The thunder clapped from behind Eon, and it sent shivers up and down his exo-skin. Even if he had two forms of protection with his own exo-skin and the rather large umbrella hat strapped to his head, thunder made him nervous. Lightning wasn't too far behind and even Chlorm couldn't be safe from electrical attacks brought down from up above. "Are you sure this will work?"

Era rubbed his claws in anticipation and assured proudly, "Of course! It is foolproof. That mongrel will be no match for the trap, even with her speed and agility. And with our advanced methods of training and knowledge of animals, she is sure to follow the other beasts to this part of this jungle."

"I hope so; we cannot stay outside for much longer."

"Eraitzreadynowpft."

Era smirked. "Excellent, Epoch. Now that we have performed our parts for the trap, all we must do now is wait for our star attraction to come to us - we'll have her yet; mark my word!"

He chuckled. It was not a nice chuckle.

Another round of thunder.

Briefly looking up to the sky, Era said, "Now come. Let us take shelter from this weather."

And they did, disappearing into the jungle shadows.

The sonar screen continued to ping every other second as the precise hand moved slowly. The dots, or animals, on the screen continued to move towards the east, but luckily at a similar slow speed as the hand moved.

But it was still a great concern to Ozma. Those sick Chlorm were tougher than she thought; they would not give up without a fight.

She was sure they wanted to do something awful to those animals, but what exactly? And how? And how much longer would she have to wait for the rain to stop for her to take action? Four minutes have passed, with six more to go. Four minutes might have been short for some, but for her, four minutes was four minutes too long to endure. Many of the animals on Karn, while not entirely defenseless, were still vulnerable. Poachers could lay horrible traps and catch even the most intelligent barleyhorn, especially when the poachers managed to instill fear into them - right into the areas where they could be captured without warning. Even if Lightyear had assured her that the Rangers would keep the animals safe, after she told him about a group of them trekking towards that direction, she feared that they wouldn't get to them in time, knowing that the Chlorm were indeed plotting something for those animals...or for Pix.

The thought of if made her blood boil and heart pound, and the cup of coffee she held in her hands now was the only thing, besides her own patience and will, keeping her nerves calm.

Mirroring her owner's tensity, Pix paced back and forth at the threshold, anxiously yearning to jump out and head to the river to find and catch those Chlorm things before they did... whatever it was they were up to. She could be patient sometimes, but she was still a dog. Patience was not always an easy trait for her to uphold in her line of work or within her species. The storm might be coming to an end soon, and soon she could run outside again. After all, her boss might have said she couldn't do any running while in the rain. But when it stopped raining?

That's when she was going to take action. Assuming the animals were still determined to move towards the river and if those chrome creeps were hiding there.

Every few minutes, Pix would take a break to look outside to see if the storm let up earlier than anticipated. Or to scratch behind her ear because of an annoying itch.

Ty was watching her and although it was amusing to see her doing what dogs do, he wasn't laughing.

He himself was leaning back against the machine, crossing his arms and leaning on one leg as he too waited for the storm to clear out. He was also waiting for Buzz to make another call, should something come up with the drones, or if he wanted to give Ty an order of some kind. He sometimes gazed back to the machine, watching the hand blur around, over and over again. And he too could see the dots continuing to migrate towards the river, showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

As Buzz had told them, the storm did gradually start to disappate, as far as Ty's own ears could tell. The rain and wind, once powerful and potent, simultaneously beat against the Bio-Sphere, their pounds and shrieks quieting down. But in between the silence, thunder boomed in low tones, as if to take its final series of bows before moving away.

He looked up to see how Ozma was doing. Like Pix, she was having a hard time keeping her patience, and passion, in check. And to distract herself, or at least attempt to focus on something else for the moment, she directed her attention to a window that overlooked a part of the wet and muddy jungle. The steam from her newly made coffee curled and rose from the cup and floated onto the window, bathing her worried reflection into it. She didn't look at him or her dog.

And he looked back at Pix, who had gone back to pacing back and forth like a big cat trapped in a cage.

Cage...

The mental image he somehow thought of with as he watched Pix weighed on his mind and immediately he banished it from his thoughts. He set forth to occupy his mind by picking up one of the books Ozma kept on her bookshelf near her desk, not really paying any attention to what the book's subject matter was and began browsing through it. Not surprisingly, the focus was on the characteristics of the native animals of Karn, but thankfully it did the job and he found himself engrossed in its content. He might as well learn more about her work and pick up a few facts along the way about the locals while he was here.

And no one in the Bio-Sphere uttered a word, each of them lost in their own thoughts or actions.

"There! That's the last of the drones; all of 'em a little beaten, but safe and sound. Once again, machines save the day, I'm just sayin'," XR boasted as he guided the last of the drones back to their assigned spots aboard the shelves of 42's engineering room. Once that was done, XR lowered himself back to the floor, his metallic legs shortening their once extended length back to their standard height. He wheeled up to Buzz, who stood nearby with Mira and Booster in tow.

Buzz agreed, "They did do their job excellently, XR. Only now we'll need to find out what those Chlorm are up to on our own. The drones couldn't catch everything the Chlorm did or are going to do."

Booster suggested, "I know! How about we use the element of surprise on 'em? That worked out for us before."

Mira piped up, "I'm all for catching them off-guard, but what's the best way to go about it? We can't fly over to where they might be hiding without our jet packs giving us away. And I don't know about you all, but I'm not too fond of walking through the mud once it stops raining."

"Well, not that I blame you, since mud can be annoying to get out of your treads," XR patted his precious treads for a moment, "But any particular reason why?"

"Well for one thing, we'd get stuck, which I don't want to be, thanks." Mira crossed her arms. "Plus the animals are still out and the afternoon safety window is not open for another hour. But storms do attract bugs, and bugs equals food for the animals."

Buzz nodded, seeing Mira's point. "Good thinkin', Ranger. In this case, we'll need something durable to make it through the jungle." He rubbed his chin in thought as he mulled over the situation. What to choose from their fleet in the cargo bay? They needed something strong, fast, safe and silent. Something that could genuinely dazzle the eyes of his girlfri- er, Dr. Furbanna. Something like...

He perked up as a solution came to him. "I've got it. Rangers, let's saddle up!

"We're takin' the MAV out for a ride! XR, you come with me. I'll need your help in installing two of our most useful technologies to the MAV that'll help us catch those crooks."

"Which are what?"

"I'll explain on the way. C'mon!"

The minutes passed by. All was still silent in the Bio-Sphere.

Until Ty's communicator brought him out of his book and back into the present. He put the book down back on the shelf and opened up his communicator. "Parsec here. What's up?"

"We've got a plan, Ranger."

As soon as Buzz's voice was heard on the other end, Ozma and Pix paused from their activities, looked up and went over to Ty.

"What is it?"

"We're going to use the element of surprise against 'em, and we're gonna use the MAV out there."

Ty furrowed his brow. "The MAV?"

Pix tilted her head. "The MAV? What's the MAV?"

Before either Ranger could answer, Ozma peeked over Ty's arm and protested, "Oh no, I'm not getting into THAT thing again, not after what happened last time."

Although her previous question was ignored, Pix asked, "Why? What happened?"

"It almost got us killed is what happened."

Buzz sighed. "This time, it'll be different. Would you change your mind if I told you we added some new features to make 'er more environmentally-friendly?"

Ozma was skeptical, as shown by her unimpressed frown. "What are you talking about?"

"Come outside and we'll show you."

"But what are you - "

"Go ahead, take a look! The rain hasn't completely stopped yet, but the sun's out and it's safe enough to come outside."

Buzz had Pix at 'outside'. She leapt behind Ozma and tried to nudge her legs from behind with her head, barking all the way. "C'mon, Dr. Furbanna, I wanna go out! What are we waitin' for?! Let's see this MAV thingy!"

Ozma relented, heaving her own sigh. "Alright, Pix, but don't expect to see something amazing. The MAV isn't as spectacular as he's making it sound."

Ty rubbed the bridge of his nose while Buzz groaned.

"Well, Ty, you have your order. Meet us outside."

"You got it."

Ty, Ozma and Pix all came outside and waited on the Bio-Sphere steps. As they did, they took extra care to not take a step off the wet staircase, should they accidentally slip over and fall into the sticky ground.

But they were greeted with a rather lovely scent.

The fresh and warm scent of leftover jungle rain dripping through the trees and flora and falling to the muddy earth. The rain lightened to a soft mist, lightly hovering over and by the trio. The local avian residents cawed and crowed and sang over the others animals' own wild and innate languages as they called to each other for various reasons - hunger, self-defense, yearning. But mostly hunger. As Buzz foretold them, the sun shone from up above in the sky, the grey clouds twisting and turning as they floated away and across the blue canvas.

The three looked around, trying to catch some sign of them. But neither Team Lightyear nor this MAV vehicle were present.

Pix flicked an ear back in confusion. "Uh... so where are they? I don't see them anywhere. But I do kind of smell something weird."

Ty asked, "Weird how?"

Pix squinted an eye as she tried to describe what her nose detected. "Uh... either I smell what I think is a rubber of some sort... or maybe it's some rotten eggs mixed in with dead fish. I don't know.

"But I wish I could see what my nose is pickin' up."

A voice sounding like XR's announced, "Your wish is our command - Star Command, that is!"

Appearing right before the trio's eyes out of thin air, a Star Command white and green bullet-shaped vehicle slightly larger than a van stood right before the three on three large pairs of grey wheels. A long, green and tank-like barrel sat on top of a turret, with XR sitting inside its hatch waving at them. Buzz, Mira and Booster could be seen behind the clear windshield, with Buzz behind the wheel.

XR cheerfully asked, "Need a lift in our new and improved MAV, now available with a cloaking device?"

Pix was the first to react. She jumped back. "Whoa!" She also excitedly barked in response.

Ty was the second to react. He was impressed, but was more quiet about it than Pix. "Sweet Mother of Venus..."

Ozma was the third to react... just barely. Although she displayed nothing more than a quirked eyebrow, she did tilt her head, eyeing the vehicle. First she told Pix to stop barking. Then she remarked, "Impressive. But you'll have to be more thorough here, Lightyear."

Popping his head out from his window, Buzz explained, "Like XR said, the MAV now has a cloaking device installed; we'll head to wherever the Chlorm are located, activate it, use it to sneak up on them and then catch them by surprise with Elastihold. Both them and the animals, should the latter get a little...er, hungry."

The brow was still raised, but Ozma's eyes brightened with recognition. "Well, once again, you got a little environmentality set up. Well done, Lightyear."

Buzz flashed his famous grin at her.

A lost Ty interrupted the lovey moment. "Buzz, do you mind filling me here? What's Elastihold?"

"It's a biodegradable compound, made by the LGMs. It can hold someone - or something - in its sticky grip, but only for an hour. Once the hour passes, it'll dissolve and release its grip on its victim, in which point the victim will go free and none the worse for the wear. We'll use it on the Chlorm and we'll also use it on our animal friends in case they...er... mistake us for food once we have our enemies trapped and we turn off the cloaking device. The animals' feeding period is still around this time, correct?"

Ozma nodded, back to business. "That's right. But aren't you forgetting about the bigger species? I don't think you have enough stuff to hold them off until we're out of their range."

"Why not let me just bark at 'em? I'm not afraid of takin' on those big guys and I can scare 'em off really good!" As if getting ready to spring, Pix crouched down (or attempted to on the stairs) and whipped her tail around before letting out a growl.

"Now hold on here, Pix, you don't have to go through the effort. We have about two gallons of this stuff to knock out a gnarlzak!... uh, off of its claws before it gets back up and goes on its merry way," Buzz quickly finished, making sure Ozma wouldn't shoot him a dirty glare at his previous statement. He moved on, "And besides, if we were to fly over there with the device attached to our jet packs, they'd know we were coming after hearing them in the last fight, and we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves against the animals should they see and attack us.

But by attaching the cloaking device to the MAV, we instantly create a combination of strength, stealth, speed and self-defense. Not to mention we have a little brig inside the MAV for our nasty Chlorm neighbors to sit and stew... er, that is, float and stew, whatever, until we get 'em back to 42 and dump 'em into the big brig."

Booster asked with hope, "So how about it, Dr. Furbanna? Will you give the MAV another chance?"

Everyone waited for her response. She seemed to weigh her decision, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. She did roll her eyes, but it wasn't necessarily one out of defeat. "As long as I have a view of what's going on, fine.

I just want to find those poachers and see they get what they deserve."

Pix eagerly 'shouted', "I call shotgun!"

A/N: Today I wanted to post this, as it's the third anniversary of when this story was originally posted back in 2015. Enjoy!