A/N: Yeeh, chapter two. Midterms coming up for me soon, so chapter updates might be spotty.
Stella bounded from roof to roof and got to the highest point of the base. She now had her Stetson on as well as some brown work shoes, and her hair was now up in its usual ponytail.
"And here we are," she said as she adjusted her Stetson. Her hand swiped by her waist and she frowned. Her extra weight didn't really slow her down in any way or really affected her, it just felt weird on her. "God, I really let myself go...why does Debbie have to be so blunt about it?"
"Now where is it?" she pulled out a pair of binoculars and started scanning the sky for the suspected aircraft.
Meanwhile in an underground part of the base, Tia and Tai sat on top of Hermit and Hermit Jr. in the launch bay. The Hermits were two A.I tanks that Debbie had built during the battle against Gray Mann. Hermit I, or just Hermit, was a standard large and blockish looking red tank. It had two large tracks on each side and a single rotatable turret. Hermit II, Hermit Jr., was a smaller tank. It was colored red and ran on wheels rather than tracks like its older brother did. A small red light sat upon the turret.
"Come on already, the tension's killing me..." Tai moaned.
Hermit Jr. agreed with a series of beeps and boops.
"Well we can't just disobey Debbie's orders," Tia said. "Remember the last time we did that?"
"Ugh, don't remind me...I finally was able to sit down properly last week."
Back on top of the base, Stella was still scanning the sky. She couldn't find anything so far and lowered the binoculars. She pulled out her radio, "Are yah sure something is coming towards us? Cause ah don't see anything."
"It should visible to you soon," Debbie responded. "It's within ten miles, so just be patient."
"Easy fer yah to say." she said as she lifted the binoculars up again. "Yah ain't sweating out here."
"You need it more than I do sister."
A couple more minutes passed without any sign of the aircraft. Stella considered radioing back to Debbie when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. She looked again with the binoculars and saw what came up on the radar.
The aircraft.
The aircraft looked to be some kind of military troop carrier so some sorts. Stella had seen one of those on the television before, but something was wrong with it. Wrong as in belching black smoke from places where smoke isn't supposed to come out of.
"Deb, are yah seeing this?"
"What? What is it?"
"Looks like some kind of military transport, but it's going down from the looks of it."
There was a brief silence before Debbie came back on. "Ok, I see it on the cameras. I'm surprised it didn't go down yet. Engine fire and a catastrophic engine failure is my guess. They should be fine since they'll glide to the ground."
Suddenly the aircraft started to take a perilous nosedive.
"What in tarnation...?"
"And I spoke too soon..."
The aircraft disappeared behind a large rock formation, and out of view of the cameras and Stella's eyesight.
"Ah'm going to see if they're ok," Stella said.
"Roger, Tia and Tai should be right behind you with the Hermits." Debbie said before cutting off.
Stella pocketed the binoculars before taking a leap off the roof. She landed on the ground with a roll and sprinted towards the direction of the crash.
(Scene Switch #linetoolproblems)
Hermit and Hermit Jr. rumbled through the badlands of Teufort with the twins sitting on top of the two tanks.
"Where is the crash site anyways?" Tai asked.
"Don't know," Tia responded. "Stella's supposed to be scouting ahead looking for it. We find her, we'll find where ever this thing crashed."
The two rode for a few minutes before Tai spotted something.
"Look, smoke." she pointed to the rising column of dark smoke.
"I see it," she tapped her hand on Hermit. "You got that, Hermit?"
The large tank took a hard right and navigated the winding path towards the smoke, with Hermit Jr. following closely behind. Eventually, the two arrived at the crash site. The large military troop transport landed hard on its belly and crashed against a rock wall. One of its engines was on fire, while on of its wings was torn and was missing completely. Stella was standing near the crashed plane and turned around to address the twins.
The Hermits stopped and the twins disembarked.
"Ah can't get inside to see if anyone's alive," Stella said. "Too much fire and smoke for anyone to get in there."
"Hermit Jr. has a fire extinguisher and gas mask," Tai said as she headed back to the smaller tank.
"Is Debbie coming?" Stella asked.
"She should be," Tia responded. "She's bringing the truck and K-9."
Stella nodded as she caught the gas mask and the fire extinguisher. She put the gas mask on and headed into the fire.
As Stella went in, Debbie arrived in the pickup truck with K-9. The German Shepard was now wearing a red bandana around his neck and a bullet proof dog vest.
"Sup girls," Debbie said, she now had a brown backpack on. "Where's Stella?"
"In there," Tai said and pointed to the flaming wreckage.
Years ago, Debbie would react like a normal person and start freaking out, but now she...didn't react at all. She was used to seeing Stella run into potentially deadly situations and come out unscathed so it was numb at this point.
"Did she find anyone yet?"
"Not yet..."
"WE GOT BODIES!" Stella came out of the wreckage with two females, one over her shoulder and another under her arm. She placed them down in front of Debbie. "There's two more in there, but I can't tell if there is any more than that."
"Just hurry! I think the plane is going to go up in flames any moment." Debbie said as she tended to the females.
Stella ran back in and came back out with two more females. She was going back in to see if anyone else was in there, but someone pulled her back.
"Stella! The fuel tanks are going to blow any second! We gotta get outta here." Debbie said.
"But there may be more-!"
"No time!" as if on cue an explosion rocked the area around them. "C'mon!"
The others had already loaded the victims on the back of the truck and were waiting to speed away before the plane exploded. Stella hopped on top of Hermit with Tia and Debbie got into the truck.
"Alright, let's go!"
The three vehicles raced out of the area just as the plane exploded into a giant fireball.
The group got back to the base without any problems. With the help of some of the robots, the group was able to transfer the injured to the Med-Bay.
For those who are wondering why there are a bunch of robots that Gray Mann controlled hanging around the base was because there wasn't anything else better to do with them. Debbie was able to reprogram a bunch of them to help out around the base and act as the base's security. They also helped the four to coop with the loss of their friends, since the robots acted like the mercs. However, it didn't do much to patch that hole in their hearts.
Nothing in the world could replace the loss.
Later that night...
Debbie slumped in a chair in the kitchen. She spent most of her afternoon treating the four survivors till the late hours of night. She eventually turned it over to the Med-bots to watch over the four, she also posted Delta as well, just so the four didn't try to do anything rash.
During the examination, she found the four to be quite interesting, but mainly with the equipment they had on them. The few instruments that she could make out was a freeze gun, some futuristic blaster pistols, and a staff. But by far the most interesting piece of equipment was something that she couldn't really examine. It was some kind of blue glowing regulator-thing that was on the chest of one of the females. She would've taken it off, but something in the back of her mind told her not to.
Standing up and walking to the fridge, she grabbed a beer and downed it and then grabbed another before heading back to her seat. Debbie did this whenever she felt stressed, luckily the effects of alcohol doesn't affect the buildings, so she didn't have to worry about the negative effects that alcohol had.
"Sup, Deb." Stella said as she walked into the kitchen and also grabbed a cold one. "Eventful day, has it been?"
"Yup, just like the old days."
"How's the survivors?"
"They'll live, anything from the wreckage?"
"Not really, found two charred bodies at the front. Most likely the pilots, but looks like they died on impact."
"So what are we dealing with here?" Stella asked.
"I dunno, the stuff they have with them is far from what we normally use, energy-based weaponry is what I can put it. I'll probably spend all day tomorrow examining them."
The was a brief pause.
"Hey, um, about this morning..." Stella started. "You're...you're right...ah have been losing my edge..."
"Stella that was just in the heat of the moment, I didn't-"
"-insult me? No, yah just being brutally honest. Ah'm lazy, a slob, an the only thing ah can do right is kill, destroy, and cause FUCKING mayhem!" she threw her beer against the wall, which shattered upon impact. "It's just mah nature...ah don't do anything but sit and watch the point..." she stifled a tear.
"Stella..."
"Yah on the other hand, actually do something, yah were more helpful than I was even though yah can't defend yourself."
Debbie picked her beer up and smashed the bottle against Stella. "Stella, face me, NOW!"
Stella turned towards Debbie.
She moved her hair so that her fringe wasn't covering one of her eyes. Her eye glowed a bright red. "What the hell is your problem?!"
"..."
"Get your head out of your ass! That is not the Stella I would want to see back in 1968!" her eye glowed brighter as her tone got louder. "I look up to you! The twins look up to you, just because you are our big sister. Why are you putting yourself down?
"I never in my entire life see you put yourself down once until recently. Why?"
"Yah wouldn't understand-"
"Try me." she adjusted her fringe to reveal her other eye, which was also glowing red. "Spill NOW."
"...her...she was the only one that understood me."
"You're...you're not over her yet?"
Stella shook her head. "We connected, two psychotic killers that society never accepted. Ah'm surprised that yah not having a hard time."
Debbie let her hair fall back into place. "I've learned not to stay attached to things," she said softly. "You can't save everyone..."
She stood up and left the kitchen and headed to her room. She closed the door behind her and made her way to her dresser. On it was various pictures frames, she picked up one and looked at it before sitting on her bed.
The picture was of her and a man in a hardhat sitting together watching a sunset.
She started to cry as she held the picture close to her, and eventually cried herself to sleep.
A/N: Well...this got dark...ah...just leave a review, next chapter will eventually come.
Till next time,
-D.W
