Lena

Lena watched the realization dawn on the faces of Squad 53. The looks of horror that came upon each and every countenance. The appearance of terror.

"Simple and easy," Lena said. "Take all the young, gullible kids. Train them up for war. Put high-powered rifles in their hands. Send them into the world with eyepieces, to shoot everything in sight. Tell them that it's the only way to save humanity."

"We just got [censored]ed up," said Zombie. "[censored]ed up by the aliens."

"The Others have got us just where they want us," said Justin. "They don't need anyone here getting their hands dirty, when the kids who are the future can go out and kill the past."

"All those kids, they've been tricked," Lena said. "We need to save Nugget."

Poundcake nodded.

"The helicopter will be back in about one hour," said Dumbo. "We could head back, go save him."

"Good plan, except we'll need a real plan," said Lena. "And I'll be making it."

Justin

Now, the plan was assembled. And it involved Justin and Zombie getting shot. Darn darn darny darn.

"Position the gun properly," said Dumbo to Poundcake. "Angle just like this…"

Poundcake shifted the gun around in Justin's side, waiting for the okay from Dumbo.

"I don't know how I feel about this…" Justin said.

"NOW!" yelled Dumbo.

The bullet entered Justin's side at point blank.

"Ow… ow ow ow ow ow ow OW!" yelled Justin, falling on the ground. Pound Cake walked over to Ben and did the same thing. He took it better, though. The sound of the returning chopper echoed through the surrounding town. Lena and Dumbo ran to Justin and Ben, and the chopper started descending. The rest of the group ran off into the woods.

Ben hoisted Justin to his feet, and they started running towards the copter.

"Go, go, go!" Ben yelled, jumping into the craft.

"What?" yelled the pilot.

"GO!" yelled Justin. Shots rang from the woods, Poundcake's bullets, ricocheting off the sides of the Black Hawk. The pilot pulled it up fast, ascending at the speed of light (not really, metaphoric). The pilot pulled over the woods, raining bullets down from the sky. Too late, by now the squad would be all gone.

Mike

"What do we do now?" Mike asked.

"Didn't you hear the second most important part of the plan?!" Teacup asked annoyed.

"I think I did, but just in case, tell me the whole thing again I wasn't listening," he said quickly.

"Uhg! Fine," Teacup said, and explained the whole rest of the plan form start to finish. "Any questions? Or do I need to repeat everything again?!"

"Ya, I have a question," said Mike. "Can you repeat everything again?"

Teacup whipped out her M16 and aimed it at Mike.

"NO NO NO, nevermind, don't shoot me!" said Mike.

"Good, I don't wanna waste bullets," said Teacup.

She then proceeded to repeat the plan. "Dumbo, Upstart, Zombie and Pillsbury head back. Our fighters Pillsbury and Zombie are shot so they end up in the hospital. Our smart people Lena and Dumbo keep Vosch occupied in the debriefing room while Pillsbury and Zombie escape the hospital, strike into the base, find Nugget, and save him. Poundcake heads back on that one operational humvee…"

"What operational humvee?" asked Mike. "I didn't know there was an operational humvee."

"None of us did," said Teacup. "We just found it."

"Okay, go on," said Mike.

"Poundcake heads back on the operational humvee to pick up the team in the escape, and they come to the rendezvous at the hill up north."

"Okay, so we're headed for the rendezvous?" asked Mike.

"Yep," said Teacup.

"Well then, what are we waiting for? We need to get back Sammy," he said loudly.

And Justin, Lena, and I need to get home, he thought to himself.

After about five hours, they arrived at the rendezvous.

"Let's build a log cabin, be comfortable?" asked Teacup.

"Yeah," Mike agreed; "but won't we need to move again, at some point?"

"Not necessarily, maybe... Some other survivor can have it if we do move," she responded.

"Okay, let's make a cabin then, super cozy like," he agreed again.

Mike began to fashion some tools out of random sticks, rocks and other gear, while Teacup kept watch. It took awhile, but eventually he finished. He and Teacup started to cut, cut, cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut EPIC CUTTING BEAT DROP! (Cue the epic dubstep, like Skrillex or something like that).

Lena

The helicopter was descending now, descending onto the helipad of Camp Haven. Lena and Dumbo had applied bandages to Zombie's and Justin's bullet wounds, but they were both soaked with blood.

Soon, the medics had shown up. Zombie and Justin were put onto stretchers and carted off to the hospital, though Justin was trying to not believe really hard, so that way the wound would still be there, and not go away.

A small car pulled up to the chopper, with Vosch sitting in the passenger seat.

"Hello Lena, and James," said Vosch. "Come, get in the car. It's time for debriefing."

Lena and Dumbo got in the back seats, and the soldier-alien driving started to head for the HQ.

They pulled up to HQ, and Vosch jumped out of the car. Dumbo and Lena followed. They entered the place, quick-stepping to Colonel's office.

They sat down in chairs facing the desk. Vosch slid behind it and sat down.

"So," said Vosch, "so, so, so…"

Dumbo looked confused.

"Um, so, will you stop saying 'so' already and get to the point!" he said a little annoyed.

"You have no right to be annoyed, James," said Vosch.

"Uh, okay…" said Dumbo.

"You guys… have caused problems," said Vosch. "Cutting out trackers… killing your drill instructor… what happened out there?"

"Reznik was shooting a sniper rifle at us," said Lena. "He dropped something, and we suspected it was a kill switch to save himself if we were about to shoot him. We cut out our trackers in case he had a spare."

"Mmm hmm," said Vosch. "And I assume you killed Reznik shortly after?"

"Yes," said Lena.

"Mmm hmm."

Justin

The hospital. Two hours. That's what the assistant said.

"Alright, Ben," said Justin. "Let's go."

Believe, Justin thought to himself. Believe.

The bullet in his flesh dissolved. The wound resealed. The dressings and sutures fell out. Justin rose to his feet, hoisting up Zombie.

"Hey!" yelled Kistner, the medic doctor guy. "What are you two doing up out of bed, your bullet wounds still need healing!" Kistner yelled.

"We um, ah, we had to do stuff," Justin stalled

"Like what?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well, um, you see..."

While Justin was stalling, he slowly griped a heavy thing, he didn't know what it was, but he knew it would knock him out cold.

The nurse saw him, and said "Hey, what are you doing? You put that down!"

"Okay," he said, and started to put it down; "After I do this!" and he brought it down on him, like it was a video game. There was a loud crack, followed by a heavy crash.

Justin heard shouts and running footsteps.

"Hide!" he told Ben.

"What about you?" he responded.

"I have a plan."

"Hopefully one that won't get you annihilated," he mumbled, and hid under a bed.

The Doctors came in, asking all sorts of questions, like why Kistner was on the ground, and why they were out of their bed, and where the crap Ben was.

"Well…" Justin started. Then, he banged them all on the head, as if they were bowling pins. It was a lot of fun he had to admit, and all five down in less than thirty seconds.

"Okay Ben, you can come out now!"

Ben came out, coughing. "You should go under there, I counted at least twenty different kinds of bugs, hopefully none were aliens."

"Why would the aliens become bugs, bugs are so lame, puny, and can't do anything."

"They freak the [censored] out of me, though!" said Ben.

"Oh," Justin said, "Like this?" And he held one up right to his head. Ben fell on the seat of his pants and ran up to Justin's bed.

"Put that mother[censored]ing bug away, or better yet kill it!"

"Ha, Ben, saver of two souls, amazing leader, yet you is scared of a tiny little bug! HA!" mocked Justin.

"It's not funny, now let's focus on the mission at hand, and not fool around!" said Ben.

Justin agreed, somehow. They crept out the door, and moved through the hospital. Luckily, everyone was too busy to notice them.

Justin shoved open a door, stepping into the hallway. He had memorized the map perfectly. Now to find Sammy.

The two pals ran down the hall taking left, right, left, right, left right left right left right left right, leftrightleftrightleft rite EPIC LEFT RIGHT BEAT DROP! (Cue the epic dubstep, like maybe NIGHTkilla or something).

Finally, after the song ended, they reached the door and arrived at the barracks.

"Now, we creep through this place like a bunch of idiots until we find Sammy," said Justin. Then, the alarm went off.

Lena

Just as Vosch was going to ask the next question, the alarm went off. Vosch jumped to his feet. "You guys know the drill, get down there!"

Probably a good idea. Lena and Dumbo sprinted to the stairs going down. They trotted down with the rest of the group, before Lena noticed a familiar face.

Cassie was running down with other recruits, toting an M16 and wearing a typical 5th Waver uniform. "Cassie!" Lena called, but Cassie didn't here her. She disappeared into a crowd, heading a different direction.

Lena tried to follow her, but Dumbo pulled her back on track to where she needed to be. The mission wasn't to save Cassie. It was to save Sams.

Lena knew that there would be a safe-room where the little kids would be. She headed that way.

Ben Parish

Aha! Wonderful! That made it easier. Now, rather than searching the whole barracks for a little five year old among many, we could just go to the kid safe room and find Nugget easily.

Ben and Justin sprinted instead to the stairwell, where other kids from the barracks descended to safety. They managed to disappear into the crowds. Then, the first blast hit.

Flew down the stairs. Crashed into the wall. Ended up in a heap.

"[censored 3x]!" yelled Pillsbury.

"Watch your mouth!" Ben yelled, before another kid crashed into him. "[censored]!"

"Idiot…" said Pillsbury. They got up, continuing to struggle against the tide.

"Stick to the little kids," said Pillsbury. "They'll lead us to the safe room."

The two followed a group of six-year olds down a hallway, taking the right, left, right, left, okay you get the idea, ya know, it gets faster and faster and then there's a beat drop and some amazing dubstep starts playing…

Finally they arrived at the safe room, and saw…

Lena

Lena and Dumbo peeled off down the stairs to the safe room for the little kids, when they found the body.

An officer, it seemed. Three bullet wounds in his heart.

"Another intruder? Or…" Dumbo said. Lena understood. Was it Zombie and Justin?

The two squadmates passed the body and struck out down the corridor. They continued following the cries of young children, and pushed open a door into an infinite sea of faces.

Ben Parish's First Person POV

… a man in a black tuxedo, with black hair, black sunglasses, and a wicked looking Desert Eagle. He ran at Pillsbury, tackling him to the ground. Ben yelled out, and heard Pillsbury yelling "GO GET NUGGET! I'LL HANDLE THIS CHUMP!"

He struck out into the crowd of five and six year old children: there he was. There was Nugget. But he was with another recruit. He was wearing the uniform of a graduated squad member. He had a long brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes. He was armed. He was innocent. He was toast.

Justin

The Agent flew across the room, slamming into Justin and tackling him into the floor. He heard Ben cry out, before yelling "GO GET NUGGET! I'LL HANDLE THIS CHUMP!"

He heard Ben take off for the children. The agent gripped his deagle, placing it to the side of Justin's head. He braced himself for the bullet's impact, and it glanced off his head.

The agent was stunned for just a moment, long enough for Justin to kick with both legs, sending the agent flying into the ceiling with a crash. Justin rolled to the side just in time for the Agent to hit the floor where he had been lying just a moment before.

The Agent was back on his feet a moment later, flying at Justin and attacking in the style of a martial artist. Justin blocked two punches, but the forward kick sent him into a wall. The agent fired a few times with his deagle, but none of them penetrated Justin's skin.

This is gonna be a long fight, Justin thought to himself.

Lena

The room was in a state of turmoil. To Lena's left was Justin, engaged in a furious bout with an Agent. To her right was Zombie, leveling his rifle at Cassie. Sammy stood by Cassie, watching the events happen in slow motion.

Before she knew it, Lena had jumped across the room, flying between Cassie and Zombie.

"Don't shoot!" she yelled to Zombie.

"Zombie!" said Sammy, the innocent kid he was. "Hi. This is Cassie, my sister."

Zombie looked amazed. Lena knew that Sammy had told Zombie about Cassie before, but Zombie had suspected that she was dead.

"Put the gun down, Cassie!" Lena said. "You too, Zombie."

"She's a soldier now," said Sammy.

"They've lied to you," said Zombie. "They're the-"

"I know that," Cassie snapped. "How do you know that?"

Ben looked totally addlepated (old English word, means confused. Don't judge the nerdy writer). She cut off his bombshell.

KA-RASH! Big noise behind Lena, who turned around on a dime. The agent (who Lena had totally forgotten about) was in the floor, slammed there from sort of terrible fall. Dumbo proceeded to empty his clip into the agent's back.

"What was that?" asked Dumbo. "That guy was like, invincible."

"He is," said Lena. "Guys, he'll be getting up in a couple seconds. Follow me."

Squad 53 didn't ask questions. Cassie did.

"Why is Ben Parish here?" she asked.

"Because he is, now get a move on," said Ben Parish, speaking of himself in third person .

Lena hoofed it into the hallway, the squad following behind. She smacked right into Vosch solid chest.

Cassie Sullivan

"Hello, Lena," he said. "You weren't supposed to leave until I told you."

Silencer-soldiers stepped from the walls, like peels from bananas. Two of them grabbed Sammy's shoulders, and marched him off to who knows where. Probaby back to the plane, to go far away. They then bound the group's hands, and marched them off at gunpoint.

After another left right beat drop, they arrived in the execution room, where the false Others were imprisoned and killed over and over again by kids.

The Silencers shoved cassie down into a chair, and Vosch stepped to the mirror in the death chamber.

"Excellent plan, Lena," he said. "It would have pulled off easily. Here, in this room, you could have made good excuses, and I would've believed them. You're smart. You could do it with almost no effort."

"Then why did you find out?" asked Lena. "How did you?"

"The flaw in the plan," said Vosch. "The entry point of the bullets. You didn't think that it would be suspicious that the bullets entered at the exact same point in the body, and didn't touch any important organs? Personally, anyone would have found that to be suspicious."

Cassie agreed. She had no idea what they were talking about, but she still agreed.

Vosch addressed me next. "I will probably kill you all, unless you tell me who the traitor is."

"What traitor?" Cassie asked.

"You know who it is," said Vosch. "The one who killed the sentries. It couldn't have been any of these people. They aren't cold-blooded killers like my Silencers."

Truth is, Cassie did know who he was talking about. He meant Evan Walker, her Silencer. Her cold-blooded killer. (haha! A plot twist! One that everyone expected! Reading back through Part One of this is making me cringe so hard. Trust me, Part Two is much better).

"How about this," Vosch said. "You tell me, and your brother lives."

The mirror wasn't opaque anymore. It became transparent, revealing Sammy strapped into the execution chair. A soldier stood next to him.

"Tell me now," said Vosch.

"[censored] you," Cassie said.

Vosch slammed down on the button, with rage in his eyes.

Justin

Cassie lept forth from her chair, preparing to tear Vosch's eyes out. What she didn't see was that Sammy was alive in the chair, sobbing buckets but alive, and she didn't see the big Oops on the computer screen.

Justin's arm shot out, and Cassie bounced off of it back into her chair as easily as a bouncy ball that bounces super hard, like the best bouncy ball ever in the history of bounce (what is even happening anymore). She looked mad for a second, before she noticed what had happened and started laughing.

"Argh!" said Vosch. "He'll cut the power next. Don't let them leave!"

He dashed from the room.

Justin sat still for a moment. Truth is, he was doing math in his brain, comparing the ballistics of him and the nearest soldier.

Time to strike! Justin leaped up, twirling into a backflip and slamming his chair into the nearest soldier's face. While all the guns turned towards him, the rest of the squad started smacking the other soldiers with their chairs!

The soldiers were all dead.

"Hello in there?" yelled a voice. "Um…"

"Evan!" yelled Cassie. Then, a single thump came from the vent. Cassie started laughing hysterically.

"Yes, Evan, you can come in," said Cassie.

Big scary guy jumped from the vent, and landed on the floor. He and Cassie immediately started making out.

What the [censored], Justin thought to himself. First, Ben Parish, then this "Evan"?

Cassie and Evan makked out for like five minutes while everyone (except Justin) politely looked away.

"What was that!" Ben yelled; "It was gross, if you guys don't want any part in this, you can go die in a hole!" he then did the floss because he felt like it. (and he could do it at lightning speed).

"Rude," said the big guy. "Don't be rude. I don't like rude people. We need to stop being rude. We need to escape!"

Sammy just sort of blinked. Justin's brain, however, was working hard on doing stuff.

"Does anyone have a battery, or a charger?" Justin asked hopeful

"What for?" Cassie asked.

"My Changer, you don't know about it though, you didn't see us take down an entire army," said Justin.

"If you call three people an entire army, " corrected Lena.

"No, I don't think there are any batteries or chargers," said Ben.

"Then we'll have to find some, a lifetime supply, once I get one battery," Justin ensured; "Though we need Mike, because he's the only one who seems to know how to use it."

"Whatever you say doc," Cassie told him

Why, Evan? Thought Justin to himself. Why must Cassie like you?

Evan looked around him. "You need a battery?"

"Ya," said Justin.

"I know where to find one," said Evan. "I also need to blow up this base."

"What?" asked Lena. "Why?"

"Um, so I can hopefully kill Vosch," said Evan. "I'm about to cut the power, then I'm heading to the armory to blow this place to [censored] with green bombs."

"Green bombs?" Dumbo asked.

"Um, isn't Vosch already doing that?" asked Cassie.

"Only the parts he doesn't need," said Evan.

"Um, Evan?" said Justin. "We don't need to get the so-called "green bombs" from the armory. I have this." Justin whipped out the Changer.

"This is a special thing, hard to explain…" said Justin.

"I know what it is," said Evan. "It can make changes in the Matrix."

Silence for a second.

"How do you know about the Matrix?" asked Lena.

"I just do," said Evan.

"What's the Matrix?" asked Ben, confused.

"Don't tell me you believe in that, too!" said Cassie, referencing Evan.

"I'm confused," said Dumbo.

"Well, here is a quick explanation," Justin answered. "Before the Matrix became real, you have been living in a dreamworld, a fake world, so the machines can change a human being, into this," a gong noise sounded, and Justin held up the dead battery.

"So you need a battery," said Evan. "However, we are surrounded by batteries."

"We can't use them," said Justin. "Just- just get me a real battery."

"Well I'm still confused," Dumbo answered.

"Nothing is real in the Matrix, my man," said Evan

"Evan, where can I get a battery?" asked Justin.

"I'll take you," said Evan. "The rest of you, do whatever escape plan you had. We'll meet you at whatever rendezvous you've set up."

Sammy kept blinking, faster this time. Then he yelled, "Can someone get me out of this chair before someone pulls the plug?"

"Ya know, that's a good idea," said Cassie who started pulling Sammy free.

"Take me to battery land!" said Justin. "We can summon some bombs with the Changer, then get out!"

"How're you guys gonna get out?" said Cassie. "What if you die? I don't want Evan to die."

Gee, thanks, said Justin. She doesn't want Evan to die, but me? Now I'm a totally different story.

"And Justin, I guess," said Cassie. Sometimes Justin think she can read minds.

"We'll use the escape pods," said Evan.

"Escape pods? Like in Star Wars?" said Sam. "I want to go escape with you."

"No, Sams," said Cassie. "You have to come with us."

Random Author's Note: Once again, seeing as Part One of this is basically just a copy of the 5th Wave plot, and the only parts that matter are parts that are different, the actual escape part with everyone else will not be covered in TAAO.

Evan Walker

Evan turned to Justin (nice name, my man) and started to run past him at top speed. Good luck keeping up with a Silencer. Justin huffed and puffed, and fell behind, and Evan had to slow down as we dashed through the halls.

"[censored], your fast," said Justin.

"I agree," Evan replied.

They kept running through the halls taking left, right, okay you know the drill. When the song ended, the two acquaintances arrived at the power plant.

Two soldiers leveled their AK-47s and Justin took all the bullets. Evan thought he was going to die, then, what he saw was unthinkable. Justin walked forward, with bullets penetrating him. Then, he was punched in the face, and knocked out cold

Evan took this as a great opportunity, and ran at them while they were distracted. Evan took one's gun, then lit them both up like it was a video game, It was fun.

"Justin, you alright?" Evan asked and gave him a hand.

"Yeah," he said; "What happened?"

"The real question is, is how did you do that?" Evan questioned, "I've never seen anyone able to take that many bullets and stay alive, much less walk towards them!"

"It's just something I can do, Neo could dodge and freeze bullets," Justin replied.

"If you could, I probably could," Evan decided

"The first step is to let it all go, once we defeat the aliens, this place could go back to fake."

"I thought that could happen," Evan said.

"Why are we standing here talking," said Justin, "When we need to get a battery?"

"Good point," Evan replied.

They pushed open the door, popping into the power plant. Most of the energy from the plant was stored in digital batteries, he knew that. However, there was a backup cache, containing several small batteries. Vosch was obsessed with the security of his backup batteries, placing them in the hardest-to-reach part of the power plant. He also established an alien locking mechanism on the batteries to ensure that petty thieves couldn't make off with his backup stash. Upon removing a battery, it would sense your DNA and put up an invisible force field that no one with your DNA could get past.

Thanks to that system, Justin and Evan would be able to get two batteries, which meant twenty items from the Changer. They really only needed about five bombs, which meant fifteen extra items.

They ran into the plant, taking out the occasional soldier as we went. "Justin!" Evan yelled. "Ima cut the power. Can you see in the dark?"

"Whaddya think?" he yelled back. "Can you?"

"Yes!" Evan replied. Then, he cut the power.

The place was drowned in dark, for Justin. However, Evan could see with his alien enhanced eyes.

"[censored] you, Evan," said Justin.

"I'm glad our friendship has gotten off on the right foot," Evan replied. "Grab my hand."

Justin stumbled toward Evan, when he spotted it.

"DOWN!" Evan yelled, flinging himself toward Justin. The soldier at the end of the hall opened up with his mounted chaingun. Evan grabbed Justin and pulled him around the corner to safety behind cover.

"Dude, I could've survived that!" he said, "my power power!"

"I'm pretty sure it would've been very difficult, and in order to believe that much, you use a lot of energy," Evan replied. "Don't over exert yourself, or you'll die."

Bullets from the chaingun ricocheted off the corner they were hiding behind, which gave Evan an idea. He raised his sniper, targeting the wall, doing some math in his head. Then, he pulled the trigger.

The bullet ricocheted off of the other wall, and the two associates heard a yell of pain from around the corner. Excellent.

Justin and Evan dashed out, and Evan ripped the chaingun from it's stand. He tossed his rifle to Justin, who caught it, and lifted the heavy weapon.

"This is gonna be fun!" said Justin, eyeing the colossal thing.

"Ya it is," Evan said back. They heard the shouts of soldiers around the corner, and when they emerged, Evan opened fire.

A storm of steel flew down the hallway, cutting down the soldiers. Nine out of ten soldiers were dead, while the other one popped a grenade. Evan caught it, pressing it against his chest, and fell on my front.

The explosion didn't exactly hurt, it just felt weird. The pressure beneath it, followed by the pricking of shrapnel entering his body. Evan heard Justin cry out, before he fired his rifle. Quickly, Evan stood up.

"Second grenade I've taken recently," Evan said casually.

"You freak me out," said Justin. "You just take grenades for people on a whim."

"I thought you had the power to believe," Evan responded.

"Uh… whatever that means," said Justin.

"I read your Wonderland profile," Evan said.

"What does that… wait WHAT?!" Justin yelled indignantly.

"You're in love with Cassie," Evan said. "You have the power to believe and absorb all damage."

"Ya…" said Justin.

"You're in love with Cassie, and that's why you hate me and Ben," Evan said. "But Ben doesn't love Cassie, so why do you hate him?"

"He doesn't?"

"People who hate each other don't work well together," Evan said.

"Well, we seemed to work together just fine," said Justin.

"Which means you don't hate me," Evan said.

"But I do… are you just trying to distract me from figuring out what's different about you?" said Justin

"Pretty much," Evan responded, while taking pieces of shrapnel out of his chest. Casually, of course.

Mike

It took a lot of work, but with his strength, it was a piece of cake. The Cabin was all done on the outside, and Teacup was making little chairs inside.

"Ah, this looks nice," Mike said as he fell down on a chair, he felt a great sense of accomplishment.

"Yeah, now, we just wait for orders," Teacup said, "If things are going well, we should be out of here in a few hours."

"Hopefully things are going well, if I had my Changer I could have a gaming system right now," Mike said

"But there's no power," said Teacup.

"I know that, but if I had a battery."

"Yeah, and what is that thing?" asked Teacup disdainfully (why was she disdainful? It's because I wanted a long word, don't judge me.)

"My Changer? It can change things in the Matrix, you could have whatever you wanted, even things that don't exist."

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"Sure," Mike said. He was about to tell, when a piece of paper slid out of his dead phone.

"What… how?" Teacup asked. "Phone no work."

"No idea," Mike replied. He read the paper.

"Morpheus needs us," Mike told her. "He still lives."

Morpheus

"Let's hope he got the message," Morpheus said to Zhantov

"Yes sir, but, say he does get the message, then what?" he asked.

"Then, we need to get back to my ship, and go into the Matrix, we just need a crew to operate it, and backup," he said.

"How many are we talking here?" Zhantov questioned

"Let's see, umm," Morpheus looked thoughtful, mumbling to himself to calculate how many they would need.

"Well, how many!?" Zhantov asked/yelled

"About seven-to-ten crew members," Morpheus confirmed

"Where would we get them?"

"We need to make it to Zion."

"Alright then, let's go on an adventure!" said Zhantov.

"Zhantov, let's hijack a sentinel," said Morpheus.

"Why, you can fly and I can run?"

"Because it's cooler that way," said Morpheus.

Zhantov signed. Morpheus punched a sentinel and knocked it out. He then woke it up and gave it some food, and tamed it (because that's how Sentinels work). They got on and flew up.

Morpheus and Zhantov headed down to Zion. They headed deep below the earth, until they were almost at the core. Soon, they arrived at the gates. Morpheus had to inset the codes, then it was smooth sailing from there. Everyone was busy, but looked sort of sad as well. Neo's loss had taken a great toll.

Morpheus and Zhantov strode into town, and Morpheus came to the Place of Announcement. He hit the Button of Calling, and citizens flocked into the square. He motioned for Zhantov to head into the hangar and prep his ship. The wiry redhead ran off down into the tunnels.

"HELLO, CITIZENS!" Morpheus yelled into the Megaphone of "Everybody Listen Up!".

The citizens all listened up.

"Everyone, I'm the One, now," said Morpheus. "The Matrix somehow spilled over into the Real World. We can now all use our Matrix powers out here. Okay?"

All the people started yelling and throwing tomatoes at Morpheus. They caught him by surprise, and it was too late to block them: all of a sudden, Morpheus was on the ground, covered in tomato stuff.

"Why don't you want me to be the One?" asked Morpheus.

"Because," an angry one said, "you can't be the One! You're not cool enough!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," Everyone said in agreement.

"Why not?"

"Because the One means peace!" another citizen yelled. "We don't want peace! We want to destroy the machines!

"And, the Oracle didn't tell you if you were the One!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!"

They threw more tomatoes, but this time, Morpheus was ready. He thrust out his hand, and all the tomatoes froze in mid air in front of him.

"Boooooo!" one shouted, "you must have used twicks and meeshchief!"

"You talk like you're two!" Zhantov yelled back as he emerged from the tunnels, and then he jumped and tackled him.

"GASP!" yelled the crowd, as skinny Zhantov wrestled with the big bulky guy. Morpheus watched helplessly as Zhantov was lifted into the air by his shirt collar and thrown thirty feet.

"NO!" Morpheus yelled, and then tackled the man himself, this time throwing him eighty feet. The man did a death.

"GASP!" yelled the crowd again.

"Rebels!" yelled Morpheus. The Zionite Police came with their harmless air-pressure rifles, and started blasting the angry mob. The Riot Police also came, and helped clean up. Paramedics came and medivaced Zhantov to the hospital.

"What was that?" Morpheus asked his blonde intelligence officer Maelstrom a few hours later.

"That mob was stirred up by three men who are very much anti-you," she replied. "Also, you need a replacement Head of Security, since Archangel is gone."

"I do…" said Morpheus. "Who are those three men?"

"Necro, CEO of the United Free Bankers," Maelstrom said, holding up a picture of a snooty looking gentleman in a tuxedo. His hair was slicked back, and his eyes were a nasty-looking green.

"We also have Xinchen, former President of Zion and still an active politician." Maelstrom held up another photo of a fiery-looking african man with the glazed eyes of a blind person.

"I remember him," said Morpheus. "I ran against him last election."

"Yes you did, and our last man is Nightkiller, an elite commando in the resistance." The last picture was of a hispanic man with two large scars on his face and a Scorpion in each hand.

"Can we arrest these people?" said Morpheus.

"No, we can't, because they haven't officially committed a crime," said Maelstrom.

"Well that really sucks!" said Morpheus.

"Who do you want as your Head of Security?" asked Maelstrom. Back to business.

"I'll talk about it with Zhantov later. Also, I need you to go on an errand with me in a few days," said Morpheus.

"And what's that?"

"Matrix mission."

End of Chapter Ten