Hello hello my little ones! I am back, I have not abandoned this story, I have a few chapters written but I just haven't sat down and edited them. So here we are, tensions are high between our red hair girl and the blue eyes leader, lets see what happens next.
And along time it was. Only a few months passed into the beginning of August, but it seemed like forever. And not because they were constantly fighting against the Vandals or the Zark, which they were, but because of the way she was treated by their leader. It seemed when she made a suggestion that might help, he would put her down, or when she did something to get one of the team members out of danger she would get yelled and or scolded by him. She had soon gotten over the fact that he looked so much like James but even if she had gotten over it she was still afraid when he would yell at her or scold her. Not to mention she kept having nightmares almost every night.
There was a time when Zoom had been poisoned and they had went to look for a special antidote on the Vandal home world when he had been especially snappish. Even though she had been the one to get the plant and help Sage make an antidote, when Zoom's heart had stopped he had turned on her and was yelling and accusing her of not trying hard enough and it was because of her that he was dead. He had brought her to tears at that point.
On the opposite side of things, they had entered a strange battle zone that was the exact opposite universe of their own where the Battle Force 5 were bad and they had met the good Calis. He had learned of what she was and praised her for her heritage. She also got to beat up the anti-Vert which was very satisfying to her even though she had totaled their Vert's Saber in the process on earth. She spent the day apologizing and fixing the Saber under his watchful eye.
Their partnership got really interesting when they went to a battle zone that was being controlled by Torz 10. The red Zark had pitched the Battle Force 5 against each other, though he had taken Vert and Cheza out for 'further testing'. When they had been put into the ring together and then used his agro ray to get them aggravated everyone expected them to tare each other apart, but they didn't. Cheza had thrown herself out of her car and was thrashing one the ground almost in agonizing pain while Vert Just drove his Saber around. Then when Torz 10 put Vert against his team including Cheza, she had protected him aggressively against the rest of the team. By the end, everyone had been confused while Cheza had passed out. Sage had been very concerned for her and put her in the sick bay to monitor her. When she had come to she had become recluse, not her normal smiling and happy self. She had confessed to Agura what had happened to her when she was 14, about her parents, about how she felt, about James. By the end of that conversation, both girls were crying. From then on Agura would scold Vert if he got too harsh with her.
After the battle where they had upgraded Sage, almost losing her to a virus. Cheza had tried something risky with Zemerick, almost hurting Sage in the process. They were back in the hub, Sage and their vehicles all upgraded.
"What were you thinking pulling a stunt like that! You could have gotten everyone hurt, you could have gotten Sage killed, YOU COULD HAVE LET THE ZARK INVATE EARTH!" Vert yelled at her.
"I am sorry, it was a good idea but badly executed. It won't happen again." She said, holding herself and not looking at him.
"Dam strait it won't, from now on you want to try something, you get my approval." Vert growled out.
"Excuse me?!" she said, placing her hands on her hips.
"Oh dear." Zoom said.
"Here it comes" Stanford said, taking cover.
"This has been building up for a while." Agura said, crossing her arms.
"That it has." Sage agreed.
"You heard me." Vert said, crossing his arms and staring down at her.
"Ok you know what, I have had it with your pompous attitude towards me. Whenever someone else makes a mistake you lightly talk to them to get their confidence back up. But when I make a mistake, oh my god it's like I committed treason or murder! You ream into me like I was in the fault. Well if you hadn't noticed, most of the things I do, I do to keep everyone safe and it works 90% of the time." She yelled at him.
"She's right Vert. If she hadn't been here we wouldn't be ether." Sherman said.
"Don't defend her. She almost lost Sage, the one who brought the Battle Force 5 together. Things were going fine until she came here."
"Oh my GOD can your ego get any bigger! Did you ever think that maybe I did what I did to gain your approval so that you would get off my ass!"
"No you did it because you wanted to and didn't think of the consequences of your actions!"
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN 'DIDNT THINK OF THE CONSAQUENTCES'! I am your protector, everything I do is to protect my team!"
"And you have been a pain in my ass ever since you joined. You think it's easy having the weight of the earth on my shoulders! Ever since you joined that weight seems to be getting heavier and heavier! It's been a nightmare since you joined!"
"Oh and you think it's been a walk in the park for me too, having to deal with you yelling at me all the time?"
"You know what, you can just shut your mouth you...you..." Vert hesitated.
"Don't do it, don't say it" Stanford whispered.
"You FUCKING BITCH!" Vert yelled at her before he was punched across the face, the force of which sending him off his feet.
"HOW DARE YOU! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I HAVE GONE THREW IN MY LIFE! I REFUSE TO BE TREATED LIKE I AM NOTHING!" She said and she jumped on him and hit him again. Vert turned them both over, pinning her under him, her leg twisting under him. He pinned her hands above her head with one had. She tried to struggle but she couldn't get her hands free, his grip was to strong. She looked up at him, he had brought his free hand up into a fist like he was about to punch her. She stared at him, her face defiant but her body trembling. He just sat there, staring, his face contorted before he was pulled up to his feet by Sherman.
"That...is...enough" Sage said, nearly yelling herself. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this but you both leave me with no other alternative. You are both put on probation and for the time being will be sent to a location where you will stay...together, until you can act civilly towards one another. If I find out that you have fought and hurt each other again I will expel you from Battle Force 5 and erase your memory."
They were sent to their rooms to pack. Cheza was quiet while Vert was complaining the entire time. She packed all of her summer clothing she had and headed back. Her wrists were hurting a little and she had a slight limp to her walk but she still went without complaint. She shouldn't have started the fist fight but he just got under her skin and she was tired of taking his abuse.
"You will be going to a place far from here. You will have lodging and you have cards for food, you will take Shifter." Sage said, placing a modified battle key on Shifter.
"What, and leave Saber here!"
"Yes Vert, what I say is final and the more you try to argue, the longer the sentence will be. Now then, we have ways of contacting you if we need you but until you can cooperate together you will remain there. Cheza I am sorry but there was no other option."
"What are you apologizing to me for."
"Unfortunately you will see, now get in and go." Sage said.
Vert and Cheza glared at each other, got into Shifter, and drove off.
"Are you sure sending her there is a good idea?" Agura asked.
"I do not know, but she needs to get over what happened in the past if she wants to move on. It is something we all must do at one point or another."
"This is all your fault you know."
"Yes Very, it's always my fault." Cheza growled out as the battle key shot out and she drove thru the portal.
Shifter landed on a gravel road with trees shading it from the sun above. Her heart stopped and plummeted as her foot came off the gas and she slowed. "No...no Sage anywhere but here, please." She whispered. They came around a corner and drove past the tree line onto a little aria of dirt with a dock house and several decks over a grand glittering lake with mountains jutting up that were covered in trees. 20 feet from the shore was a large cabin that looked like it hadn't been lived in in a while, but no plants grew over the wood or the deck and it still looked to be in very good shape.
"What is this place?"
"My childhood home." She whispered out, her eyes filling with tears. "Why would you do this to me Sage. You cruel bitch." She cried.
"Don't call her that! She had nowhere else to send us."
"But don't you see?! The last time I was here, my parents were dead and James did..." She stopped, remembering everything from that night. She felt sick to her stomach, her face going pail as she tried to keep the bile from rising up.
"Oh come on, it's not that bad. I lost my parents too and I still live at my childhood home." Vert said as he walked up to the house. It had large windows with the screens over them blocking the view. The front porch was covered by the roof and there was a bench swing to his right and the porch circled onto a large opened patio to his left. "looks like a nice place." he said as he placed his hand on the French door that was the front door. He was just about to open it When a gentle hand came over his, stopping him from opening it.
"Please." She whispered.
"What?"
"Please...I am begging you. Don't open that door...not yet. I can't bare the memories." She cried before she looked up at him, her eyes pleading with his.
When he saw her like that, tears running down her face, her eyes red and puffy and pleading almost pathetically, almost all the anger and resentment drained out of him. he had never seen her like this, like she was falling apart and almost shattered. It made him want to comfort her, collect her up and put her back together, and that thought brought some of his anger back. How dare she make him feel this way. "Fine, fine if you REALLY CANT go in there where else are we going to go?!" She pointed over to the dock house, her grief beyond words. "Fine." he said, walking back down the little path leading to the dock, and rounding the corner to the entrance.
Cheza collapsed on the ground as she silently sobbed for her past life. She promised herself she would not step foot back here until she was ready to face her past and stand tall with her new life. She was not ready to face it and it killed her inside.
Vert was opening the doors to the one room dock house. It looked old but well taken care of, hi chairs from the 60's with a table that met the height when you first opened the doors. the right wall was the kitchen with a stove and oven and a little bit of counter space with a fridge in the corner. To the left was a room that went back further then the kitchen/dining room. It had a futon and pictures of all the different places he expected were on the lake. In each picture was a woman with long black hair but her eyes and smile matched Cheza's. This must have been her mother. She had this kind of regale beauty about her that he couldn't blame Cheza's father for falling for her. The windows were large as well as to let in the light from outside and to the left he saw a ladder built into the wall that lead up to a loft that was about 3 feet from the high ceiling. It had mattresses up there with bedding. In the back of the big room there was a futon, an old radio, and an old TV/VCR with tables covered in nick-knacks and books. He climbed the ladder noticed that there were little windows up there and it was stuffy inside. He opened them then climbed down. "For being abandoned, this place sure is clean."
"That's probably because the fire fighters use it to stay if there is a fire further up the lake, so they can get some rest and be back in a short amount of time." Cheza said from the deck of the dock house, right outside the doors, Taking some rope and tying the doors opened. Looking at the dock house from the water, there were 3 posts keeping up a kind of wooded shading but leaving some space out on the edge for someone to sun bathe on. To the left there was a section of the dock that when down to the surface of the water being as the dock house over the water was about 2-3 feet above the water's surface. Past the deck there was an L dock connecting to the left side were a sloping dock was. Probably to bring in smaller boats. To the right, the little opened hallway they walked threw to get to where they were, was a boat house, complete with pulley and everything, but instead of a boat there was a raft suspended over the water. "Dad built this when he first met my mom. Since it was just them they were ok here but once the idea of kids care around he began to build the cabin."
"Wow your dad built all of this? That's impressive."
"Yah I know." She said as she walked out to the end of the deck. She took her keys and her phone out of her pockets and took off her shoes before diving right into the water fully clothed.
"What are you doing?!" Vert asked as she stood on the dock looking down at her.
"Its tradition when you have had a long vacation from the house, you jump in fully clothed." She said as she treaded water, looking up at him. She seemed to be feeling better, more at home in the water.
"Why is that?"
"No idea, maybe to reacquaint yourself with the water." she said before diving down under the water. It was cool and crisp, just like she remembered. The water so crystal clear you could see the bottom at least 30 feet below the surface. The water was about 12 feet down from the edge of the dock, so she dove to the bottom, the colder it got the further down she went, before shooting back up. The feel of her cloths brushing against her skin in the water brought back so many memories of her and her father doing this almost every day. She swam around the place before going under the dock to check the pipes and the boards, something her father always did at least once or twice a year. There was a ladder to the left near the wooded ramp that lead back to the deck and over at the end of the L dock there was also a ladder. Vert had descended to the lowered part of the Deck and was just sitting at the water's surface that was on the edge of the boat house.
"God this water is freezing." He said taking his bare foot out of the water.
"That's because its a glacier fead lake, that's why visibility is so clear."
"Oh, what are you doing?"
"Checking the pips and the boards, making sure they are sturdy and seeing if we need to replace anything...which doesn't look like we need to." she said, coming out from under the deck and placing her hands at the edge of the lower part and staring at him.
He looked at her, all wet, the part of her hair that was in the water was flowing like silken thread and shinning even more brightly under the water than normal. He took a deep breath, once again trying to control his natural reaction to this insufferably beautiful goddess in front of him. "So this is where you grew up hu?"
"Yes it is. I am sorry for that show back on the deck. I...I made a promise to myself that once I opened thoughts doors again I would face my past with my head held high. I am just not ready."
"Maybe that's why Sage sent us here in the first place."
"Hu?"
"Ya maybe she wants you to get over your past and move on, and maybe she wants me to help you."
Cheza snorted into the water. "You help me? Since when have you ever helped me?"
"Hay I am trying to make sense of this so you don't have another crying fit" Vert snapped back as he stood up, glaring down at her.
"I am just calling it as I see it" She answered back before submerging herself and swimming out to the end of the L dock.
Vert glared at her and stomped back into the dock house.
When Cheza resurfaces she pulled herself half way out of the water on the ladder at the L dock. The L dock was on the same level as the water, the bottom of it just touched the surface so when the waves hit it it made a nice splashing noise. The weight of her soaking wet cloths wanting to pull her back into the water, but she would have to get out anyway. The sun was going down and she would need to hang her cloths in the sun for them to dry. She got out, her cloths pouring water onto the deck as she walked over to where she had left her bag.
"Don't come around to the opened hallway. I am changing."
"Don't flatter yourself." Vert replied back, sitting on the futon. There were no windows on that side of the room, nor in the back facing the cabin. But that's not where the beauty of this place was. It was out on the lake as it glistened in the sunlight, shooting beams of light off the surface. 15 minutes later she came around the corner, her hair wrapped in a towle that was resting on her head, a light green tank top and booty shorts, not even a bra. Inside his mind Vert was drooling at the natural set of her breasts, outwardly he was glaring.
Cheza didn't knotis as she walked into the kitchen across the table and began pulling out meat patties for hamburgers. She turned the stove on and placed a frozen patty on it. "Anything you don't like on here?"
"Pickles and mustered."
"Oh I love pickles, though I don't like onions or mustered." she said as she began to cook, She pulled out the ketchup and mayonnaise, slices of cheese, lattice, and tomatoes, onions for him and pickles for her. She placed the patties on a bun and gave it to him so he could make his own.
They ate in silence just as the sun went down. Once finished they both went to their arias, Vert to the futon and Cheza to the loft. She waited until Vert seemed to be sleeping before she began to cry, very silently but her snuffling was not silent. She cried herself to sleep as Vert listened, still lying awake until the wee hours of the morning.
And another chapter completed! WOOT!
