Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Moonscoop, France 3, and Canal J. The custom-created characters NOT in the actual series and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with Moonscoop, France 3, Canal J, or any of their affiliates. No copyright infringement is intended.
Shooter
"Stern, objective change. Our target has escaped, and we need you to track him down and stop him," Aelita's voice came to Stern's headset.
She waited for a response from Stern, her best agent in the Secret Service Union. But there was nothing coming from his end.
"Stern, can you read me? Ulrich!"
Aelita's voice grew desperate; worried that Agent Ulrich Stern was deceased, or even worse, unconscious and ready for capture.
She turned to face her fiancée, Jeremie Belpois, who was typing at lightning speed on his laptop, trying his best to track down Stern's headset.
"Jeremie, are you finding Ulrich as we speak?" Aelita enquired.
"I'm a step ahead of you. It will only take a few moments," Jeremie answered.
Jeremie's laptop searched the world via satellite, and it quickly picked up a familiar signal, as the scan was near completion.
Soon enough, a beeping noise came from his laptop, telling him the scan was complete.
"Alright, he… doesn't seem to be moving… anywhere," Jeremie declared.
"Great, this is the last thing we need. Ulrich Stern, do you copy?" Aelita demanded in worry.
There was a long silence. No sound came from Ulrich's headset, except gunfire.
It was nerve wracking just waiting for a single human voice to say something to indicate that Ulrich was dead or alive. Torture it was. Ulrich Stern was also a close friend to Jeremie and Aelita, so it was in their best interest not to lose him, both morally and job-wise.
"Copy, this is Ulrich Stern reporting."
"Ulrich! You had us so worried. Why didn't you respond earlier?" Aelita asked.
"I had some-" Ulrich started, and spun around and whacked an enemy with the barrel of his gun, "Business to take care of."
"Well, it's not that difficult to multi-task you know. You can still kill enemies while reporting to us," Aelita charged.
"Aelita, only women are pretty capable of doing that… not men," Jeremie stated.
Aelita sighed and responded, "Well Jeremie, you can obviously talk while typing so I guess men can multi-task as well."
"Ah… accepting the flattery from your misses Jeremie?" Ulrich asked.
"We're not married yet Ulrich, and by the amount of time you're wasting you'll be married to this battlefield!" Jeremie shouted.
"Well, it'll help to give directions instead of bickering with your future wife so I can kill that idiot before he plants a nuclear weapon into a submarine!" Ulrich yelled in frustration.
"You heard him Jeremie. Better give him his orders before nuclear radiation spreads throughout France," Aelita replied.
Jeremie groaned and scanned his map again to make sure the directions he had stored in his head beforehand were correct. He quickly found some shortcuts on the map displayed on his laptop and memorised them.
"Ok, go right, left, right, straight, left-"
Ulrich sprinted down the path Jeremie wanted him to follow, with his ears picking up Jeremie's directions. As he was running he reloaded his pistol with more bullets he had kept in a case attached to his belt. He continued to follow Jeremie's directions, which seems never ending in his point of view. He questioned how long it would take to get to a particular submarine in the Dieppe Port.
Ulrich turned right without peering over the corner and froze in his spot. He could not believe his eyes that the adversary had a Japanese woman in captivity, but the most shocking thing to him that this woman was not just any short raven haired woman. It was his girlfriend, Yumi Ishiyama.
"Yumi!"
That word did not only catch the attention of his girlfriend, it also caught her captor's attention as he quickly spun around and revealed his face.
Once again Ulrich was struck to the heart with a familiar face. This time the person was male, and had blonde hair gelled up in a spike with a purple patch in the middle.
Ulrich lowered his weapon slowly and questioned, "Odd, why have you done this?"
"Simple, I just want to see France dogs grovel to the Italians for once. And what better way to have the Secret Service Union's best agent's girlfriend in my possession!"
"Just let her go and disarm the nuclear weapon Odd, I don't want to be forced to hurt you," Ulrich replied calmly.
"Do you really think I would let her go after a plead? That's so sad, man! You haven't changed a single bit!"
"Look, she has nothing to do with this, stop using her as a shield and fight me like a man!"
Odd whipped out his gun with his spare hand and pressed the barrel of it to Yumi's temple.
"Now Ulrich, drop your weapon and you will get your girl back and leave here without being harmed. If you don't I will kill your girlfriend! What will you do?" Odd threatened.
In a split second, Ulrich had already made his decision. He immediately fired his gun, catching Odd off guard, and pierced his right hand that was holding the gun. He let go of both his weapon and Yumi and grasped his hand.
Ulrich took the opportunity to keep on firing at him, but thanks to Odd's cat like reflexes he cartwheeled in midair and landed near his gun. He quickly bent down, grabbed it and aimed for Ulrich.
Ulrich adjusted to Odd's new position as he fired. The bullet travelled through the air too fast for Ulrich to anticipate, and felt it lodge into his chest.
Ulrich was propelled off his feet, and suddenly the world was moving in slow motion for him. He almost felt like he was flying through the air with nothing to stop him from falling. But he was, and his world had turned black and his body froze internally. Before long, he would be dead, and his mission failed.
...
...
...
"Yes! Villains win again!" Odd exclaimed, jumping on the couch pumping his fist in the air.
"That's because you held somebody hostage," Ulrich retorted.
"Who cares? Bad guys can do that! Plus it's a video game, so yeah, I won!" Odd proclaimed.
"Can't you just play fairly? Like everyone else does?" Ulrich demanded.
"You are so naïve Ulrich, everybody bends the rules! You should too; it makes things a lot more interesting and unpredictable!" Odd shouted.
"Well then, I'm going to prove to you that you don't need to break the rules to win! Let's do this again!" Ulrich yelled enthusiastically.
"Bring it on Stern!" Odd bellowed.
Their spectators could only chuckle, enjoying their competitive spirit. Even though they weren't playing the game, Yumi, Jeremie and Aelita preferred watching it than playing against the two gamers.
"They are really into this… Even though it's just a virtual game," Aelita stated.
"Well, that's the idea of video games Aelita. You're supposed to play against your friends and have fun," Jeremie responded.
"I just hope they don't make too much noise by the time my parents get back home," Yumi replied, "But is this how they always sort out arguments?"
"Yeah. At least they're not beating each other up."
"Mhm, Ulrich would win that for sure."
"What are they arguing about again?" Aelita enquired.
"They wanted to decide who was best at shooter games," Jeremie answered.
"That sounds pointless. They should grow up."
"Don't worry Aelita, Ulrich will grow up… But I doubt Odd would anytime soon," Yumi reassured.
"YEAH!"
The trio looked back at the boys, surprised who actually screamed that.
"HOW ABOUT THAT DELLA ROBBIA? I TOLD YOU I CAN WIN WITHOUT CHEATING!" Ulrich shouted at the top of his lungs.
Yumi gritted her teeth, realising what she just said was completely wrong. Jeremie cracked up laughing, finding it all too hilarious.
"So… what did you say about Ulrich growing up?" Jeremie asked.
"Shut up," Yumi grunted.
The two gamers looked back at their friends, wondering what they were talking about. However, it wasn't that much to worry about, so they turned to each other, staring at each other competitively.
"Best of three?" Odd asked.
"Yeah, I'll prove to you again that I can beat you fairly," Ulrich stated.
"Then I'll just make you break the rules."
The End…Or is it?
Author's Note:
Believe it or not, I wrote this three years ago. I just haven't bothered to upload this onto fanfiction. So therefore, I can't remember what inspiration I got to writing this. So, I have to consider it as… random.
I believe though this is based after False Start when Aelita is permanently an Earth resident. Not sure exactly when in Season two, but hey, she's on Earth, and that's the main thing.
And I hope you all have enjoyed this. This is not my major project I hinted at in Powerslave. But I hope I can at least make progress on it and display it to you all when most of it is done. For now, I hope you had a good laugh out of this.