him an excuse to stay
longer, Ray turned the Veritech south and maxed the engines. Just one
more heroic battle, and then he would be off...

<----->

     Roger advanced through the forest, only occasionally having to use
his weapons on the TONNGuard units that popped up here and there. The
fact that he was backed up on the left by Ha'Veluri, the 6 foot, 6 inch
tall felinoid alien who was carrying a gun large enough to classify as a
light artillery piece, and wearing battlearmor that almost screamed 'go
ahead. shoot. i can take it.' and backed up on his right by Burnout, a
nimbus of flames surrounding her body, occasionally lashing out at
errant TONNGuards, probably had something to do with it. Only one unit,
a platoon of TONN special forces FEMSquad commandoes, had tried to block
their passage -- Roger hoped they hadn't been _too_ badly hurt, since
they were kinda cute when they were mad. It would have been easier if
they could have used the teleporters on Ha'Veluri's ship, but the
interference from the Invids' force field made teleportation an iffy
thing.
     "Here comes some more!" Ha'Veluri said suddenly, sniffing the air.
The three stopped, and listened, but the noise of the Killer RV as it
pulled up behind them drowned out whatever the alien had heard.
     "This is great!" Fractalman grinned. "We don't have to do
anything!"
     "Got any.. fours?" Melbaman asked.
     "Go fish!" TeaLeaf said absently. Sanka spun the cupola turret
around in a bored fashion.
     "UWAAAAAAH!" screamed about ten TONNGuards as they ran straight at
Roger.
     "Wait!" Burnout said, stopping Roger and Ha'Veluri from blowing
them away. The TONN soldiers ignored Force Ten, and fled on by,
dissappearing into the woods. "Invid mecha!" she exclaimed, as the
massive form of an Invid Shock Trooper ripped a tree out of its' way,
advancing towards them. Two of its' comerades came from the sides,
streams of annihilation disks annihilating foliage as they tried to
shoot Force Ten.
     "Hmph. I hate it when this happens." Fractalman grumbled, putting
down his book. Prizm and Cholesterol Man jumped out of the inside of the
RV, while Melbaman and Tealeaf sighed and tossed down their cards.
     "Air support!" Roger shouted into his radio. He heard the reply,
wondering again why the pilot sounded so much like the Red Bandit, as he
leaped into the air, his arm-mounted guns humming to life. Twin lasers
gouged pits along one of the Shock Troopers' torso plate, as a gauss
macroflechette blew out its' sensor eye, causing the unit to explode
prettily. Ha'Veluri growled, whipping his gun up and blowing a hole
through the lead Trooper. Burnout and the rest of Force Ten concentrated
on the other one -- razor-sharp slices of Melba Toast tore through the
control lines for the Invid's shoulder-mounted plasma cannons, and Sanka
burned out its' eye with the turret-laser of the RV.
     Fractalman looked up, as the black shape of the Shadow Beta and the
boxy shape of the Sonyite ship swooped overhead. "Kick some butt, guys!"

     On board the Sonyite ship, Check Off blinked at the displays. "Hm.
Weird energy readingz..."
     "Those are the same readings as the big cannons on the Invid ships
gave off..." commented the Beta's pilot over the comm-link. "I.. SHIT!
EVASIVE!!"
     "Huh? Aiiii!!"

     "Check Off!!" Ha'Veluri shouted, as a massive beam of energy spat
from the Invid Hive and obliterated the Sonyite ship -- a second beam
narrowly missed the Shadowfighter.
     "It would appear that we've gotten their attention." Fractalman
commented, as several dozen Invid mecha appeared out of thin air and
attacked.

<----->

     An Invid Pincer Command Unit stood, its' two shoulder-mounted Heat-
Ray Cannons sparking with hellish energy. It had just finished ripping
apart an Armored Personnel Carrier, and had located its' next targets.
If it had eyebrows, it would have raised them as it looked at the five
humans who confronted it.
     "I can't believe I got roped into this..." Ms. Coffee complained,
"I'm missing my soap operas!"
     "Hey, it's a living." commented one of the two twins who stood next
to her. "And the Johnson Brothers, villainous henchmen extraordinaire,
are..."
     "...really annoying." interrupted a girl, elbowing the other
Johnson Brother. She chewed determinedly away at her gum, tossing her
dyed-blue hair out of her eyes. "C'mon, can we get fighting, already? I
wanna try out the mods the TONN R&D dudes did!"
     "Doesn't that guy..."
     "...get a line?" the Johnson Brothers asked, pointing at the
hulking person next to the girl.
     "Huh? Hell(tm), I don't even know what his name is. I hain't even
seen him before the briefing; I think the R&D weenies brought him up out
of some sub-sub-basement ta join the P-Unit."
     The Pincer tapped its' foot, impatiently.
     "All right, all right..." Ms. Coffee grumbled, "We haven't
forgotten about you!"
     "Feel the wrath..."
     "...of Johnson & Johnson!" shouted the Johnson Brothers, streams of
skin-care products issuing forth from their hands and splattering on the
Pincer Unit. It looked about as amused as a sluglike alien locked inside
a 7-meter tall suit of combat armor could.
     "You guys suck!" the girl grumbled, making a fist. She
concentrated, feeling the power flow. "Feel the power of... Bomber
Babe!"
     The Pincer Unit slapped the location where its' forehead would have
been with a massive claw. Ms. Coffee fired, several explosive coffee
beans detonated on its' armored 'skin'.
     "Uhm... Run away!" the Johnson Brothers chorused, fleeing.
     "I hate to tell you this..." Ms. Coffee said in a complaining sort
of voice to Bomber Babe, "But nothing happened."
     There was a whistling noise from overhead.
     "Hunh?" Ms. Coffee, Bomber Babe, and the Invid Mech chorused. All
three were flung to the ground as a massive bomb, looking like something
out of one of the old World War movies, slammed into the ground, tossing
up a massive spray of debris.
     "You stupid kid!" Ms. Coffee griped, using the antigrav device
installed in her walker to get back to her feet. "I don't feel like
dying (again)!"
     "death..." whispered the nameless hulking guy. "All around... feel
their lives ebb.... DEATH!"
     "Uhmm... Mitchell!" Bomber Babe exclaimed, turning and running as
the Invid Mech hauled itself to its' feet.

CONTINUED IN PART TWO...