A/N: Thanks to Paperchickadees and ChasexJinjaForever for the reviews. I'm bouncing back and forth between these fic, so
i'll update one before the other if anyone wants to keep track.
Enjoy!
Trey sat at his desk, fingers drumming on the surface as he stared down at the files. As much as he wanted the Strike Squad to be his team, at this rate that wasn't going to be the case.
So far, he had only really confirmed two of his five candidates, one of which was by default. There were a number of others that could easily be the ones to fill in the remaining positions, but with the way that he revealed vital information to teens, there was no way he could let those three stay out of S.T.O.R.M.. But he wasn't about to force them in like Charlemagne is trying to do with Oliver.
Trey couldn't help but cringe at the thought of how long the brunette teen had been kept in that room, and was still not allowed to leave. The only one allowed to go in was Charlemagne, and Trey hoped that she wasn't doing anything extreme.
"... I should go check on him," Trey sighed, resting his chin on hand as he continued to stare at the files. He flushed them out over his desk, frowning. Maybe he needed to offer them more incentive on joining. But from Cedric's reaction, that wasn't going to work. And since he hadn't even spoken to Jun, there was no telling what she would desire...
What's more, this group might not even work well together. Sure they were all the perfect candidates to take on Chase Suno and his friends, but would they be able to do it efficiently? And would they even be able to use monsuno properly? It took Trey months to wield his own, almost a year...
He tapped his fingers against the desk, still staring intently at the files, "... How am I going to do this."
"I'll tell you how."
Trey looked up, seeing Charlemagne standing there. He stood up immediately, going into a salute. She looked down at the files with a sneer.
"You're rather set on those five aren't you Trey," she said with a raised brow, "How far are you? I need zis team to be ready soon. We're finally getting a trace on Dr. Suno, and it seems that Emmanuel Klipse iz also planning on something. And anything involving that man is definitely going to be destructive."
"Of course," Trey said, then fidgeted for a moment, "I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a little longer for your team-"
There was a whipping noise in the air, and Trey flinched. Charlemagne's crop rested on his desk as she glared at him.
"I gave you time, Trey. And clearly that wasn't enough," she hissed, "Tell me. Do you even have half of them? Or even the monsuno they will be wielding?"
He didn't respond, staring down at his hands. She clicked her tongue. She moved her crop away from the desk, slapping it in her hand a few times.
"At zis rate, you will be demoted," she said, grinning when she saw him wince, "Since you've been having such a hard time creating zis team. I think I'll take it off your hands."
Trey shut his eyes, nodding. There was no room for arguing the matter, even if he wanted to. He saw the way that she had lashed out when Jon Ace had betrayed them. And if he even got within an inch of her, there was no telling what she would do. Knowing this, Trey couldn't even think about protesting.
Charlemagne, knowing that she had won, picked up the files from his desk, and turned on her heel. Her coat swept behind her as she walked out. When the doors shut, Trey slumped into his seat.
He had avoided being destroyed by that woman. But there was no telling what kind of things she'll do to recruit the team...
Or what kind of things they would go through.
HLP
So how's it going? You got that thing figured out yet?"
X-Ray let out a sigh, looking over towards Bravo. The blonde was busy not doing anything, sitting in one of the empty seats as he stared at the other. Kilo was towards the entrance, keeping watch in case Alpha and Tango came back, or if someone else stumbled by.
"No I don't actually," X-Ray sighed again, then went back to typing at the communications station on the cloud hopper. At the moment, he was trying to get a signal out to the cloud carrier to give their location. The sooner they could get the okay from Trey, the sooner they could move out and try to pursue these creeps with the weird monsuno.
(That and someone needed to come get Team Core Tech's cloud hopper)
"So... How much longer do you think it'll be?" Bravo asked.
X-Ray sighed again, swiveled around on the chair, and shoved the Core Tablet to his teammate.
"Here," he said, "Just... Play around with this for now."
"Isn't it locked?" Kilo asked, walking over and looking at the device.
"It is but- Just. Let me concentrate on this!' X-Ray snapped, typing even more furiously. Bravo glanced down at the tablet, and started to tap away at the screen when it lit up. Unfortunately it was still locked, asking for a six digit code
"That's not going to do anything," Kilo said, rolling his eyes.
The blonde teen looked up at him with a frown, "Do you have a better idea then? The first thing you'd try is muscle your way into it."
Kilo's head whipped back to glare at the other, who simply shrugged with a sly look.
"Like you could do any better surfer boy!" Kilo exclaimed, "At least my head's in the right place and not stuck in the clouds all day. Or should I say waves-"
X-Ray threw his hands up in exasperation. He swiveled around in his chair, nostrils flaring as he exhaled slowly. He pointed at the tablet.
"I gave it to you two thick heads to mess with, not fight over!" he said, voice turning somewhat shrill, "At least go do that somewhere else in the ship or something!"
The teen with glasses swiveled around in his chair, furiously typing once more. Both Bravo and Kilo turned to each other, now getting sheepish at how the other snapped.
The two of them actually got along pretty well, considering how they had know each other the longest compared to the other members of their squad. And normally they'd be making X-Ray's job even harder by distracting him further. But the two of them also knew that the sooner that they contact S.T.O.R.M., the sooner they would be able to go back home.
Somewhat resigned, Bravo turned his attention back to the Core Tablet. He sat down and started punching in a few codes, getting a small beeping noise from the device every time. After at least ten, Bravo scratched his head in thought.
"Geez. I'm surprised this is so complicated," he said. Kilo sat down next to him, peering down at the tablet as well.
"Well I'm guessing it's really complicated, or so simple that the answer is right in front of us... What's his birthday? That's what I'd have as my password."
"Nah. That's too simple," X-Ray said, not looking away from the larger screen, "Besides, I already tried that, and everyone else from Team Core Tech. It's gotta be some obscure number from his childhood or some random code."
Kilo let out a sigh, scratching his head. After a moment, Bravo started typing more numbers. The screech noise went off a few more times until he paused. The blond put a thumb to his lip in thought.
"... When was our trip to Mechanopolis?"
X-Ray paused for a second, brows furrowing in thought, "I think it was in the spring... Late spring... Maybe five months ago? I can't think right now."
Bravo typed a few times, and eventually, the screen unlocked itself. He grinned to himself.
"How'd you know that was the date?" Kilo asked, somewhat suspicious.
"Well. That lovestruck geek seems like the type of guy to have something sentimental be his code," Bravo shrugged, bringing up Zombie Attack Force on the device, "You can't tell me you haven't noticed the way he keeps going after Tango."
Kilo thought for a second, shrugging his shoulders in agreement. They all knew that Bren had an infatuation with their teammate, though often failing at trying to gain her attention. After their mission at Mechanopolis, the raven-haired girl actually started spending more time with the nerd. It was hard to tell if those two would actually end up in a relationship, but none of them were really that interested.
(At least they tried not to be)
Bravo and Kilo played a few rounds of Zombie Attack Force (nearly replacing Bren's score while they did), until X-Ray let out a shout of delight.
"Yes! Got it!" he exclaimed, then flopped back in his seat with a sigh. The other two stood up, looking at the screen as it linked up to the cloud carrier.
"Wow. How'd you figure it out?" Kilo asked.
"I actually ended up redirecting the signal to our cloud hopper," X-Ray said, rubbing his head, "The power was too weak to send a message from here, so I just used the signal from our's to act as a bit of a land line. S.T.O.R.M. should be here in a half hour or so."
"I guess that means we can head back to ours right?" Bravo asked, stretching his arms up. The Core Tablet started to make another beeping noise. The blonde blinked, looking down at it as the other two peeked over as well.
"What's it doing?" Kilo asked, more to X-Ray. The teen took the tablet into his hands, pressing a few times on the screen. Another sound went off that got their attention, though it wasn't the one X-Ray was holding. Kilo grabbed the communicator from his belt, and saw that it was Alpha.
""Yeah Alpha? What happened?" he asked.
"Me and Tango are heading back over to you guys," the static voice said on the other side, "There's... We lost the target. We're coming back to regroup."
"Alright, should we head back to the cloud hopper?" Kilo asked, "X-Ray got a message up to the cloud carrier, they should be here to pick up Team Core Tech's-"
There was a loud banging noise outside that made them all jump.
"Kilo? What was that?"
A group of soldiers burst inside, five of them surrounding the three as more swept throughout the cloud hopper. They raised their weapons.
"All of you! Hands up!"
X-Ray's flew up immediately, dropping the core tablet. The other two hesitated, but complied. The soldier leading looked around the room, then made a hand signal for the rest of the troops to sweep the ship.
"Who are they?" Bravo whispered, cautiously looking around. X-Ray let out a small groan.
"The tactical division of S.T.O.R.M.," he muttered, "They're the ones that recover files and information on monsuno that's been leaked out to the public. Not quite the same as the rest of S.T.O.R.M. that's for sure..."
Before the other two could ask more, the one that was leading the troops gave a few hand signals to the rest of the troops. One of them shouted an all clear, and they removed their helmet.
The teens weren't so surprised that the leader was a woman leading the troops, but were more surprised by the fierce look she was giving them all. With a few small strides, she was leering at the group of teens.
"Where's Team Core Tech? Isn't this their cloud hopper?" she asked. They all hesitated. One of the soldiers called from the front of the ship that it was all clear there as well,
The brunette woman looked to each of them as their eyes dropped to the ground,"Well? I asked you a question soldiers!"
"Shouldn't you know already?" X-Ray sneered with a frown, "It is your job-"
The woman grabbed the front of his suit, nearly yanking him off his feet with one hand.
"What was that?!" she growled, the two of them glaring at each other, "I'm not up for games tonight! Unless you all want to spend some quality time at the Outland's base, then you best fork over Team Core Tech!"
"W-Wait!"
Bravo and Kilo looked towards the entrance to see Alpha and Tango pushing their way inside. Most of the soldiers paid them no attention, instead looking around for something else. Alpha stood by, panting heavily.
"S-Strike Squad Operative Alpha," Alpha huffed out with a salute, then gestured towards the others, "This is my team."
"That was obvious," the woman said, shoving X-Ray roughly towards the other two, "And why is Strike Squad with Team Core Tech's cloud hopper?"
Alpha frowned, off put by the soldier's attitude, "We were sent here by Lieutenant Trey's orders- who reports directly to Commandant Marshall Ace I might add!"
"I don't care about any Lieutenant Trey, seeing how I'm a Commander!" she said with a deep frown, stepping up to the red-haired teen "And you better have a good explanation as to why you're co-conspiring with the enemy! If you're all associates with them then your little field trip is going to be cut short-"
"Commander Akira!" a soldier exclaimed, "We found something in the control panel! It looks to be like some sort of tracker!"
She nodded to them, making motions for the rest of the soldiers to start investigating the control panel. X-Ray glanced down at the floor where he dropped the Core Tablet, scooping it up and hiding it as the woman turned back to them.
"Until we find them, get these five back to the cloud carrier" Akira shouted. Immediately, a round of soldiers surrounded the teens.
"H-Hold on!" Alpha said, stepping out of reach, "Why are you here? What's going on? Why are you trying to scope out the ship when we need to go find Team Core Tech!"
"That's what we're here to do kid!" Akira said with just as much gusto, "And if you're going to just sit around on your hands then get out of the way!"
With that, she turned around and marched off to the rest of the troops who were now halfway done with disassembling the control panel. The group of teens exchanged looks, unsure of what to do. Someone cleared their throat, gaining their attention.
"Don't worry soldiers, you're all dismissed," a voice said to the soldiers guarding the Strike Squad. Shuffling through the crowd was a shorter woman with a single braid swept over her shoulder. She motioned for the group to follow as she trailed out the cloud hopper.
"Sorry for the commander's attitude, she rather high-strung," she said timidly.
"That's an understatement," Kilo huffed.
"W-Well. We weren't planning on being deployed today. But then with that monsuno essence being stolen we had no choice," she explained, a red flush going across the bridge of her nose, "Oh! I'm sorry! I'm Lieutenant Tetsu It's good to finally meet you all!"
She glanced around at them, her expression growing rather grim, "Well... I was wanting to meet you all, but certainly not under these conditions..."
"Conditions?" Alpha asked, "Why what's happened?"
"Lieutenant! Get in here!" Commander Akira exclaimed, making them all jump.
"C-Coming!" Tetsu called back. She started to run up the ramp, but stopped and turned back around. She pulled a small device with a screen out of her pocket and handed it to Alpha, "I would like to explain, but I think it might be better if you watched for yourselves."
With that, she gave a small bow and went back inside the cloud hopper. The group of teens gathered around Alpha. He handed the device over to X-Ray, knowing he'd be able to open and figure out what they were supposed to look at on the small device.
Sure enough the teen was able to pull up a small video after only a few seconds.
"What is it?" Tango asked, who had been rather quiet the entire time. Bravo stared at her, seeing a troubled look in her eyes briefly. He looked back to the screen.
"It looks like a warehouse," he responded, figuring he was imagining things.
"Wait. That's a S.T.O.R.M. warehouse," Alpha said, "there's containers there for monsuno essence."
X-Ray started to fast forward the video, pausing it every so often in case something happened.
"If this was all we were supposed to see, it's a whole lotta nothing," Kilo sighed. Just as he said that, there was a small explosion at one of the walls, making the camera shake. They all leaned closer, watching silently as a figure ran inside. Whoever it was started taking many of the energy containers and placing them aside.
Soldiers started appearing on screen, bringing up their weapons at the person. They dropped a container, and held up a core. Because of the quality of the footage, there was no way to tell exactly what color the core was, but as soon as it spun out, they all let out a round of gasps at who it was.
Because there was only one person they all knew who had a blue moose-like monsuno.
And they all knew as soon as she ordered an attack.
"Jinja!"
A/N: Review Review Review!