DISCAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS OF THE SECOND DIMENSION. THE STORY LINE YES, THEIR PERSONALITIES MAYBE, BUT THE CHARACTERS ARE FULLY AND 100% UNDER THE OWNERSHIP OF DISNEY.

From the moment he had gotten home, it had been a constant battle. He didn't know how many robots he had destroyed they just kept coming. After he had ducked a laser to roll underneath a robot and cut off its head, he couldn't help wondering if these robots were just keeping him (and later) his wife in their house to burn to death. How on earth had this happened? It was almost like something from a movie, something that couldn't- shouldn't happen in real life…Then; as suddenly as the robots had come, they began to retreat. It confused him, he had known deep down that he was fighting a losing fight, yet the battle couldn't have ended this easily. So why…? His eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of what the majority of the robots were heading towards. No longer caring about his own survival, he ran towards the cluster of metal, swords gripped tightly in his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his wife plunge the fire poker deep into a robot, and retreating from it as it began to burst into flame. The look on her face told him she had seen what he'd seen. They had been doing a good job in fighting off robots, together they could save their daughter and maybe all three of them could escape the place they'd called home ever since they could remember. A sudden blast of heat near his shoulder scrambled his thoughts. Squinting his eyes in pain, he glanced at his wife…and saw that another robot was blocking her way…and this time she had no weapons and nothing close by to use to defend herself. The most she could do was dodge. With no thought of himself, he changed direction and raised both swords, pain temporary forgotten. Adrenaline pumping, he jumped and managed to land close by the robot and swiftly cut off its head. For a moment everything was still…and muffled. Almost through a haze, he looked at his wife and saw to his surprise tears streaming down her face. He made to move towards her, but couldn't. Confused, he looked down to see if he'd landed wrong and found to his shock that he was bleeding. Heavily. The blast must have done more than he first thought…He looked up and faced her again. It was getting harder and harder to focus on her face and though he wasn't aware of doing so, he had slumped to his knees. As more and more of his world turned black, he felt no pain. Nor did he feel trembling lips and heavy tears touch his head or her hands touch his one last time…

Stacy stared at the Normbots; they *seemed to* stare back. Years of fighting them had taught her a few things; it was thirty percent training, twenty percent luck, ten percent experience and forty percent of doing whatever Candace would do in the same situation.

So, with those things in mind, Stacy raised her swords slightly and charged. The five soldiers behind her followed suit with the various weapons that Baljeet (and Albert before him) had created.

Ducking, jumping, swerving directions, and even raising her swords in some cases, Stacy alone voluntary fought the Normbots head to head. It was one of the reasons she was second in command. Candace, Albert, and herself were pretty much the only ones in the resistance whose weapons worked best in short range fights. Everyone else used blasters.

As she barrel-rolled to avoid yet another laser she couldn't help thinking about asking Baljeet for a blaster the next time she saw him…it would definitely help the next time she ran into a large group of Normbots. With just one shot-BOOM-two or three Normbots would be out of the picture at a time instead of her using up her energy to take them down one at a time.

It would definitely save her some time.

When she stood up again, she found to her dismay that when she'd barrel-rolled to dodge that last laser, she ended up in the center of at least five Normbots. Who were all raising an arm to fire lasers at her.

On the upside, they had just made things a bit easier for her.

At the last second before the lasers fired, Stacy ducked, causing four Normbots to take each other out with their lasers. The fifth one was a little trickier.

Seemingly having learned from the other four's mistakes, the Normbot didn't fire any more lasers. Instead, it focused on crushing her with one of its large arms.

Once more, Stacy found herself performing a rather grim dance. Dodge or die. Then again, she wasn't completely on the defensive, every time the Normbot's arm came in range, she'd slice off a good chunk of it with one or both of her swords.

After a couple of minutes of this, the attacking Normbot had lost both its arms and was having a hard time balancing itself. Smirking, Stacy thrust one of her swords through the robot's CPO, effectively decommissioning it without all the fireworks that a blaster normally caused.

What was she thinking earlier? She didn't need a blaster, not when she had two very good swords and a training tunnel that kept her pretty darn limber.

Pushing some loose hair out of her eyes, Stacy was relieved to see that the rest of the unit had dealt with their share of Normbots pretty well. While she saw plenty of defeated Normbots lying on the ground, she didn't see anyone lying on the ground bleeding their brains out. All five soldiers were still standing and finishing off the last few remaining robots.

A couple of minutes later and the threat had passed. No robots remained. Placing her swords in their sheath, she waited a second to allow her heartbeat to slow before addressing them.

"Alright troops," the words felt odd on her lips, she rarely addressed the rest of the resistance, it was more of Candace's thing. Judging by the couple of raised eyebrows as her unit stepped closer to her, they were thinking along the same lines.

"You did a great job in defeating the Normbots, but as you know, we uh, didn't come here to...train. So without any delay, let's get back to our mission!"

Instead of rousing cheers, she received blank stares.

"Look," she sighed, "I know; that wasn't the most rousing of speeches; I'm not Candace...but what we're doing is important and our experience is needed, so come on."

As she looked at the small device that told her Albert's coordinates, Stacy caught a few smiles and a couple of nods. Maybe she could pull off last minute speeches after all.

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Stacy wasn't sure how long they'd been running. Thankfully they hadn't encountered any more Normbots, but still, it seemed odd. Shouldn't there be more between them and Platyborg than a few Normbots?

Stacy lost her train of thought as she crashed in something small...and warm? Blinking her eyes a little, she was surprised to see that the thing she had crashed into was a little girl. She was dressed similarly to Garcia-Shirpo and had short brown hair and long wavy bangs on one side. Behind her were four other girls in similar outfits.

This must be Unit 13264…So if they were here, where was Albert?

She must have been frowning, because the girl quickly scrambled to her feet and placed a hand to her forehead in a salute.

"Sweetwater, Adyson, of Unit 13264. Sir."

Stacy raised an eyebrow as she crossed her arms and stared at the girls. Their clothes had a couple of scorch marks and tears, but those could be repaired.

"Care to tell me what happened? Or why you five are here and Albert isn't?"

Adyson slowly lowered her hand and stared wide-eyed at Stacy.

"T-The mission was going as planned, but then Albert spotted Platyborg. I believe he was contacting you when Isabella and her best friend decided to attack. I-I don't know what happened next, it happened so fast, we were going to help them, but Albert told us to go…I've never seen him so angry…"

Adyson's voice trailed away as she looked away from her. Stacy ground her teeth as she closed her eyes. She wasn't sure what Albert was thinking if he was still fighting Platyborg, but if that walking armory hadn't killed him yet, she sure as hell was going to.

"Miss. Isabella, would you please step forward."

No feet came shuffling towards her. Opening her eyes, Stacy saw the rest of the girls shifting their feet uncomfortably.

"Sir," came Adyson's trembling voice, "Neither she or her friend are with us…w-we think they stayed back to help."

Stacy clenched her fists a little, out of all the missions she'd been on, why did this one have to go wrong? Especially since she wasn't even sure what they were doing here in the first place. Perhaps the next time Candace wanted to call a leader meeting, it'd be wise not to let her mind stray from Candace's long monologues…

"Johnson and Stone! You two will stay out here with them. If things start going sour, lead Unit 13264 outta here and head back to base. The rest of you follow me."

Glancing down at the hand-held device displaying Albert's coordinates, she saw that the numbers were flashing wildly. They weren't far now.

A/N: Today's prologue is rather grim…then again this story is categorized as a tragedy so…guess you (and myself) will have to wait until next time to find out what happens there. On the upside, it won't be anything gory. I don't like gore; that's why I don't read grimdark…among other reasons…And that I'm not all that great in writing fight scenes, they're kind of boring to write: slash, hack, dodge, repeat. T~T but fight scenes are necessary in tales like this. Sigh…maybe I should watch more shows and movies with lots of fight scenes…nah. I think I'll keep with what I got, which is badly written fight scenes.