So, this story, a Hoagie centric, this has been on my to do list for a while. It's a mini, three to four chapters, that's it. If I've got enough time, this'll be done in a week. If not...see you all next year-nah joking I'm joking! You can't see it but I've got my 'I told a funny' face on. Oh well, here's the Gilligan Conundrum.
Years Ago
A pair of child-like hands gripped the steering wheel of a car. "Beginning flight check!" The child, a young lad with messy brown hair with a pair of aviators over his eyes exclaimed. The boy tapped the side of the steering wheel as he made imaginary jet noises. "Engines on!" He exclaimed excitedly.
"Blah-gah!" A baby boy in a toddler seat drooled cheerfully.
"Ha ha! That's right Tommy, prepare for takeoff!" The boy shouted. "Shwush! Shwush! And we're up in the air!"
"Wa-gah da buh!" The baby boy, Tommy, cried, throwing his arms up into the air.
"Now what do we have here?" A masculine voice called out. The driver side door opened and a pair of large hands reached in to grab the boy.
"Dad!" The boy whined joyously. "You know better than to pull a pilot out of his seat when the plane is in the air!" The toddler in the backseat smiled, making joy filled noises as he recognized the man.
"Dada!" The toddler exclaimed, reaching out to the man identified as his father.
"Ah, my boys!" The man exclaimed, opening the passenger side door. He unbuckled the toddler's seat, and scooped the two year-old up in his arm. The man planted a kiss each on his sons.
"Dear…" The man turned to see his wife standing in the doorway of their house, a phone in her hand. "It's Washer…he needs to talk to you…"
The man's cheerful expression was soon replaced by one of dread. He set his eldest son on the ground. The boy watched as his father walked up their driveway, up to their porch, he handed the boy's younger brother to his mother and took the phone into his house. The eldest son looked on in wonder, never knowing the events that would unfold because of one phone call.
Now
"Hey dad…" an older Hoagie junior muttered as he stood over his father's grave. "It's been a while…sorry for not coming sooner…I'd say I had an excuse but…I really don't." Hoagie looked to the bouquet of flowers in his hands and gently bent down to place them beside the grave stone. "Happy Birthday dad."
"Dad…I don't remember much." Hoagie spoke lightly as the sun began to disappear from the sky. "I don't remember much about being a kid, it's all a blank…but I remember you." Hoagie paused, taking the time to wipe away a tear. "I miss you, dad. We all do, me, Tommy, Mom…even Mr. Washer…I wish you were here…"
Hoagie backed away from the grave, turning to walk away. "I'll see you later, dad." With the sun now fully gone from the sky, Hoagie, with his thoughts dwelling on his missing memories and his father, went on into the dark, not noticing the steel machine descending above.
12,000 AD
Earth
Ten thousand years in the future, a mega ice age threatens humanity. Hundreds die every day of starvation, even more die in the cold. Hope is a thing of the past, so now, they look to the future. Left with no other options, humanity looks to the unlimited potential within time travel. Hoping that somewhere, sometime in the future, there will be a time that the world can sustain life once more, they sent the best and brightest youth their world had to offer to scout the timeline through a time machine known as the Time Flyer.
"Time travel." A young girl, no older than fifteen, muttered as she walked alone in the cold. "Infinite possibilities…but only one that matters to me." The lone girl wore a long hooded coat and long pants that covered her leather boots. She wore a poorly stitched number on her coat. She trudged through snow covered streets, paying no mind to the frozen dead in the streets or the assembled group beside a car that had been set ablaze.
The girl walked into a building lobby and instantly, all attention was on her. They didn't recognize her under the hood, until they noticed the patch, until they noticed the number. Security rushed into the lobby in a hurry. "Hold it right there!" The head of security shouted. "Stay where you are!"
"No." the girl muttered. A futuristic pistol fell from her sleeve into her hand. She rapidly shot green blasts of energy at the security. The energy blasts eviscerated the security guards on contact, causing all who watched to look on with disgust and horror. The girl walked up to the body of the now deceased head of security and claimed his ID card.
"Chilly out today, isn't it?" The girl said calmly as she walked past a petrified worker.
Holding the ID card to a scanner on a nearby elevator, the girl gained access to the vast amount of floors within the building. She entered the box and hit the top button in the elevator. The elevator rose up through the building, reaching the top floor.
The girl exited the elevator, pistol in hand, finger at the trigger. She checked her sides, and walked down the carpet covered hallway. Taking aim at the massive steel doors at the end of the hallway, the girl pulled the trigger. With a green flash, the doors blew open, flying into the room, slamming against a bearded man in a blue lab coat.
"Father!" A red headed teen with a blue streak running through it cried out, her arm outstretched as if to attempt to grab the one whom she called father.
"Cassiopeia…" The father struggled to call out his daughters name.
"Now, now Professor G." The girl pointed the gun to the fallen Professor's head. "Don't waste the effort on your pathetic daughter, we've got more pressing matters." She pulled the Professor up by his collar and proceeded to use him as a human shield. "Now, Cassiopeia, move away from the Time Flyer or I burn your father's brain from the inside out."
"Can't risk damaging the Time Flyer can you? I'm too close. You're too far away. You might hit it. After all, this is certainly an act of desperation, your eye movements, erratic, your pupils dilated, you're not thinking clea-"
"Shut up! Move aside or I will kill your Dad!" The girl screamed.
Cassiopeia moved away from the Time Flyer, mankind's last hope. "Good." Slowly, the girl moved towards it. Once she reached the entry hatch, she pushed the Professor aside and kept her weapon trained on Cassiopeia. "You lot thought too small. Move humanity? Wasted time, wasted time machine. You never took into account the power you held, you could have molded the past, made yourselves gods, but no…you didn't did you?"
"The preservation of humanity is the true purpose of the Time Flyer, 392. You only mean to ensure a better life for yourself, you don't care for humanity or the natural disaster we now face." Cassiopeia glared at the girl, 392.
"I have no time to debate with you, daddy's girl." 392 smirked, opening the hatch and sliding into the Time Flyer. The hatch locked behind her. She swiftly jumped into the pilots seat and engaged the quantum engines.
The Time Flyer burst through the roof, exposing the interior to the harsh frozen climate outside. 392 hit the thrusters, and engaged the jump drive. In a flash, 392 tore through reality and jetted back in time, destination unknown.
All around the father daughter duo, the world began to change. The buildings changed slightly then returned to normal then changed again. People disappeared and reappeared. The cold got colder.
"We need to fix this." The Profsseor muttered, hugging his chest from where the door slammed into him. He was bleeding internally, he knew it. There was no time to waste in calling a doctor. The world needed to be saved. He turned to his daughter and spoke urgently. "Cassiopeia, the prototype, the initial Time Flyer is active, but in storage in the back room, gather the three sentinel bots for your mission. The Time Flyers run off of the same computer, you can hijack 392's destination. Go back, stop what she's done before it's too late."
"Father, come with me then." Cassiopeia grabbed onto her father, only for him to swat her away.
"There's no time! Go! Or we're all dead!" He shouted, feeling his own body begin to change from within.
Cassiopeia did as she was told. She gathered the three sentinel bots, and broke into the back room. There, she found the proto type Time Flyer. She was unfamiliar with this model, more adept with the one 392 stole. But I t would have to do. So she did what her father told her. She now knew where 392 went. Now she follows.
Cassiopeia took off, bursting through the side of the building and blasting off, jumping into time itself. When she was assigned the task to find a new time period suitable for human relocation, Cassiopeia never thought the world on her shoulders would never weigh any more. How wrong she was. Her mission will wait, she has another one.
Sadly, this version of the Time Flyer is a proto-type. It was no surprise that where she crash landed was actually 8 years after where she was supposed to land.
Now
Hoagie Gilligan woke up in a daze. What happened? He looked around, finding himself in his room. How'd he get here? Last thing he recalled, he was walking home from visiting his father's grave. He got up, out of bed and walked down his stairs to his kitchen. He smelled pancakes. His father's pancakes. It was so long ago since he had them. How was it his mother could make them smell the same? Wasn't it his dad's secret recipe?
He sat down, at the table, his brother across him, his mother beside Tommy, his grandmother beside him and…his Father at the head of the table, reading a newspaper while the others ate.
Hoagie was speechless, there, right there, was his father. He jumped out his seat and hugged him, causing much confusion between the family. "Uh, hey son, you look like you haven't seen me in a long time."
"Oh…dad" Hoagie was tearing up.
"Is everything alright." His Father asked concerned, setting his paper aside.
"No, it's alright dad…just had a bad dream." Hoagie held on tighter. Paying no mind to the headline on the newspaper which read 'End of the World'. "Everythings alright."
DC
Abbigail Lincoln, leader of the GKND, Government Kids Next Door, sat around a round table, amongst squad leaders, politicians, and world leaders. Desperate time calls for desperate measures. That's what she told herself. That's what they all told themselves.
"We're running a big gambit here, we could be losing one of our more successful teams for this mission." The Emperor of Neo Russia said aloud.
"Agent 4," Abbigail called to her aussie second-in-command. "Have they responded to the call?"
"Gimme a sec ta check." Agent 4, the left eye missing Wally Beatles said aloud as he checked the communication console. "They're responding."
"Open hologram communication."
"Yes ma'am." Wally nodded, activating the console's hologram feature. A 3-D hologram of a gas-mask sporting teen with the number 2030 tattooed on his left arm appeared on the table.
"You called." The teen, Agent 2030, spoke roughly.
"We'd like to check in on you and your team, and wish you good luck on your mission." Abbigail spoke seriously.
"Don't worry, Agent 74.239 has assured me there is a 'less than two percent chance of success'. 'Smartest Teen Alive', that's you call him. Most Cynical Squeaker I've ever known. But, yeah, we've got this. Not like we have to kill the leader, we just got to tag her ship." Agent 2030 shrugged.
"You do understand there's a likely hood none of you are coming back, right?" Abbigail said solemly. She hated sending people to their deaths. Especially good friends.
"We knew the risks. We've all lost people Abby, we just want to prevent that, one dead KND operative at a time." Agent 2030 smirked behind his mask. "Just tell Wytch not to name the kid anything dumb…alright."
"You would have made a good father Agent." Abbigail laughed lightly.
"No…I wouldn't have. We're now initiating radio silence. You'll know when we're done. 2030 out." The hologram dissipated. The room was silent.
"They'll succeed." Agent 4 broke the silence.
"You put too much faith in the disposable." The Prime Minister of Neo South America spoke up.
"They'll get the job done." Abbigail muttered. "There is no room for failure. The world can't have that, we can't have that."
Aboard The Prospector
Agent 2030, the homicidal government sponsored Kids Next Door operative viewed the sunken ruins of Africa through a telescope. "That's a lot of death…even for us."
"2030." Agent 2030 turned to see a red headed teen with braces walk up from a stairwell beneath the ship. "Tell your my instruments have indicated we are at the source of the Mass Wave."
"I still can't believe Numbuh 12 would even consider using such a weapon…the adults aside, she killed a lot of kids testing it out…" Agent 2030 spoke solemnly. "Castoff." Agent 2030 turned to his second-in-command, a hooded poncho earing teen with fishing lures, "Tell RAMON to shut off the engines, I want radio silence until were right over the damn thing."
Castoff nodded, quickly taking off to tell the ship's on board robotic crew member. The Prospector slowed, now set adrift. They were now passing over the epicenter. All of Gabe's equipment utilizing echo location technology to locate their objective. "
And, we have it." Gabe smirked. "Sending location to Abbigail now." Gabe said, before pausing, turning to Agent 2030. "You are aware that once I do, Numbuh 12's crazed forces will be on top of us within seconds."
"Right. Hit it." Agent 2030 said grimly. And, he did. "And?"
"It's sent." Gabe sighed in relief.
"Good, enact Protocol 100, destroy everything. If this vessel gets captured, don't let them know what we'v-" Agent 2030 as cut off guard by the sudden rocking of The Prospector. Waves swept over the vessel, knocking crew members into the water to be devoured by mutant sea life.
"Ugh…" Big Brother shook himself, regaining his composure. He turned to see the dead body of Nogoodnik on the boat. He was about to speak up, only to be cut down by a laser blast. Beside the Prospector, rising out of the depths, was Numbuh 12's citadel. Laser harpoons shot out and latched itself onto the hull of the ship.
"Kids Next Door! Battle Stations!" Agent 2030 shouted, pulling out twin pistols from their holsters. Castoff, Agent 116, Agent 398, and The Iguana pulled up beside their captain, readying for the fight.
Gabe ran over to his equipment, pulling out an EMP Rifle and took aim. With the pull of a trigger, he wiped all the information stored on the equipment.
Numbuh 12's KND operatives landed onto The Prospector and engaged the few remaining crew members. The Common Cold blasted a pair of KND operatives with a bio weapon, causing their skin to melt as Knight Brace flung his retainer at another pair, sending them into the sea below. The duo would then be struck down by laser fire.
The Iguana took cover behind a barrel, as Agent 206 took pot shots as Agent 208, the best sniper in the Government run KND attempted to cut the harpoons holding The Prospector in place. Behind the Iguana landed Numbuh 83, Sonya, who leapt into the air, landing on his shoulders and snapping his neck. She jumped towards Agent 206 and threw him overboard.
The KND forces rushed the crew, causing Laura Limpin to become enraged. She took on her monstrosity form and stomped, thrashed, crushed and tossed a dozen of Numbuh 12's operatives. She smiled in victory, only for a dozen explosive yo-yos latched onto her body, detonating on contact. Lee, Numbuh 84 smiled from afar as he leapt onto the boat.
Agents 116 and 398 were cut down mercilessly. Dodge Ball Wizard attempted to get airborne, only to be struck down by one of the harpoons, stabbing him firmly into the hull of The Prospector. Agent 208 was blasted off his snipers perch. The Bright Idea gathered all the solar radiation he could muster and eradicated a wave of operatives, having given too much for the attack, he fell to a heart attack.
Castoff found himself battling Lee, fishing lines vs. yo-yos. Out of nowhere Sonya leapt in, stabbing Castoff in the back. The teenage Pioneer rushed to aid her teammate, fire fists at the ready, only to be gunned down by a squad of operatives. Seaweed, covered Gabe's flank, blasting an operative in the head. RAMON was found within the ship, destroyed on sight.
"Take them!" Sonya shouted as the GKND fell one by one.
"It's been an honor." Seaweed muttered as he and Agent 2030 rushed forward to meet Numbuh 12's Honor Guard. Gabe was shot in the leg, falling forward, unable to assist. Seaweed shot pure energy at Sonya, who dodged with ease, as Lee dodged Agent 2030's gun shots. Sonya leapt forward, avoiding Seaweed's attacks. Annoyed Agent 2030 shot Sonya in the hip, causing Lee to falter for Seaweed to electrocute him into submission.
"A good death is its own reward." Seaweed muttered to himself as he moved to finish of Lee. Numbuh 85 stepped in, grabbing Seaweed by the arms and blasting him point blank with his laser vision.
Agent 2030 shot at Numbuh 85, for the boy to shrug the bullets off, his skin flexing on pure will. "Damn." Agent 2030 muttered before being blasted by Shaunie's laser vision, sending his body flailing backwards, and landing beside an injured Gabe.
The last of the resistance crushed, Numbuh 12 in all her glory walked onto the ship. Sonya, the captain of the Honor Guard, addressed their Supreme Leader. "It's, was, Abbigail's Runt Pack. We left one for you ma'am."
"Good, bring him aboard, I want to know what they we're doing here." Numbuh 12 spoke wickedly, horrific thoughts in mind.
"I'll pass, thank you very much." Gabe smirked, he was the smartest teen alive, he knew this would be the outcome, so he prepared. He cracked the fake tooth in his mouth and took the cyanide pill, choosing to take his own life rather than betray those he cared for most.
"What a waste." Numbuh 12 turned to her legion. "Return to The Citadel, then sink this hunk of junk." The operatives nodded, returning to The Citadel and destroying The Prospector.
"We're moving up our schedule." Numbuh 12 announced. "Prepare the device for testing."
With Hoagie
Hoagie sat down with his family, watching the live-action Yipper movie. If he knew that the world would soon be ending, then he wouldn't be considering this to be the best day of his life.
One of the darkest things I've done? Probably yes. But, if DC can get away with making the Flashpoint Paradox PG-13, this can be Rated T for teens man.