Chapter 8 - Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

After feasting, Thundarr and the others sit around the campfire swapping stories. Hank and the others let Thundarr and Ariel do most of the talking. They tell them about all their adventures. They tell of their encounter with the alien from the stars. They tell of their battles with the wizard Gemini, and of the man-apes. The young adventurers hang on their every word, especially Bobby and Presto. Bobby sees Thundarr as a kindred spirit, while Presto is infatuated with Ariel. While they're laughing and joking, a laser blast rocks a nearby tree.

"DEMON DOGS!" Cries Thundarr, another of his favorite sayings, as he leaps to his feet and ignites his Sunsword. From out of the bushes come several humanoid beings. They all appear to be part man (or at least part organic) and part machine.
Ariel jumps up, "Cyberbandits!" She yells.

There's one cyberbandit with a laser canon for one arm, a mechanical claw at the end of the other arm, both legs are metal, and one of his eyes is electronic. There's a mok with a morning star in place of his right hand and an steel mechanical jaw like a bear trap. There's a groundling with two bionic arms and a whip like bionic tail. There's a carock with steel jaws much like the moks, bionic arms, and a spiked mechanical tail which can be whipped about. Then there's a hawk man mutant with rockets built into its bionic legs, a metal beak, a pair of shoulder laser canons, and bionic arms with steel talons. There's a tiger man mutant with steel claws and bionic legs. There's a human with two electronic eyes and one bionic arm with a built in flame thrower. There's a human with a pair of bionic legs, a bionic right arm with a chainsaw in place of his hand. There's another human with two bionic legs, a bionic left arm with a circular saw in place of the hand, and a bionic right hand. They have Thundarr and his friends completely surrounded.

"What do you want?" Thundarr asks them.

"Everything you have," says the cyborg with the laser canon arm, "your weapons, your horses, and anything else of value that you have."

"And if we refuse?" Hank asks.

"We take them," says the bandit leader, then leers at the women, "as well as anything else we want."

"In that case," replies Hank, drawing his Energy Bow, "if you want our weapons? TAKE THEM!" And he fires an energy arrow at the leader, destroying his laser canon.

"Ariel! Ookla!" Thundarr cries, "INTO BATTLE!"

"Take them!" Shouts the cyborg leader.

Eric gets his Griffon Shield up a split second before the bandit with the flame thrower tries to roast them, his magical force field protecting the entire group. Ookla grabs the log they were using as a seat and throws it at the bandit. The log slams into the cyborg and knocks him to the ground. The hawk man mutant takes off, flying into the air. The cyborg with the chainsaw for a hand runs straight at Thundarr. Bobby, fearless as ever, takes up his Thunder Club and charges the fiercest looking cyberbandit, the mok. Hank and Ariel fire bolt after bolt of magic at the flying hawk man mutant who's taking potshots at them with his shoulder canons. Ookla runs to confront the carock with the spiked tail and steel jaws. Having been a prisoner of carocks and forced to harvest their doom flowers, Ookla has a certain enmity for these reptilian humanoids. The cyborg with the circular saw for a hand charges at Eric, who in his typical 'cavalier' way, screams like a girl and runs away. Diana takes on the groundling with the whip like tail. And Sheila puts the hood of her cloak up and disappears from sight.

The mok cyborg attacks Bobby with his morning star, which is parried by the young barbarian's Thunder Club. The mok howls in rage and swings again. Bobby ducks underneath and the morning star whistles past overhead. The mok tries again, this time a downward overhead strike. Bobby jumps aside and the spiked ball slams hard onto the ground. Then the young adventurer smashes the mok right in the steel trap like jaws. If it were an ordinary club, then it would have had little effect. But Bobby's Thunder Club could topple mountains. The force of the blow shears off the bottom jaw, and sends the mok face first into the dirt. The mok tried to push himself back up to his feet, and Bobby knocks him back down with a club shot between the shoulder blades.

Meanwhile Diana is fighting the ratlike groundling. The groundling's robotic hands are electrified, like defibrillator paddles, and its whip like tail is snapping at her. It takes all of Diana's gymnastics training and acrobatic skill to keep out of the groundling's reach. The groundling whips its tail at Diana, who blocks it with her Javelin Staff. The tail wraps itself about the staff and the groundling tries to wrench it from Diana's hands. When he can't he tries grabbing her to shock her, but Diana moves his tail in the way and he zaps himself.

Ookla grabs the cyborg carock by the wrists. The carock snaps at Ookla's face, his steel jaws chomping down on empty air. The carock whips about, trying to get at Ookla with his spiked artificial tail. The mok ducks under the tail. The carock tries again. Ookla grabs the tail, whirls the carock around in the air a few times before slamming him down to the ground. Ookla places a booted foot onto the small of the carock's scaly back and pulls his bionic tail right off.

As he's running from the cyborg with the circular saw, Eric trips and falls flat on his face. He rolls over onto his back and gets his Griffon Shield up just in time to prevent the circular saw from cutting him in two. Sparks fly as again and again the cyborg tries to cut through the magical barrier. Presto takes his Hat Of Many Spells off, takes a steadying breath, waves his hand over the hat, and says, "Magic hat that I hold, give me a spell to leave that guy cold!"
Presto reaches into the hat and pulls out a white glowing snowball. Presto looks at it and shrugs, "Well," he says, "I'm getting closer."
He winds up and hurls the snowball at the cyborg, hitting the bandit in the back. Right where the snowball hits, ice begins spreading across his body. Soon the cyborg is encased in a block of ice up to his neck. Presto, surprised at how well the spell actually worked, just sort of stands there staring at his handiwork. Then he smiles and says, "Cool!" He looks over to Eric who gives him a thumbs up.

The cyborg with the chainsaw for a hand, attacks Thundarr. The barbarian parries the attack with his Sunsword, cutting through the saws blade. As the cyborg looks at the ruined weapons blade, Thundarr cuts its legs out from under him. The bandit flounders about on its back like an overturned turtle. The barbarian turns and runs to help Diana, who is struggling to defeat the tiger man mutant.
The tiger man mutant is slashing at Diana with his steel claws, but she's too agile for him to get a hold of. She ducks and dodges, and then swings with her Javelin Staff. But the tiger mutant is just as nimble as Diana and always ducks just out of reach. Occasionally an unseen hand yanks his tail and he whirls about and slashes at the empty air. He tries to claw Diana again but she dodges aside, and his steel claws sink deep into an ancient oak tree. So deep in fact that he can't get them out. Just as his steel claws begin to inch their way out of the wood, Thundarr arrives and slices off the artificial hands with a single swipe of his Sunsword.

The cyborg with the flamethrower arm is beginning to recover. As he's struggling to his feet, the fuel line to his tank comes undone (apparently by its own accord). The grass shifts as he looks about. He chuckles to himself. "You'll have to do better than that girl," he says as his bionic eyes see through the magical invisibility of Sheila's enchanted cloak. He takes aim at Sheila as she's running away, not realizing that there's fuel leaking down his arm, and tries to launch a burst of flame at her. Too late he sees the leaking fuel line as the fuel ignites, flames running up his arm. The flames reach the tank and it explodes in a ball of fire. The cyborg collapses, his bionic arm completely destroyed.

The hawk man mutant is soaring about the battle, firing his laser canons. Eric keeps a magic force field over himself and those close to him, while Hank and Princess Ariel fire missile after missile at the cyborg. Unfortunately the cyborg is so agile and nimble that they can't quite hit him. Diana sees a young tree slowly bending over, apparently of its own accord. Figuring it must be Sheila, Diana makes a mad dash for the tree. She pole vaults up and lands on the bent tree, bending it almost in half. "Hey birdbrain!" Diana calls up, "Ya want me? Come and get me!" The hawk mutant swoops down to try and grab her. Diana waits until the absolute last second, then jumps out of the way. At the very same instant, Sheila let's go of the tree. The tree snaps back up straight, knocking the hawk man mutant out of the air. Then Hank draws his Energy Bow summoning twin arrows and lets them fly, destroying the shoulder guns of the mutant. The hawk man tries to take off again, but Thundarr cuts the feet off of hit bionic legs. The mutant flies out of control and crashes into his leader, knocking them both unconscious

With the cyberbandits defeated, Thundarr uses his Sunsword to render all of their cybernetic limbs useless. Princess Ariel casts a spell summoning a magic bubble which imprisons the rogues and sends them floating away.

"Where are you sending them?" Presto asks her.

"To the nearest town, where they can face justice," she replies.

"You called them something earlier," says Hank, "what was that?"

"Cyberbandits," she replies.

"What are 'cyberbandits'?" Diana asks.

"Thieves and highwaymen," replies Ariel, "who have replaced body parts with mechanical parts to enhance their fighting abilities."

"You mean they voluntarily have their arms and legs cut off and replace them with robotic ones?" Asks Eric.

"Sometimes," replies Ariel, "Sometimes they were bandits before the cybernetic replacements, and they lost their limbs or eyes to defending caravan guards. Or they were simple villagers who lost limbs, eyes, and other body parts to wizard attacks and sought cybernetic replacements. They get the replacements from the cyberbandits, but must spend their lives as members of the gang in order to pay off their debt."

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