MR WEASEL STRIKES BACK

Life had been rather peaceful for SuperTrain these days. Afterall, with Lemy, Rascal and the red foxes as his main assistants on board the TrainStar, he knew he had a capable crew to deal with most threats from any galaxy.

Alexander Fox had already returned to earth, together with their human leader, and now it was all up to ST and his crew to patrol the galaxies and prevent trouble from breaking out.

The only problem that ST had was, he had been receiving some disturbing news that an old enemy of his was active once again. He was none other than - MR WEASEL

["Why is that word so big??"] - asked Lemy "That's because it's important and we want to emphasize it," replied Rascal. "Isn't that right, ST?" "That's right, Rascal" said ST. "Anyway, let's not worry about the word so much...we need to worry about that bad and sneaky criminal who's bound to be looking for more specimens, for his inter-galactic zoo."

ST told the stripy friends about some rumours he had heard - that Mr Weasel had hired a new alien called the super-muck-monster which was supposed to be an extremely powerful monster, evolved from the usual common types that they had all been dealing with in the past.

Lemy fainted immediately. A few seconds later, Rascal fainted too!

"What's the matter with you two?" asked ST sternly.

When Lemy and Rascal recovered, they both told ST about their fear of muck monsters and that they were always worried that they would end up as stew for the creatures.

"Not while I'm around," said ST

Just then, Ranger interrupted the discussion with a serious message about a mysterious ship that was heading towards one of the 7 moons around the planet Maarsberri. What was interesting about the ship was that it bore the symbol of the mercenary pirates, the muck monsters.

"FULL BATTLE STATIONS!" ordered ST. "We're going to pursue that alien craft."

"Let's get out of here...." said Lemy.

"Oh no, you don't!" said ST "I need you here on the bridge to help me navigate this ship"

With Lemy and Rascal at the controls of the TrainStar, ST and the other foxes scrambled to the fox fighters. They were going to intercept the alien craft and stop them from getting down to any of the moons. ST knew that if the muck monsters managed to land, they would easily slip into the ground and be very hard to find again. Being non-metallic, they were as good as invisible to any of the scanners on board the TrainStar.

As the TrainStar moved into position to intercept the muck monsters' ship, the pirates made an unusual move and came alongside the TrainStar. SuperTrain and all the others had a very clear view of the new Super Muck Monster. And Lemy & Rascal fainted again, just as the pirate ship picked up speed and tried to escape.

The TrainStar fired several shots at the alien craft, but they were not successful because the enemy ship was fast and had anticipated the actions of the huge TrainStar.

"There's no other choice," said ST to the other fox fighters. "We have to take out that ship with the smaller craft."

With that, SuperTrain and the other foxes took off in the fox fighters and went out into space to engage the alien craft. However, just as ST had suspected, the muck monsters were in no mood to fight in space. In fact, at the first sign of the fox fighters, the alien pirate ship turned tail and fled down to the planet Maarsberri below.

"We have to catch them before they land and slip away into the ground," said ST over the intercom.

Unfortunately, that too proved to be pointless. The bigger and faster pirate ship charged down onto the planet's surface and unloaded its cargo of eight-legged monsters, who quickly burrowed into the ground. Within seconds, there was no trace of the muck-monsters.

ST and the fox fighters did however, manage to disable the huge alien craft that had landed.

"Looks like they won't be getting away from that planet," said Lemy on board the TrainStar. He and Rascal then gave over controls of the TrainStar to one of the other crew members, and teleported down to the surface of Maarsberri, just in time to join ST and the other foxes who had also landed on the planet's surface.

"We'll have to split up and go after them," said ST.

Just then, Lemy and Rascal remembered who they were chasing, and had second thoughts about going after the muck monsters - especially the Super Muck Monster which was huge. SuperTrain however, was in no mood to accept their excuses and took them along with him.

The TrainStar blasted a huge hole in the ground where the muck monsters were last seen, and when the smoke and debris cleared, all of them made their way down into the ground. They immediately realised that there were several horizontal tunnels leading this way and that. That was clear evidence that the monsters had scattered

As they made their way down, they saw that one tunnel was much larger than the rest. "No prizes for guessing who went down THAT tunnel!" said Rascal a little fearfully. "And no prizes for guessing which tunnel WE'LL take!" said SuperTrain in response. Together with some of the foxes, the three heroes climbed slowly into the largest tunnel.

The rest of the foxes took the smaller tunnels, in an attempt to flush out the muck monsters.

Before long, all the groups reported contact with the muck monsters, and made attempts to drive them upwards into open ground again, where the TrainStar was waiting. ST's group however, had no such luck - the Super Muck Monster was nowhere to be found.

"Let's try going deeper down..." suggested SuperTrain.

Lemy and Rascal nervously agreed, but just then, they heard a horrible sound that terrified them. It sounded like the huge muck monster was coming for them. Before SuperTrain could do anything, there was a flurry of activity and within seconds, he was all alone in the darkness - Lemy and Rascal had scampered away.

"LEMY!! RASCAL!! You come back here !!!" said SuperTrain angrily, although he knew why they had fled.

The sounds from in front of him stopped and when he looked over his shoulder in the direction where Lemy and Rascal had run off to, he realised what was happening....the Super Muck Monster was now going after his stripey friends.

"Lemy!!" called out SuperTrain. "Watch out! The Muck Monster's heading your way....Rascal, can you hear me..??" SuperTrain was worried that his little companions would easily be caught by the new creature and he was determined to get to them first.

As he headed in their direction, he was soon able to spot his friends, and the super muck monster, deep in one of the little passageways. Using his energy-blade (it's like a sword but uses pure energy for its blade), he fired a shot right at the monster, just as it was about to grab a very terrified lemur.

Lemy was frozen stiff with fear as the muck monster appeared, and Rascal had fainted straightaway. Although they were usually fearless fighters, something about these one-eyed muck monsters caused them to be totally afraid of the creatures. So it was really fortunate that SuperTrain had come back to rescue them. His energy-blade did the trick because the muck monster abadoned all plans to capture Lemy and just retreated into the darkness.

SuperTrain, Lemy and Rascal eventually made it back to the surface of the planet after they had lost the trail of the Super Muck Monster. Once they were above ground, they realised that the other foxes had been successful and that they had managed to gather up quite a few of these one-eye creatures.

However, these were all the regular-sized ones and not the huge creature that they had encountered earlier. The TrainStar, which was hovering above, began teleporting the captured monsters into its cargo bay where they had set up special containment boxes for these monsters.

SuperTrain, Lemy, Rascal and all the others returned to their fox fighters and headed back up to the TrainStar. Although they had defeated the pirates to some extent, he knew that there would soon be trouble because somewhere down on the planet Maarsberri below, the Super Muck Monster was still there.

[to be continued in other stories...coming up later]

Copyright notice: Lemy & Rascal are part of the SuperTrain collection of stories, and the property of Alexander Choong & Aloysius Choong. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission from the authors is prohibited. Email:lemy_rascal for further information. Mr Weasel Strikes Back - copyright July 2000