Newest story! Credit for the idea goes to PeggsterLover for her lovely photo that she made of an AU!Apocolyptic Universe for MI4 and help with the beginning. Enjoy this first chapter of "Redemption"!

Summary: The team failed to stop Hendricks in Mumbai. Nuclear war erupted throughout the majority of the globe. The world fell into disarray. Can there be hope if this torn-apart team can band back together again to save us all?


It had been about five months since Hendricks succeeded in starting a nuclear war; five months since the quartet had split up and fled to separate countries from failure; five months since Ethan had ordered them to not make contact with one another until otherwise told to. Now the world was in tatters.

From in Germany's broken and rundown remains, Ethan listened to the news on his makeshift radio of scrap metal and parts as he scavenged around the dinky hotel kitchen for something to eat. Something edible rather than the unidentifiable substances hiding in every nook and cranny of the kitchen. He scratched at his unshaven chin while he searched, listening intently to his broadcast at the same time. From the fuzzy static, he could pick out the weak German transmitting from its half destroyed station. It spoke of how Hendricks had taken pretty much the majority of the world by force and how he was now gathering up previous agents and soldiers alike for his massive army. Australia, South America, and parts of Africa were still out of his control and he wanted to seize control of them himself.

The next statement cast concrete on Ethan. Hendricks was calling out Ethan and his "crew", as he called them, to come out into the open and surrender themselves. He wanted nothing else to stand in his way while he prepared to "fix the world that they destroyed." The branding of "terrorists" was now slammed onto their very being. They were outcasts. But then again, so was the rest of the world.

It wasn't right. In a spontaneous moment of new light, Ethan made a decision that was going to change everything.

Time to make a stand.

-l-

A tan, thin figure sat in a thatched roof home, listening to the radio intently. Her deep brown pools glimmered with concern as Hendricks spoke.

"Janie! Janie!" A young Brazilian girl, maybe six-years-old or so, ran into her abode and hugged her arm. Her long, thin braids swung around in two high ponytails and she grinned up at her favorite person out of the whole town with a toothy beam.

"Hi Leilah." Jane chuckled, taking her niece in her lap and wrapping secure arms around her waist.

"What's Janie listening to?" Leilah looked up at her aunt with big, innocent eyes.

Jane bit her lip slightly and switched the channel. She didn't want to explain the situation to her for fear of that innocent, childish shine being lost in her eyes.

"Jane." A man with floppy brown hair and brown eyes matching her own appeared in the doorway of her home. She was certainly getting a lot of visitors today.

"Matheus." She greeted her brother with a small smile.

"Pai!" Leilah jumped off her lap and ran into her father's waiting arms.

"Hello sweetheart." He chuckled, brushing away some hair from his eyes. Jane could swear his brown locks reminded her of Ethan's same flippy hair.

"Were you looking for your little one here?" She stood and patted Leilah on the head lovingly.

"No, actually." Matheus replied in his heavily accented Brazilian tone. "This was delivered to me from some government visitors. It was given the utmost priority to get to you."

An elegant, ivory envelope with a note enclosed was handed to her. With curiosity she opened it and read the contents inside.

Speak of the devil…

-l-

The falling London evening kept Benji quick on his feet. A crisp, cool winter wind nipped at his cheeks but he ignored it. His folks as well as the other refugees they took in were waiting for him to arrive back to homebase before closing up shop for the night. He was, after all, the one they counted on for any and all supplies. Basically the provision soldier for their ragtag house of Brits and more.

He hurried into his rundown home and stepped quickly down to the basement. It was a ghost town, or so it seemed. Benji reached behind the cadaverous furnace with a disgusted face. He abhorred touching the atrocious piece of metal since it was coated with layers and layers of radioactive ash. The only thing that kept him safe right now was the vaccination that people managed to get in the midst of the nuclear war.

The one that he and his friends failed to stop five months ago.

Guilt churned uncomfortably in his stomach as he found what he was looking for. He pressed the button, disguised as one of the bolts holding the aged contraption together. The furnace moved aside and revealed the entrance to the bunker his father had built so many years ago in his childhood. Back then Benji found his old man insane for doing such a thing, now he couldn't be more thankful.

Shutting the bunker door behind him, Benji turned to find his father, Old Colonel Dunn, waiting for him down the corridor.

"Dad. I'm bloody sorry I'm late, really. I just had issues getting the last item we needed on the li—"

"I'm not scolding you, Benjamin." The aged parent shook his head simply. He reached into his shredded coat pocket and handed his son a piece of stained parchment. "Picked this up on our radios. Managed to find a man clever enough to decode the Morse code used as well as the German it was sent in."

"German? Who the Hell would be contacting me in Germany?" Benji muttered, puzzled as he fumbled to open the folded paper with his dirtied fingers.

Bright blue eyes analyzed the message, then blinked in shock. A well of hope began to bring up some new emotion from its depths. This was the time for redemption. This was the time to change everything.

He knew exactly what he had to do.

-l-

The sun still blazed high in the sky on Australia. A family of renegade soldiers rode through The Outback in successful silence. They had just retaken a city on the western coast and were celebrating by passing around a canteen of bourbon to one another, patting each other on the back with filthy, boyish grins.

Brandt tugged at his uniform a bit, feeling nostalgia sneak its way into his heart when he thought of himself and the IMF team from months back.

"Oi, Will." One of his buddies nudged him in the side lightly. "You all right, mate?"

"Hm? Yeah yeah, just fine…"

"You thinkin' of those American buds you told me about?"

"One of them's a Brit, Carver. But yeah, that's who I was thinking of. I used to have moments like this with them."

Carver gifted him with a very Benji-like grin. "You'll get 'em back sooner or later. I'm sure they're surviving."

"Well, with any luck—"

"Brandt!" The voice of their commander called from the front of the humvee.

"Yes sir?" Brandt moved his attention to the man in the passenger's seat.

"Got a message here for you that our radioman received. It's for you." The commander gestured to the said man, who handed Brandt his message.

He took it and read it carefully, re-reading it a few times before he let its words finally hit him. There was a set of coordinates and a time recorded, with the message: "Saturn, Venus, Pluto; it's time to reconvene."

Only one person knew those code names, since he was the one who came up with them. It was Ethan. After months, he was finally calling them back to action. This was it. This was their chance.

And as cheesy as it sounded, it was time for Operation: Save the World.


Please review! The picture is on .com. Please search for it as best as you can, it's really worth it. ;)

Much love to you all, xoxo