Aardwolf Castle

Aardwolf Castle is the ninth episode of Hero: 108: Reborn.

Synopsis
The aardwolves are attempting to break through a gateway buried deep underground, and are abducting humans to work their mines. Intending to stop them, First Squad meets Sandback Fong and Digger.

Plot
A red sun is seen hanging in the air. A scarab is seen rolling a ball across sands as the sun finally sets. A desert falcon flies in the darkness. The scene skips again, now revealing the falcon flying in the daytime. Nearing a band of desert travelers, it perches on a ledge and waits, watching them.

The travelers, coming into view, are all wearing desert traveling gear, such that they are not exposed to the hot sun. Their identities are obscured. As they walk through the sands swept up by the wind, they are suddenly ambushed by a band of desert raiders, who had laid concealed in the sand. Amongst them are three humans, a black scorpion, two thorny devils, and a beetle. The travelers draw their weapons, revealing their identities as First Squad, although they do not remove their gear. The skirmish begins with Mighty Ray activating his eyeballs. He nearly hits the raiders, but the larger brown thorny devil wraps his massive arms around his companions, shielding them behind his armor. The smaller purple thorny devil then steps in front, firing a barrage of spikes from his forearms, knocking Lin Chung back from his airborne strike. Pinned against a rock, one of the human bandits approaches and taunts him, speaking of taking him and the rest of First Squad as slaves. Before he can finish, he is clobbered by Jumpy and they are all forced into a hasty retreat, disappearing as quickly as they had appeared, save for the human Jumpy had tackled. Pulling away part of his headpiece to reveal his face, Lin Chung speaks to him, demanding to know where the slave are being taken and for what purpose. The human slaver informs him that the slaves are being taken to Aardwolf Castle, but he does not know why. He is tossed aside, while Mr. NoHands prepares to send a message on a turtle back to Big Green. The falcon sees this and flies away.

The turtle is next seen crossing a vast expanse of desert and other wilderness before finally reaching Big Green. At the base, the calsabash gourd in which the message was stored is plugged into a wall socket, allowing it to come through the intercom to Commander ApeTrully. Learning that the aardwolves are abusing humans, he sets out at once for Aardwolf Castle, along with the Tank Army. Upon arrival, he demands the release of the human prisoners, but realizes that he sees no aardwolves. Abruptly, the sand below the tanks shifts, causing them to sink out of sight. ApeTrully briefly begins to panic before being pulled under himself.

At the same time, the falcon sees this, and flies away. It flies across the desert at high speed, even passing over First Squad trudging through the sand, and finally arrives at a pit in the sand. Inside of it is a man, dressed in desert apparel, and a fennec fox, both of whom are digging for rare treasures. The falcon screeches, informing him that warriors are coming to Aardwolf Castle. The man thanks the falcon, giving it a coin, after which it flies away. The man then turns to the fox, Digger and nods. They then begin running across the dunes, the man clutching a paper scroll.

Later, First Squad is seen arriving at Aardwolf Castle, clearly tired from trudging across the desert. Mighty Ray observes the odd shape of the castle, but says nothing more. Knocking at the front gate, they receive no reply. Suddenly, there is a sense that something is about to happen. Jumpy is the first to feel something try to pull him under, and he quickly counters with his jump rope. Mr. NoHands leaps into the air an hovers, calling upon Mystique Sonia, who sends up a blinding cloud of sand and dust by creating wind with her tongue. A quick battle is held within the cloud, before Lin Chung, realizing that the threat is from underground, leaps into the air, out of the cloud, and strikes the ground with his staff, boring a hole that brings First Squad into an underground cavern.

Once inside the cavern, they find themselves surrounded by aardwolves, and also see humans and other desert dwellers being forced to carry carts full of rocks out of mining tunnels. Lin Chung issues a plan of attack: free the slaves and find Commander ApeTrully, then deal with the aardwolves. With this, they charge into the tunnels, knocking aside aardwolf warriors. Upon stumbling across a chained band of humans, tunneling into the wall, they quickly break the chains. As they move on, one human grabs Mighty Ray's shoulder, cryptically telling him "you have to find the key!" He promptly then joins the rest of the humans, dashing for the surface, while Mighty Ray rejoins his squad.

First Squad continues down the tunnel, only to find themselves in a cavern. Before they can proceed, a voice calls out, demanding them to cease. Looking up, they see the Aardwolf King, standing atop a ledge. Flanking him are two thorny devils, acting as guards, the Aardwolf Vizier, and ApeTrully, who is bound with rope. When commanded to release Commander ApeTrully, Aardwolf King refuses, instead proposing a competition. First Squad accepts.

Aardwolf King directs them to an enormous doorway inset in the ground inside of a large chamber. He explains that the competition will consist of trying to break the doors: whichever side can damage a door first will be the victor. The Aardwolf Vizier questions him, saying that without the key, the doors cannot be opened. In a harsh whisper, Aardwolf King replies that they do not have the key, and it is possible that these warriors have the power needed to break through the doorway. First Squad overhears this exchange, but say nothing.

The competition begins with First Squad using their various skills on the doorway: Mighty Ray, his eyeballs, Sonia, her tongue, Mr. NoHands, his kicks and darts, Jumpy, carrot grenades, and Lin Chung, a mix of Harmonic Energy and staff attacks. After a while, as Mighty Ray begins to run low on bananas, he remembers what he has heard about a key. Edging toward Jumpy, who is likewise running low on carrots, he whispers to him, mentioning what he heard about a key, and that it is what they need to win the challenge and save Commander ApeTrully. He then edges toward Sonia, asking her to create a distraction. She is suspicious, but does as he asks, quacking up a cloud of dust with a blast of wind, into which Jumpy and Mighty Ray disappear. As it dissipates, she is left coughing and sneezing, and resolves not to do that again.

Meanwhile as Mighty Ray and Jumpy move stealthily through the tunnels, Jumpy asks how Mighty Ray plans to find the key. Mighty Ray hesitates, but before he can answer, a voice comes from behind. Stepping out of the shadows comes the same man from before, introducing himself as Sandback Fong and partner as Digger. He tells them that he can help find the key, because he has the map. Mighty Ray demands to know why he ought to trust him, but Sandback Fong replies that he does not have a choice. Mighty Ray relents, believing he has nothing to fear anyway. They proceed deeper into the mine.

After crossing a subterranean ravine, they arrive at a smooth stone wall on which there are inscriptions. Mighty Ray glances over it, while Sandback Fong retrieves from within a niche a smooth stone orb, which he informs them is the key. He then adds that they must work together to bring it as far from Aardwolf Castle as possible. Mighty Ray dissents, arguing that they need the key to open the doorway and save their commander. The two proceed to wrestle over it, but in so doing alert the attention of aardwolf sentries, as well as thorny devil mercenaries, who grab the key with a tail. Mighty Ray, Jumpy, Sandback Fong, and Digger immediately rejoin to snatch it back, but are overwhelmed by numbers long enough for the aardwolves with the key to make an escape.

Back in the main chamber, ApeTrully and Aardwolf King observe the attempts to break through the doorway. ApeTrully asks Aardwolf King why he is enslaving humans. In response, Aardwolf King turns to him and informs him that it is not his fault. He adds that if the doorway is not opened, he and his people will pay, and what he really needs is for someone to find the key. He feared that the only way that the key might be found was with more workers, so he started buying slaves from the slave traders. When asked who forced this upon him, Aardwolf King refuses to answer.

Suddenly, the aardwolf soldiers burst into the room, presenting the key which they have obtained. They pass it to the Aardwolf Vizier, who steps onto the doorway, all those who had previously been attempting to break it backing away as he does so. He sets the orb into a round depression in the door. As he does so, the cavern begins to quake violently, and the aardwolves begin to file out hurriedly, leaving ApeTrully to First Squad. At this time, Mighty Ray, Sandback Fong, Jumpy, and Digger also enter the cavern, warning all of its occupants to evacuate. By this time the doors have opened, revealing behind them an enormous keyhole. Sandback Fong repeats the need to evacuate. As they flee the chamber, Lin Chung addresses Sandback Fong, asking him what is happening. He replies that the aardwolves do not what they are releasing.

Exiting the mine from a hole in the desert, First Squad, ApeTrully, Digger, and Sandback Fong are in time to see part of the walls of Aardwolf Castle fall away, making the castle even better resemble a giant key. As they watch, it plunges into the ground and turns.

From a greatly distant bird's eye view, from which the desert falcon is visible, the desert itself begins to rise up, centering at Aardwolf Castle. Two gargantuan doors beneath the sands open, from which a peculiar white light shines forth. Within the range of this light, everything appears to be in black and white.

Characters

 * Lin Chung
 * Mystique Sonia
 * Yaksha
 * Mighty Ray
 * Mr. NoHands
 * Jumpy Ghostface
 * various slavedrivers, including humans, thorny devils, a scorpion, and a beetle
 * the falcon
 * Sandback Fong
 * Digger
 * various aardwolves
 * Aardwolf King
 * Aardwolf Vizier

Errors

 * Only two human bandits are seen rising from the sand. A third one is then seen talking to Lin Chung who was not there previously.