by
Cynthia Chan
"HA HA HA HA!!!" cried an exuberant Mother Brain in her room. "When this time warp is finished, all our problems with the N Team will be gone!!"
"Yes, that, and the N Team as well!!" chuckled Angela, who was surveying the renovations being done to Metroid. "Hey, Doctor!" she called to Dr. Wily, the head of the science department.
"What do you want, woman? I'm busy!!" he called back.
"Perhaps it's time for a refresher course," Angela shot back, "or would you like to have me introduce to you the graduates from my warrior school? I hear they graduated with top honours, and you know how good my school is."
Wily shuddered. He knew those students had razor-sharp skills, and were armed to the teeth with magic. "All right!! All right!! I'll show you!!" He walked to the machine and revealed it from under a blanket. It was red and pulsing with energy. "This is the TW-2000. TW stands for 'Time Warp'. You just step right in and it will lock you in a time warp for a time period ranging from 1 second to infinity! I plan to use it on the N Team, for infinity, of course!!"
"And the drawbacks?"
"You can only send up to a maximum of six people to a time warp, and then it needs 24 hours to recharge. At infinity setting, that is."
"Great! THE N-TEAM HAS MORE THAN SIX MEMBERS, DR. IDIOT!!" shouted Mother Brain, grabbing Wily with one of her tentacles and hanging him upside-down in the air. "How are we supposed to get six of them in there, while keeping the rest at bay?"
"Put me down, and I'll show you the answer!" gasped Wily. Mother Brain dropped him on the floor. Angela laughed, pointing at Wily.
"This is the portable dungeon, that I and my team were finishing as part of Metroid's renovations plan," he dusted himself off. "It can hold up to 20 people, and it's made of adamaantium metals so no one can break through it!" He held up a silver box, and pulled the string. The box expanded to become a massive, grey metal dungeon with 3-metre thick glass and metal walls. Then Wily tossed a huge piece of junk in there, closed the box, and pressed a red button. The dungeon shrank into a tiny box again, and the string appeared at its right. He jiggled the box, and the noise of the junk could be heard. "It even comes with infinite life support, so we can keep them alive and tortured for as long as we want!!"
"Excellent!" cried Mother Brain. "Let's find some N Team nitwits to try that baby on!!" She pointed to the time warp, and everyone laughed evilly.
"All right! Get ready to rock!" cried Alex as he jammed on his electric guitar. An E chord strung its way out of the room he shared with Simon and Armand. His roommates winced in pain.
"You could at least have the decency to keep that blasted music down!!!" shouted Simon above the noise. Alex just kept playing.
"Aww, come on, guys!! What's a little music, huh?" He played an F chord, equally painful to the ear.
"If you ask me," whisphered Armand to Simon as they huddled in a corner in their room, "Her Majesty should have heeded our warnings and should NOT have let Mr. Party Man install the amplifiers here!"
"If you ask ME," answered Simon, "he's worse than the original Captain N!!! At least he never played any music in this room with me!"
"What's up with you guys??" asked Alex, stopping the music, momentarily. "Mr. Guitar just wants to play!" He put on the puppy face, which disgusted his roommates.
"Alex, if you don't stop this madness now, I'll have no choice but to introduce Mr. Guitar to Mr. Hammer and Mr. Whip!" Armand wielded his hammer, and Simon wielded his whip.
"Aww, you guys are no fun at all!!" Alex put down his guitar, which was black with steel strings.
"Um, boys," Lana popped her head through the open door, "are you done playing? Because we've got a real emergency that needs some grown-up help right now!"
"On my way, Your Lovliness!" answered Simon, with Alex mimicking him with his hands behind his back. Armand shoved him forward and marched on.
"Queen Lana!" boasted Mother Brain on the viewer as soon as she and the boys got there. "I've decided to start peace negotiations with you, and to honour that, I'm throwing a party in your honour at the Megaland Convention Center. It's at 7:00pm, tonight! What do you say?"
"I say you're up to something, Mother Brain!" retorted the Queen. "Unless I have proof of your suggestion, I cannot go to the party. I don't want to end up walking into another trap!"
"Oh, I assure you it's no trap at all! I will be there with my people, and you will be there with yours! Sounds fair enough!"
"It sure seems fair. I'll check back with you later." She turned off the viewer.
"No way, Lana!" Keisha warned her. "There's no way you can go there, without her doing something bad to you!"
"She's right, Your Majesty," agreed Armina. "We can't go. Who knows what she might cook up for us when we're there?"
"This matter requires serious consideration, Lana," said Roberta.
"Yeah, you never know who's gonna be there!" Sandra chipped in.
"You're too important for us to lose, Lana," commented Carrie.
"This offer is too dangerous!" shouted Armand. "You could get killed!"
"I agree with that!" piped Greg, and Mega Man nodded in agreement.
Looking around, Alex saw faces of disapproval. "I think I speak for everyone when I say, 'Screw it!'"
"Look, you guys," shot the Queen, "this is for business only. I don't like it as much as you do, but I have to see if she really is telling the truth! The only way for me to do that is for us to go to the party and see for ourselves."
"The TRUTH? Mother Brain?" laughed Alex. "I don't think so!"
Lana turned to face him. "If you don't agree with me, Alex, that's fine. However, there is that slight chance that what she's saying about a truce may be true. Either she's surrendered or she's up to something, but we can't know unless we go there. Now, are you all with me or not?"
"If you say so," shrugged Carrie, "but you're making a big mistake."
"Trust me."
At the Megaland Convention Centre...
"Your Majesty!" cried a smiling Mother Brain, "how WONDERFUL it is to have you here!"
"Yeah. Likewise," sighed the Queen in a shiny black dress and matching flats. She wore a silver crown, studded with diamonds, the one she always wore to parties since her coronation.
"You aren't so happy!" said Mother Brain, seeming quite concerned.
"Think of it, Mother Brain. For so long, you have been trying to rule Videoland, and now you want peace. I'm just having a hard time getting used to all this!"
"I know I've been selfish for too long, Your Majesty," cooed the brain, "but I assure you, everything's all changed! You're seeing a new Mother Brain now!" She wheeled away to a secret room.
"A new and IMPROVED Mother Brain, that is, if those two kooks don't mess everything up between now and tomorrow!" She turned to a viewer. "Wily!! Aino!!" The two scientists appeared on the screen.
"You called, Mother Brain?" asked Angela.
"Have that time warp ready before the big closing!! I'll try to stall the party, while you both get here on time!"
"Understood." The screen went blank.
"Damn! I wish King Hippo and that Wizard were here, instead of incompetents that call themselves scientists! At least they grovelled at my base!"
Later...
Keisha, in a golden gown, was dancing with Luke for the party's final dance, while Armina sashayed her blue dress around Simon Belmont, and Alex and Sandra whooped it up in white outfits. Roberta and Dr. Right were having an intelligent discussion on the Theory of Relativity, and Carrie surveyed the dance floor for available cute guys. Armand and Lana wound up as the centre of attention, waltzing together and both oblivious to the outside world.
"You know, it's almost as though this were just another ball," commented Armand. "All those lights, that music -- it's as though we're just here to have fun."
"But you're here, too," replied the Queen, "and you're dancing with me, the Queen, so it should make this dance feel quite -- special." They kissed. It was long and sweet.
When the dance was over, Mother Brain had a special announcement: "I would like to present to you, Your Majesty, this dimensional traveller!!" She unveiled the time warp. Everyone was awed. "As an apology present for screwing with your lives since 1982, this device can take you to any world you want!! You name it, it goes there!"
"Thank you, Mother Brain, and I accept your apology. It means so much to me," She stepped into the machine.
"Wait!!" she cried. "This machine can also take five of your friends with you! You sure don't want them to miss out, do you?"
"No," Lana hesitated, "I wouldn't. Any one of you coming?"
"I don't know," said Keisha. "It could be a trap!" The Defenders nodded in agreement.
"Simon Belmont can tackle any trap he meets!" He barged into the machine. "Don't worry, Your Queenliness!! Simon Belmont will protect you!!"
"If Simon's going, then we better go," Mega Man nudged Kid Icarus.
"Right-icus! We don't want the Queen to be in more trouble than she already is!" They marched inside, with Duke and Gameboy following. Mother Brain shut the gate.
"And now, you will all witness their first destination," she bellowed to the others, "right into a time warp that they'll never escape!!!"
Everyone gasped.
"You tricked us!" cried Keisha. "I knew it was a trap!!"
"Yup, and you're next!" she disappeared. Soon it was: "Is it just me, or is the entire room getting bigger?"
"Uh-oh..," said Armina, "I think we're getting smaller!"
"That's correct!" boomed Wily's voice on the PA system.
"Thanks to my new portable dungeon, there's no way you all can escape!!! Now your friends are stuck in a time warp forever, no one can rescue you!!!" Silence.
"There has to be a way out!" reasoned Keisha. "He must want to put us in that machine, too, but he can't today!"
"If my guess is correct," Roberta analyzed the situation, "the energy source of the warp must be an energon crystal. It must be the only thing that can power the warp. I could tell by the blue light that emitted from the machine."
"And?" asked Carrie. "What's energon got to do with all this?"
"Energon crystals need a full day to recharge once used, and if I'm not mistaken, there's only few of it left in Videoland. That means that Mother Brain has to save all the resources that she has in order to get the machine to work."
"Then we have one day to get out and rescue them, before the machine can get us, too!" announced Sandra. "You all with me?"
"YES!!!" The cry could be heard from all over the room.
"All right!" shouted Armina. "Let's get moving!!!"
"Look at them!" cooed Mother Brain, watching the people try to get out of the dungeon. "Those poor souls!!"
"Hey, Wily, got the destination for our captives?" asked Angela.
"Yes," answered the doctor. "They're headed for 1989, where they will be unable to anything, while we take over Videoland!"
"Excellent!" the brain smiled. "Let's get moving!"
Wily turned on the switch, and screams could be heard from the Centre, both from the warp and from the box-like dungeon. "You know," he said to the women, "once the warp is activated, and we have sent them back in time, the time part will open and it is only after 24 hours that they will be stuck in the fabrics of time itself. That is, if someone doesn't tamper with the machine, or sends them back here."
"They better not!!" Angela shot at him. "You don't want to taste my students fighting skills, do you?"
He shuddered. "No, thanks."
A few hours later, inside the box...
"I found it!!" shouted Carrie. "I found the exit!! It was right on top of us all along!!"
"That's great!" huffed Alex. "We can stop pushing now! That glass is like solid steel here!"
"All right, everyone, get ready to morph!" Keisha commanded. "We'll need all the power we can get to get out of here!"
"COMMANDO ELITE!!!" shouted the seven, right arms raised in the air. Keisha, Armina, Armand, Alex, Carrie, Roberta and Sandra all transformed into the winged heroes, and with Greg's help, flew up to the ceiling and pushed, with their weapons. Then a blast came and they were free.
"What the!?!?" cried the scientist as people flew out carrying others and getting bigger.
"I thought you had them under control, Doctor!!" shouted the Brain. "Now we'll have to speed everything up!!"
"But the machine..." he protested. "It won't work properly!!"
"I don't care!!! I want those nitwits out of my brains!!! DO IT NOW!!!"
Wily turned the machine to warp speed, and it still held the six N veterans. Suddenly, a blue light enveloped the entire room.
"What the--" cried Armina. Then, "Somebody do something!"
"Wily!!" shouted Greg, "you did this!!"
"But I --" he started, but the scientist could not finish, since the light came and in a flash, took everyone with it, and disappeared.
To be continued in Part 2 of "TIME WARPED!"