AN: Here's the second part. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Spriggs, Running Gun does. They're the ones that make money from the machinima, not me.
Chapter 7: The Heart of Dorkness, Part 2
Present day…
"Man, this base goes on forever," Willy said, more to himself than the others as they walked back to Zambai from where they were. This didn't stop them from hearing him.
"Can we talk about something else?" Hammer asked, having just caught up to Willy, out of breath. "Or at least slow down?"
"Hmm…" Willy answered in mock contemplation. "Well, I could bitch a little more about how we were left here to die!" His voice had risen to almost a shout near the end.
"Oh, will you just drop it?" Hammer said irritably.
"Yeah, go annoy Spriggs for a bit," Meme told him, indicating the red Marine that had just driven in on the group in a Warthog.
"Ok, don't even get started with me today, Spriggs," Willy said crossly. "I'm too tired today to be angry with you, so you can take that Warthog and either shove it up your ass, or get the hell out of here."
Spriggs shook his head, as if to say, "Whatever. Your loss," then he started driving back to base, just as Willy told him. He wasn't going to force them to get in the Jeep, and besides, if Willy was going to bitch about random stuff like that, he wasn't going to be the one to deal with it on the way back to the base.
Hammer and Meme, however, seemed to have only just realized that their only easy way back to Zambai was driving off, for they started chasing after him, trying to call him back.
"You know," Triple M said to Willy, watching them run off, "sometimes I think you're trying to be a bastard."
"Oh, no, it's something that comes quite naturally."
Rotri sighed, bored. He had been guarding the prisoner for what felt like hours, and he still hadn't woken up! Meanwhile, Soltri and Boltri were off doing something that was at least remotely interesting. And all Rotri had to do all day was fix the apparently broken translators.
Rotri cursed them both silently. It wasn't fair that they got to do all the interesting stuff and he was stuck guarding the luggage and fixing the "faulty" translators. It wasn't his fault that they had crashed in the human base with no food; he wasn't completely irresponsible...
Rotri was brought out of his reverie, however, by the sight of the prisoner, who had started stirring.
"Look, he's waking up!" Rotri shouted, calling his brothers down. Soltri and Boom Boom rushed down to the prison cell, eager to interrogate him some more.
"No! Please, no!" Rogir screamed as they approached.
"I got the translator to work! Sort of," Rotri said.
Soltri couldn't think clearly over Boltri's interrogating and Rogir's cries of, "I like me! I like me being alive! Nooo!"
Frustrated, Soltri yelled at him, "Stop screaming and we'll kill you!"
Rogir seemed to understand this – not that it helped.
"No! No, no, no, no! Alive is good! Alive is very good! Especially when it's me!"
Boltri whispered something to Soltri, who nodded and tried again. "Stop screaming…or we'll kill you?"
That seemed to get through to the prisoner, who stopped wailing almost at once.
"It worked!" Rotri said happily. Whether he was talking about the translator device or the other thing Soltri said, it didn't matter.
Relieved that something had finally decided to work out for them, Soltri ordered the prisoner, "Take us to your leader!"
"Are you kidding me?" Rogir said.
What nobody seemed to notice was that Boltri seemed to be the only one who could understand what the prisoner was saying.
Rotri checked the translator. "'No translation," he read, frowning. "Try it again."
"Take us to your leader!"
"Um…All your base are belong to us?" Rogir invented wildly. He mentally smacked his forehead. Where did that come from? he thought.
"What'd that mean?" Soltri asked, turning to their technical expert, Rotri.
"Calculating…" Rotri said. He hesitated a bit as the translator figured out the human's speech. "'You've been Pwned.'"
Silence met Rotri's answer.
"What, with a little 'p' or a big 'P'?"
"Big."
"Can I shoot him now?" Boltri cut in, a little impatiently.
"Sure, why not?" Rotri said, shrugging.
"My pleasure!" Boltri said cheerfully as he primed the laser he stole from the humans. Aiming at the prisoner, he fired, but missed, as he was often prone to do. Surprised at his captor's attack and confused over what they were saying, Rogir started to panic again.
Soltri figured he'd try his trick again. "Stop screaming and – "
"Or," Boltri corrected quickly.
" – or we'll kill you," Soltri finished. Unfortunately, the trick didn't seem to work a second time.
"Could you idiots kindly decide what you're saying?" Rogir said, finally saying something intelligible. "What you want, and what the hell you're trying to ask?! Besides, if I can't understand you, I can't answer your damn questions!"
A surprised silence followed; that was the most that the Elites had gotten out of him, even though they couldn't understand a word he was saying.
"What was that?" Soltri asked finally.
"Calculating…" Rotri said again. He started reading off of the translation. "Er...'Blah blah blah, you guys can't speak,' uh, 'go to hell, won't answer your questions.'"
Soltri bristled. "So you're refusing to talk, mother fucker?"
Still confused, Rogir tried, "Do you guys even understand me? You no talk good."
"'You guys talk funny,'" Rotri said, before Soltri could ask.
Soltri had had enough of this; it was clear that they weren't going to get anything useful out of this human.
Turning to Boltri, he said, "Boom Boom…he's all yours."
Boltri nodded. Taking out an energy sword, he activated it and walked slowly towards Rogir.
"Stupid inbred moron," Rogir spat. It was amazing how a human could be such a smart-ass in the face of death, especially about their captor's parents.
"Hey, Mom and Dad were second cousins!" Boltri replied indignantly. "That's completely and totally legal!"
"Second cousin?" Rogir retorted. "Is that what you call 'brother and sister'?"
Boltri's black eyes shone with malice. "I'm gonna make this slow and painful."
Rogir lit up. He had only just noticed that this one seemed to understand and speak English. He wondered how this one managed to learn the language, but he shook his head; now was not the time to be thinking about that.
He quickly pressed his advantage. "What would it take to convince you guys to let me go?" he asked. "Perhaps a…Klondike bar?" It was an offer that depended a little on chance; as far as he knew, Elites didn't really know what a Klondike bar really was.
It didn't seem to matter, however: after considering Rogir's offer for a moment, Boltri replied, "But then I don't get to have any fun."
Rogir stared in disbelief. "Who are you guys?"
"Well," Boltri said, indicating his brothers in turn, "this is my brother, Soltri – " ("Hi!" – Soltri) " – and this is my brother, Rotri." The purple one, Rotri, nodded in acknowledgement.
"And I am Boltri Turner Scoutra Ithri Unn the Fourth," Boltri continued, introducing himself last. "Most people call me Boom Boom, but you…You can call me your Lord and Master."
Rogir stared, though this time in skepticism instead of disbelief. "Did you make that up?"
"Meh…I only made it up a little bit," "Boom Boom" admitted. "Just everything after 'Boltri.'"
"So, will you let me go?" Rogir asked suddenly, hoping to catch them off guard.
Boltri was quick, however. "Oh, don't be silly! You're our first real prisoner of war!"
Rogir looked at him suspiciously. "What do you mean by 'real'?"
Soltri walked back into the base, an irritated look on his face. He had just been through another run of the human's base, and he still hadn't managed to find any food there! How were the humans lasting so long without anything to eat?
He shook his head. That was irrelevant, and besides, he could always try again tomorrow. Maybe then they would get up off their apparently lazy asses and send in a request for a supply drop or whatever it is that the humans do for supplies.
Suddenly, Boltri rushed up to him. He seemed excited, something that Soltri was worried about. The only time Boltri was ever excited was if he was either about to go into battle, or about to blow something up. Both scenarios were the last things that the Elites needed right now; for the time being, they needed to make sure the humans didn't spot them so that they could keep making food runs into the base.
Fortunately, Boltri seemed excited for different reasons this time.
"Hey! Hey!" he said eagerly. "I have a prisoner!"
He held out the thing he was holding, but it was all he could do to not drop it, his hands were shaking so much from excitement. Soltri looked at Boltri's "prisoner."
It was a skull.
Soltri stared at his brother, who was looking back at him expectantly.
"I'm sorry. He's dead, Jim," said Soltri, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Boltri looked disheartened for a moment, but he rallied almost at once. "Hey, that still counts!"
"No, not really."
Rogir shook his head again. This was all very interesting, but another thought had come to mind.
"Whatever," he said. "Point is, I can't be a prisoner of war."
"Why not?" Boltri asked, apparently confused.
"Because we're at peace."
"Yep, it's definitely on the fritz," Soltri declared, certain that the translator wasn't working properly. "I just heard him say we're at peace."
"Actually, he did," Boltri confirmed, turning to his brothers.
"Ha! Yeah, right!" said an unconvinced Rotri derisively.
"We worked things out with the Arbiter," Rogir persisted, ignoring Rotri's comment.
"There's a new Arbiter?" asked Soltri, surprised.
"Your translators are working fine, you moron," Rogir told him. "The Elites joined our side after the Prophets betrayed you."
"Right," said Rotri, sarcasm positively dripping from his voice. "Next, you're going to tell us that the Arbiter and the Demon joined forces, hand in hand, to save their universe."
Silence followed Rotri's prediction. How can these guys be so stupid? thought Rogir.
"Uh, yeah, actually," he said aloud. "What, have you been living under a rock?"
"Maybe," said Soltri cryptically.
"In fact," Rogir added, "I think you've been here about…" He paused for a moment to do the math, as they had apparently been here before he had arrived. "…Nine months."
"Wrong!" Rotri corrected smugly. "It's been ten."
Rogir glared at Rotri in annoyance for a moment before saying incredulously, "Man, this is even sadder than that Elite general that Triple M put in a tutu."
Boltri, who had begun to get kind of bored, suddenly perked up. "Wait…which general?"
"I don't know his name…" Rogir said casually, throwing out names that came to mind. "Togri, or Troggy…Trotri?"
The attention of the Elites was suddenly snagged at this last name.
"Dad!" They said in unison, much to Rogir's horror.
"Oh, dear God."
"Hey!" Boltri said to the human, suddenly angry at whoever had disgraced their father so. "Who is this Triple M that you speak of, who dared to put our father in a tutu?!"
"What's a tutu?" asked Rotri, who, like Soltri, knew next to nothing about human culture. However, this particular aspect of the humans' lifestyle was unknown even to Boltri.
"I don't know, but it can't be good."
"We must avenge our father!"
"Hold on…Triple M?" Soltri cut in, suddenly remembering something. "I've heard that name amongst the humans. He's the red one, isn't he?"
"I think he was the green one from yesterday," Rotri suggested.
"Hmm…one red, one green," Boltri repeated. "Guys, I have a plan. Based on my advanced studies on human culture, I'll need several cans of spray paint, and one very…petite…human." He looked at their captive as he said this last bit, grinning malevolently.
Rogir gulped. Whatever they had in mind, he had a feeling that it wasn't going to end well for him.
Spriggs, Willy, Hammer, Meme, and Triple M had finally arrived back at Zambai, very weary and extremely irritable. Spriggs had had it easy; the Warthog he was driving saved him a lot of energy. Such was not the case for the remainder of the soldiers, who were forced to go the rest of the way on foot.
"Man, I feel like we've been walking for days," Hammer said, wincing at his unbelievably sore legs as he and the other Marines walked into the rec room.
"So tired…need bed…" said Meme, exhausted, as she flopped down on the nearest couch.
Willy, however, was annoyed for different reasons. "Hey, you guys are the ones who decided to chase after Spriggs," he said, apparently feeling as if they had no right to complain after their mistake. "Next time, let a professional handle it." Nobody needed to ask who he was referring to.
Nonetheless, everyone stared at Willy for a moment.
"Willy," Hammer explained exasperatedly, "even if you had managed to hit him – which, historically speaking, is pretty goddamned unlikely – the Warthog would have been destroyed."
"But it would have stopped," Willy countered, "which would have saved us a whole lot of walking."
"You can't reason with stupid," Meme said, before Hammer could open his mouth.
"Well, if we're all done insulting each other," said Hammer, changing the subject abruptly, "could we work on figuring out how the hell we're going to get out of here?"
Before anyone could throw in any ideas, however, the TV screen flickered to life, diverting the Marine's attention. An image of an Elite appeared on the monitor, one that looked oddly familiar to Meme and Triple M…
Back at the Elites' base, the fruits of Boltri's labor were evident in Rogir's appearance: the aliens had used the spray paint cans to change the color of the Lieutenant's armor, though they hadn't done a very good job of it. One middle section on his helmet was painted yellow; everything else except the visor was painted pink. Apparently, he was trying to go for the look of a certain video game character, though only Boltri and Rogir actually knew which one.
"Humans!" Boltri yelled through the microphone as the Fifth Battalion appeared on the monitor. "Hey, humans!"
When he was sure he had the humans' attention, he started reading aloud from the script he had written earlier. "We wish to challenge you to a duel between your two greatest heroes at the following location. If you refuse, we will feed your Princess Peach – "
"It won't work," said Rogir through gritted teeth.
Soltri silenced him. "Shh! You'll ruin it!"
" – to your legendary villain, Mario!" Boltri finished, as if there had been no interruption.
Willy and the others looked at the image, then at each other, confused expressions on each of their faces.
Ignoring the rest of the alien's challenge, Willy thought for a moment, muttering, "Hmm…kinky cosplay, alien appearances, terrible dialogue…" He then said aloud, "Guys, we're in luck. We're either getting Cinemax or a live feed from Otacon."
"Oooh, Cinemax," said Hammer, clearly impressed. "Nice."
Meme sighed exasperatedly. "Can I keep you two evolutionary fallouts on task for two seconds?"
"Well, yeah, but…" Triple M said, not really paying attention to her words. He leaned in closer to the monitor, examining the image as if looking for confirmation of Willy's announcement.
"I mean, look at it," he said, in response to Willy's quizzical look. "I don't think this is Cinemax, I think we're getting Action Network."
On closer inspection, the image did indeed look more like Action Network. Hammer's face fell; Meme, however, knew that the thing they were looking at was neither channel, but a message from the Elites that they had run into the other day. She said nothing about it, though, on account of the fact that she found it almost impossible to explain the obvious to them. Besides, those Elites were complete idiots; they weren't much of a threat anyway. Why bother Hammer, Willy, and Triple M with that information?
"Willy, you fucked up again!" Triple M whined, turning to Willy, who didn't look remotely abashed.
"You have ten minutes to decide," Boltri finished.
"Man, this show sucks," said Willy. "I wonder what channel Mythbusters is on?"
If the humans said anything else, Boltri didn't hear it, for the humans had abruptly changed the channel and cut off the connection.
Boltri smiled. Now all they would have to do is go to the place he mentioned and wait.
AN: Alright, there ya go! The second part!
Yes, I KNOW that it's been a while since I've added a chapter to this thing, and I KNOW that I didn't add Rogir's monologue/report on the First Battle of Zambai VII (a.k.a. "the biggest military screwup in history"), but I've got everything else. I'll just replace the chapter once I've got it sorted.
At any rate, please Read and Review!
And, I've got a bit of an announcement to make.
See, the reason I haven't been updating lately is because I've just been so goddamn busy. I've been studying for SAT's for the past couple of weeks (though I finished the SAT's last Saturday), and NOW I'm just trying to catch up to the work that I didn't do in favor of studying for said exam.
AND, due to certain...personal problems (no details - hence the "personal" part), my parents MIGHT restrict my internet access until school is out (my mom is really strict, and I made her pret-ty mad...). I'm uploading this from the school computer - thankfully, they haven't set up a proxy for this website yet - but I can't write furthur chapters unless I have the episodes as reference. And if I can't access the internet...well, you get the idea.
So, it may be a fairly long while before I update this again. I'm not entirely sure yet, though. My mom might be willing to give me a second chance, though the likelihood of that happening is slim. And I'll need some time to get my life back in control (though I acknowledge that things could probably be worse).
I just wanted to tell you all in advance so that you all don't start thinking that I've died or something.
