ADVENTURES OF BOBBY BOBALONG

[Maharg67]

Barbarians plus others as the mercs, a real mixture, but yes the move is good for the Clanfolk

[species5478]

Wow...I missed a lot in a brief period of time. Something about the idea of Warlords takes me back to days of Hannibal...

[Maharg67]

Hannibal is a good indicator of just what these Warlords are like though some more so than others.

 

Catch up in your own good time and enjoy, Species5478!

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-SEVEN

 

HER NOSE SMELT ONLY THE ROSE

 

The saying came as a fragment from an older one linked to the story of a Clanqueen who wanted the ‘whole world to smell like a rose’. The story title was based on the response of the Clanking and the story had many variations. All of them were linked to a great, wide open shallow valley, a richly fertile landscape of crops, orchards and livestock paddocks.

 

Bobby Bobalong came their in aeroships like great graceful saucers, lightly elongated, and elevated on high by amazing liftergas. Not only did he bring with him Clanhunters and Clanforcers but two brigades of the Dedjadie and two brigades of Clanguards.

 

The great shallow valley was not the problem but the great low hulking fortress at the head of the valley for it had just been conquered. The invaders were most strange, were super/mutants ugly and powerful. There were standard hulking mutantors, double sized massemoths and triple sized behemoths. They all tended to be stupid but amazing aggressive, as aggressive as berserker raiders but far stronger. They came in heavy armour and carried powerful weapons, some quite bizarre. With them were fast moving, agile, wall crawling zentaurs with whip/tentacles able to lash out with terrible force and the ability to throw toxic globs or spinedarts. But not just them. Super/mutant hounds, Wastelander wild dogs caught and mutagenically transformed, came rushing in packs as did great big transformed rats.

 

Something was controlling their minds, a powerful but subtle dark mentality, a tall figure largely hidden in shadow and wrapped in black armour.

 

Long range missiles, energy weapons and autocannons began to fire from the aeroships and the fortress. The flying ships had more such weapons but the fortress was hitech and had much heavier deflector plating plus other advanced armouring. The big weapons of the fortress also out powered and out ranged the aeroship batteries so that the flying vessels soon were forced to make a retreat.

 

Over the grounds of the valley, approaching along wide dirt roads, came Warlord Harusa Mars with the half of his army that had survived intact from the battle at Twin Domed Mountain Pass. He came with many basic, rugged war/machines bristling with weapons and soldiers in basic power armour. From the start he had troubles despite that Airguard fighters and fighter/bombers began to attack the fortress, driven by jets or props. He had to leave half the dirt roads open for refugees fleeing from the area too close to the fortress, not just from farms but from the large town at the bottom of the fortress.

 

Clanguards were fighting a desperate rearguard action as super/mutants flooded out of the fortress and tried to butcher them and anybody else who resisted the onslaught. That is local militia and anybody who had a gun and who could use it properly.

 

Bobby Bobalong and his grand/daughter, Shazia’Zim, gathered together with a select group of Clanforcers and Clanhunters in a special chamber he had prepared. A gold coated silver disk of metal was placed on the deck. They stepped onto it in their stealth power armour and Bobby Bobalong used one of his special powers.

 

He took the whole group deep into the fortress to where the Clanqueen had been locked away in a great courtyard where she was surrounded by great rosebushes covered with great big thorns. The Clanqueen, who had shown only selfish greed and a desire for murder, blackmail and theft, starved to death. Or so went the story.

 

Wild rosebushes filled much of the area but the cemetery headstone was still there. Bobby pressed sections of its front, hidden buttons, and the plot folded down to reveal a stone staircase going deep into the ground. The true story was that the Clanqueen was not the horror she was portrayed as, though far from saintly, but had been framed by the enemies of the Clanking. The Clanqueen had escaped underground and, changing her identity, had become the new Clanqueen.

 

He went down first and emerged after some time into a great stone chamber now lit dimly by glowcrystal/lamps. The Clanqueen had been a renowned scientist heading a great team of scientists, mages and other specialists. The chamber was a great laboratory/workshop. It had not been used for decades and yet much of the equipment and supplies remained there as did the Nine Wonders.

 

Liberty Prime was a prototype to the Liberty Prime to be found in the far off Pentagon that was now controlled by the Brotherhood of Steel and known as Lyon’s Citadel, the Citadel of Steel or just the ‘Citadel’. This version of Liberty Prime had been less complete, less efficient and was basically a show toy to convince the old US Government to fund the project. Now it was called Liberty Guardian and it was much, much more deadly. It was preserve stored but could be brought into action quickly.

 

Next to Liberty Guardian was a set of three massive power armour supersuits. In truth each was far too big to be used like a normal power armour suit. A human or android or other fitted into its cockpit, cyberjacked and became one with the supersuit. Each was of a different kind being amphibious, low flying plus ground and ground specialised. Each bristled with hitech devices including instrumentation, weapons and defences. They made up three Wonders.

 

The fifth Wonder was another robot, Robbie the Robot, on tracks and with two big accordion arms ending in multiple manipulators, a fancy head ending at top with a transparent horizontal disk. It was based on a fictional robotic character from a 1950s science fiction movie, 2D and black/white, but it was real special hitech.

 

The sixth Wonder was the Duplitoria. It was a transparent globe, a robotic lifted device with the robot being a great horizontal grey ring gripping the globe’s equator plus eight equally spaced smaller grey globes on the side of the ring. Telescopic tentacle arms aimed devices to record something solid and, depending on variables, a duplicate could be created inside the globe.

 

Then there were three big exotic guns, massive and attached to special frames that a human adult could fit on and adjust to use the guns. These three Wonders were the Grand Solargun, Lifegun and Mistgun. They were exotic because they did not automatically deal out death and/or destruction; such depended on the nature of the targets.

 

Bobby Bobalong spoke to the others. “These are perfect copies. The originals were sent to the NexiSanctuary a long time ago. What I truly seek are the three secret Wonders and the Forbidden Wonder. They were not able to be copied or moved. Now we must go down to them. Not all of us. Those of you preselected to activate the Nine Wonders and to prepare for the coming of the Dark0ne.”

 

Then he went to a simple circular rug around which sat fine padded wooden armchairs, finely carved and ornate, and he sat in one of the chairs. Not the finest chair and not the dullest but one to the side of both and somewhere in the middle in quality. He carefully exposed a cavity in one armchair arm and a brass panel with brass buttons and small crystal/glass bulbs. Under each button and bulb was a symbol of gold. Then he sat and studied the symbols most carefully.

 

Then he pressed three buttons in an odd sequence, paused, and then two more.

 

There was a great humming noise and then other noises as if great pieces of machinery and other structures were moving and acting around them but the actions were hidden. Then it all stopped.

 

Bobby sighed. “We are now sealed off from the rest of the fortress with three special exceptions that are necessary. Air, water and the DuGate. Even these are secured in special ways. Yet the Dark0ne, as I name him now, will get in because of his own power but also because of another, greater power that supports him.”

 

Then he very carefully removed the round rug from the floor to reveal what looked like a perfectly normal area of stone flooring. Then he lay the carpet back down, upside down, and spread it out carefully.

 

No longer was it a normal rug but it was silvery mirror like with strange mistiness moving across it in odd patterns.

 

Bobby was joined by his daughter and one other young woman, a Clanforcer, they stepped onto the silvery mirror disk and vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited May 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-EIGHT

 

THE SECRET WONDERS

 

The machine was resembled great bizarre alien art work, a sculpture verging both on the rational and the insane. Many parts of it were false, were there to change the appearance and to reflect the designer’s own preoccupations. The central tower looked like a tall red gothic cathedral complete with two flying buttresses but going down around the outside from the top was a great big slippery dip, a wide metal slide that became shallower diving the low it came and ended horizontally. The cathedral had a great clock face. At the base were eight evenly spaced doors that, if any one of them had faced north, would have corresponded to the eight compass directions. It was on a great metal platform raised above an smoothly uneven rock floor of a vast glowcrystal lit and warmed cavern.

 

His grand/daughter spoke then. “What wondrous creative insanity!”

 

Bobby nodded. “Dangerous, very dangerous. This is one of President JPJ’s Randomised Transformational Exchangers or RTEs. Somebody walks through one of those doors and, about an hour later, slides out of the machine but is changed somehow.”

 

She nodded. “I know, granddad.”

 

“Of course you do.” He gave her an apologetic look. “Only seems yesterday I was holding you on my lap.”

 

She sighed. “I am just over a hundred and you are over a thousand years old, I suppose and I did sit on your lap yesterday.”

 

He gave her a mild grin. “I am just close to a thousand and one hundred years old. My birthday is coming in a few months, as you know.”

 

The second machine was an Androider, a great bulberous, tower cluttered mechanism that could make an android or android copy of many kinds of creatures.

 

The third Wonder was a Fictionater. Supposedly it could create actual entities from fiction, from mythologies, as long as they were at least fairly well known of. It looked like a row of nine great hardback books, leather covered and beautiful, each open and with a crystal/glass capsule inside the open section but showing clearly.

 

She arched her eyebrows at him. “We could have a nice birthday party.”

 

He snorted. “Where would you get all the birthday candles from?” Then he strode to the third machine, went up a ramp and onto the control platform. Charika followed and observed him quietly operating the intricate control console of hundreds of brass buttons and small levers. Much of the console was fake and meant to mislead. What seemed most central, most important, would do nothing but lock down the system.

 

One of the capsules began to glow, to fill slowly but steadily with glowing mist. Then a second until all nine were doing the same. Shapeforms solidified inside them, inside the glowing mist filled capsules, and then they began to step forth.

 

Broad shouldered, magnificent chested Captain Cosmos came first and next Girl Cosmos, his girlfriend sidekick who was very feisty. Girl Cosmos was tight in her heroic Space Guardian uniform and was voluptuous enough to have made many male teenagers fall in lust with her character. Then there was Jangles the Moon Monkey, very big for a monkey and wearing a special spacesuit with his tail free in its own section and a bubble/helmet.

 

Then came Sherlock Holmes Junior of the 2050s, his sidekick Doctor Stella Watson and his famous robotic blood hound Sniffers.

 

But then came three figures unknown to the world of Terra for they were of the continent of Tamriel being the Eternal Champion in three shapeforms of Lisa’Tiae the wizard, Shia’Tiae the Sword/Maiden and Kiao’Tiae the Antiassassin. They were powerful triplets and they were beautiful, sleek and wore amazing body tight armour emphasizing their shapes. The first had a battlemage/staff, the second a great/sword in a scabbard over her shoulder and the third a powerful black bow. All of them had other weapons and other devices.

 

Bobby spoke to all of the newly created fiction/elementors, elementals from the dimensional plain of creativity. “We have much to do. Soon the Dark/One will be trying to get into this chamber.”

 

Even as he spoke a soft shudder went through the chamber.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited May 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Species5478, you help give me strength as a writer to keep on writing. Edited May 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[shadowmadnezz]

hahaa! the Dark0ne :biggrin: I love it lol

[Maharg67]

Yesssss, hisssss, the Dark0ne, beware the Dark0ne. He is due to return soon along with more chapters. Edited April 10, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-NINE

 

BATTLE IN THE FIRST CHAMBER OF WONDERS

 

Shadowvires came first, glowing an unholy pale red blackness, a disturbing effect to look upon by mortal eyes. They plunged into the chamber where the Wonders waited for them. The activated Liberty Guardian super-robot and three soldiers in supersuits blasted the first wave of attackers into so much vapour, freeing demented trapped souls in the process.

 

Robbie the Robot shot out a great pattern of forked lightening like energies that destroyed the second wave of shadowvires but then had to pause to recharge.

 

The Duplitoria kept creating small gunbots, like eyebots with their fanjets but bigger and with three big laserguns each. Waves of gunbots, many being destroyed, demolished the third attacking wave of shadowvires.

 

The Three Grand Guns were put into action and the fourth wave of shadowvires was vapourised. More souls were freed.

 

But the enemy was just sending in expendable forces to test the defences. Shadowpires and other more powerful creatures could be sent against the chamber soon.

 

Then a door burst open and in came rushing soldiers in power armour but these were allies. It seemed that not all of the locals had been driven from the fortress, that an elite unit of power armour guards had been fighting a hit and run conflict with the occupying super-mutants. There were thirty-five of them and they were short of ammo but they were welcome. The Duplitoria began to duplicate ammo for them and the other soldiers there.

 

Next attack was not in the form of shadow followers but super-mutants. They came through the doorway that the elite soldiers had used, rushing in berserker rage and with many weapons blazing. They fell in big numbers, being blasted and hurled back, being slaughtered uselessly as they came into a tight focused space. Even super-mutants soon gave up on such stupidity and withdrew.

 

For a while it was a stalemate.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited May 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

THIRTY

 

IN THE MIST OF THE MOON (LUNA)

 

Bobby Bobalong went with the Fictionater created super heroes because he had realised that they were programmed into the exotic device as guides and keys to finding the Forbidden Wonder. He knew now that the Dark0ne was behind the invasion of the Jagged Highlands and the treachery amongst the Clanfolk, was seeking to sow mass confusion in which he could steal the Forbidden Wonder. But why would that be so and who really was the Dark0ne?

 

He also suspected that the Dark0ne was after other, lesser prizes that were still of great value to him.

 

Bobby, his daughter and his young wife to be, went with the nine heroes as this time the Cosmos Trio led them all. They went to a metallic door in a metallic wall that stood away from any other wall, out in the open. Captain Cosmos, Girl Cosmos and Jangles the Moon Monkey each pressed a big wide disk shaped button at the same time. The door slid open but all they could see was white glowing mist. They entered, carefully of course, and the door closed behind the thirteen of them.

 

They found themselves walking over rugged, broken ground of the moon for the Evil Professor Brain’Opus had covered Luna in a layer of mist that allowed people to move and breath there. They were in an Alternate Reality, it seemed, of the Captain Cosmos Universe. After the evil professor had misted up the moon, he and his evil robotic-gorilla army, along with his vixen sidekicks, had taken over the United World Space Service moonbase known as Mooncity. Somehow all of them knew they were in Episode Three of the Captain Cosmos story called Evil Mist of the Moon.

 

Captain Cosmos spoke with mighty pride and manhood, but quietly lest they be attacked by nasty moon monsters that had come out of thousands of years of hibernation when the mist had come. “Insectoids came out of the ground and destroyed the Moon Landing Museum, the vandals. They also ate people but most escaped thanks to the androids and robots who fought a brave rearguard action. Now people live in the fortified MoonEye Caves. There the famous mooneye crystals are found that first gave Cosmos Girl and myself our powers and which gives the moon monkeys their special abilities.”

 

They stopped when they heard the distance and mist muffled noises of combat, of autocannons, blasters and lasers, of rumbling mechawalkers fighting the robogorillas in their big battle-crawlers. Captain Cosmos thrust out his chest. “I should be there, fighting along side those brave guys and girls of the Moon Marines. Aaahhh, piloting a mechawalker into battle, those were the days.”

 

Cosmos Girl looked in besotted admiration at her husband and leader. “Oh Captain, my Captain.”

 

The moon monkey grumbled. “Give me a break. Has anybody got some grog. I could use a bottle. I don’t suppose you other jerks have anything strong to drink.”

 

Then Jangles gulped as he realised Bobby Bobalong was thrusting a large pistol at the back of his head. “Jangles, you nasty hairy little primate, you show some respect or I will show you how I can blow the back of your head right through your face.”

 

Jangles laughed nervously. “Okay, I was only joking. That’s me alright, just a joker.”

 

Cosmos Girl sighed. “No, a drunken idiot, problem gambler and perverted letch. Used to be decent before I came along but then he got jealous.”

 

Jangles leered at her. “Don’t hear you complaining when I visit your bunk at night.”

 

Captain Cosmos was busy looking majestic and seemed oblivious of the implication of Jangle’s last words. Cosmos Girl tapped the butt of her large, oddly shaped blaster-pistol and gave the moon monkey a threatening look.

 

Bobby took over, following his senses. “Take us to the Moon Landing Museum.”

 

Captain Cosmos nodded. “We will have to hire a boat from the Moonies to get us across the Sea of Tranquillity. It is a sea of low gravity water now, you know. The Moonies fish it for water. They are a tough but relatively peaceful people unlike the Loonies who are a savage folk prone to eating, well pretty much anything they can get their claw-hands on.”

 

So they went on moving through the mist. The sounds of battle ended. Captain Cosmos assured them it was useless to try to find the Moon Marines. The mist distorted sound to an amazing degree and not only was the battle likely to have happened a long way away, it was likely to have already happened at least a few days ago.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited May 8, 2010 by Maharg67