Dinomorphs Vol. 3: The New Henchmen

Chapter 4: Mission Failed

Scorch, Livewire and Neera stood back in Dr. X-Ray's study after failing their first mission. The scientist was truly annoyed but was able to keep his patience. His henchmen were new to being Dyno-Morphs and Lucy and her team were experienced crimefighters and the boys, for whatever reason, had far more powerful abilities than any other Dyno-Morphs he had created previously. 
"Unbelievable. The most experienced criminal of the three, an experienced arsonist even, and you didn't understand the consequences of using fire around a flammable substance?" He scolded.
"Agreed. We lost this time because those Dyno-Morphs were more organized and used their brains." Neera chimed in. "Such impulsiveness will always lead to our failure."
"Gimme a break would yas?" Scorch defended. "What was so important about that oil anyways?" He asked.
"Money, dear boy." Dr. X-Ray replied. "Those tankers would have fetched quite a price and I would have been able to produce more Spinotrons. Something I plan to send with you to aid you on future missions. But of course, they cannot be produced without money. A lot of it." 
"Understood, Doctor. I will keep a closer eye on the fiery one from now on." Neera said.
"I appreciate that, my dear." Their master replied. "Now go and rest. That will be all until further notice."

Claire and the Dyno-Morphs sat at the dinner table eating their lunch, a plateful of toast sitting at the centre. 
"Sorry you weren't able to save all three of those tankers." Claire said to her dinosauric friends. 
"Two of them were delivered safely and none of the drivers were harmed. I consider that a success." Lucy said. 
"Another plus is that the explosion wasn't Gill's fault. Something that really surprises me." Jimbo teased, much to the amusement of Crash and the annoyance of Gill, who growled across the table at him while Claire stroked his arm in an attempt to keep him calm and Lucy gave Jimbo a stern gaze.
"Jimbo, less of that. Gill, temper." She reminded and Gill decided to take his mind off of Jimbo's sly comment and turned his attention back to his coffee, slurping it down noisily. Before long, lunch was over and Jimbo helped Claire and Lucy clear the plates and cups away before the boys retreated to the living room to watch their favourite cartoon Duke Dino.

Meanwhile, Scorch, Neera and Livewire were standing in Dr. X-Ray's study, having just received instructions for their next mission. "This job may be more your speed. I'm sure you three can handle a simple bank robbery." 
"Yeah, no problems, Doc." Scorch reassured. "I did a few o' those back when I was a human. As a dino, it should be a walk in the park." 
"But what about those other dino jerks? They messed us up big time." Livewire said with concern. 
"Well this time try and be more prepared for them. Carry out the job quickly and just hope that they don't get wind of what you're up to."   
"Not to worry, doctor." Neera assured. "I will be sure to pay more attention to that large one they have."
"Ah yes, Jimbo." The scientist replied. "He is the most intelligent one. I imagine he can be a handful." Dr. X-Ray then thought to himself for a moment. "Neera, you should probably be the one who deals with Jimbo. But you, Livewire, should try and focus on Gill whenever you can. He is aquatic and requires to keep his body wet to prevent himself from dehydrating and overheating so he'll likely be soaking wet whenever you encounter them. This should make him easy prey for those electrified whips of yours." Livewire nodded with an evil grin.
"Understood, doc."
"Good," the scientist smiled  I want you all up and ready at dawn. You'll be striking as soon as the Totem National Bank opens its doors.

The next morning the Dyno-Morphs were up rather early, and were sparring in a room of the garage that had been converted into a training room. This was something they had started doing every day possible at the request of Lucy. Their leader would spar with all three of them one at a time and challenge them to knock her down. Jimbo managed the task fairly easily but with much effort and Crash's turn was well underway. The pterodactyl had blocked many punches and kicks from Lucy and could feel himself running out out of breath as he tried his hardest to keep up with her. "Oh come now, Crash. You're not gonna let me beat you this quickly are you?" She taunted with a grin as she stood one one foot with her other leg in the air, poising for a kick to his face. 
"Looks like Crash is toast this time." Gill said and as Lucy attempted her finishing blow, Crash ducked down, wrapped his tail around her ankle and threw it upwards, flipping Lucy into the air. Prepared for her to land on her feet, Crash then wound his wings back and gave them a single forceful flap, the strong gust-like wind launching her across the room and rolling across the floor, landing in a heap. Crash approached her as she stood up. 
"I'm so sorry, Lucy! Are you okay?" Lucy chuckled.
"Of course, Crash." She smiled at him and over at Jimbo. "I'm proud of you two. You're getting better every time." She then glared over at Gill who didn't look at all enthused to be there. 
"But you Gill, have yet to knock me down even once. Now get over here, and try to put up a fight this time." She commanded.
"I don't think I'm fit for it today, boss. I think I sprained my tailfin in my sleep." The tylosaurus replied and Lucy scowled at his excuse. 
"That's obvious nonsense! Now get your lazy tail over here!" She hissed as she roughly grabbed a handful of his hair and dragged him over to the centre of the room while he whined like a child. 

Lucy stood in a defensive stance. "Now Gill, do your best this time." She ordered and Gill came at her hard. He approached with such speed that she was just barely able to brace herself in time to block his kicks and duck and sidestep his punches. She danced around his attacks with relative ease and shook her head at him, sometimes giving him a harmless slap across the face with her tail. "Is that the best you can do, Gill? No wonder Neera beat you so easily!" She taunted and Gill thought back to his defeat at the hands of that human, the embarrassment he suffered and felt his heart pound with anger. His eyes began to glow brightly as Lucy's taunt hit its mark. 
"That ain't fair and you know it!" He growled and lunged at her, snapping his jaws aggressively, Crash and Jimbo gasping in shock. He was clearly attempting actually to hurt Lucy. 
"Oh man, she really got to him with that, didn't she?" Crash asked. 
"Mhmm," Jimbo replied. "She tests his patience every so often to see if his anger control has improved. And so far, it's not looking very good." In his frenzied anger, Gill left himself wide open a number of times as Lucy skilfully dodged his deadly jaws, punishing him each time with a swift punch or kick, usually to the belly or face. Only a couple of minutes had passed before Gill was almost out of steam and his eyes began to lose their glow. With one more clumsy, half hearted swing of his fist, Gill's defeat was assured as Lucy grabbed his arm with both hands and lifted him over her head in a judo throw and slammed him hard into the soft blue mat. 

He hit the mat hard with a grunt and Lucy held his arm tightly at a painful angle while he growled at her. Expecting him to try and bite one of her ankles, Lucy quickly raised a leg and used her foot to roughly shove his face into the mat, even grinding it around the way Neera did. 
"Looks like you lose, Gill. I'm disappointed. You're the oldest and most experienced, yet you're the easiest. That anger of yours is your worst enemy and makes you easy prey. I want to see improvement next time. Is that understood?" She asked, still pinning him underfoot and gripping his arm painfully. He groaned and winced uncomfortably. "I didn't quite catch that, Gill. What did you say?" Gill hesitated before finally letting out a sigh of defeat.
"Yes boss. I understand." Lucy smiled in satisfaction and stepped off of him, allowing him to finally breathe in untainted air.    

Gill stood up, rubbing his aching snout while Lucy hugged Crash and Jimbo. "Well done, boys." She praised.  "I can't stress how important it is for us to be at the top of our game out there. Luckily for you, Gill, we're a team and always look out for each other. But you really could be more effective if you cared more and stopped losing your temper like that." Gill grunted and looked away. 
"I did my best. Gimme a break." He huffed under his breath. 
"Well then your best needs to get better. Now cheer up and let's go and get some breakfast." The Dyno-morphs then went and had their usual breakfast of their favourite cereals and it wasn't until Gill finished slurping the milk out of his bowl that he realised Claire wasn't with them. "Hey where's Claire at?" He asked and Jimbo sighed.
"I told you when we got up, she's heading out to do a few errands."
"Man, I wish we could help her with things like this." Crash said, still hating that they couldn't mix with humans like they used to before their transformations. 
"I know mate," Jimbo replied. "It'd be nice if we had one of Dr. X-Ray's Machines so we could occasionally go back to being human." 
"Well the fact is we can't. We're stuck like this so it's no use torturing yourselves with fantasies of being human again. We need to get used to this and make the best of it." Gill chided and Lucy nodded. 
"Gill's absolutely right. It's not healthy to think too much about something we can't have. We all miss being human but there's nothing we can do about it now." With breakfast consumed, they all started going about their day. Gill went to do some exercise in the training room while Crash read some of his comics, Jimbo did some tinkering with their gadgets to make sure they were in working order and Lucy sat reading the news paper with a cup of tea in the living room.