After the Eve Wars..., by Raberba girl
Part 11 - The Rescue of James Barton
James sighed, stopping his restless pacing around the cell. He was so bored...why did stupid OSCFB have to pick on him, anyway? They could have kidnapped Chelsea, or Sandy, but nooooo, they had to go and abduct him.
He gave a frustrated little groan and flopped to the floor. The others had better rescue him soon...the food in this place was disgusting.
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All the FuturePreventers were running around in the mobile suit hangar, getting the Neo Generation Brats' Gundams ready. The adults couldn't go on this one, because they had to stay at home and tape "Survivor."
Giving her father a goodbye hug and kiss, Chelsea picked up her space helmet and started toward Desert Rox, but then slowed. Turning her head, she saw Sandy slumped almost out of sight in the shadows behind Cerberus's foot.
She hesitated for a moment, then bit her lip and went to him.
"Hey Sandy...you okay?" Chelsea asked softly, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Chelsea...I think that - that maybe I shouldn't go," he said in a low voice.
"What?" she exclaimed, startled, "Sandy, you have to go! We need you."
"But..." He looked up at her, and his eyes glistened. "Chelsea, I couldn't save my dad, and then I got Uncle Wufei caught too. Maybe I'm cursed or - something."
"Sandy, that's stupid."
There was a pause.
"Oh. Okay." Then he got up and headed over to where the spacesuits were.
"All right!" FutureHoward yelled about ten minutes later, "Are you kids all set?"
"Mission Accepted."
"Yeah, I guess..."
"Yup!"
"JUSTICE WILL BE MINE!"
"Atta boy, Chris, go get 'em!" FutureWufei called.
The boosters started. With a blinding flash of light, a blast of heat and a deafening roar, the Brats' Gundams headed off to the colonies.
TWENTY SOME-ODD YEARS IN THE PAST:
Quatre and Duo were in the park.
"Fetch, boy!" Quatre called, throwing a stick.
Duo sighed. Being a dog for the day was a drag, but at least now he had a chance to escape. Running in the direction of the stick, he didn't dare look back as he passed it and kept on running, hoping that Quatre hadn't been paying attention to exactly how far the stick had gone. As Duo ran, he fumbled with the clasp of the collar around his neck until he was finally able to rip the thing off and dump it into the nearest trash can. He didn't slow down until he was a few blocks away.
Back in the park, Quatre wandered around and hummed, wondering vaguely at how long it was taking for Duo-puppy to bring the stick back.
It wasn't until a few hours later that Quatre figured it out.
TWENTY SOME-ODD YEARS IN THE FUTURE:
FutureDuo smirked insanely as he glanced sideways at FutureWufei, then casually turned and walked out of the room. FutureWufei turned to watch him, a wary frown on his face. When the other man disappeared through the door, FutureWufei reluctantly looked back to the monitors showing various views of outer space.
FutureDuo was starting to cause suspicion...FutureWufei would have to keep his eye on the feisty Earthling.
And he also had to make sure that the Maxwell boy didn't escape his/their grasp again. It was vital.
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"Are you tracking them?" FutureTrowa asked.
"Yeah," FutureZechs answered, pressing some buttons on the computer. "Don't worry, Trowa, they'll get through all right, and they'll bring James back for sure. They're our kids, after all."
FutureTrowa sighed. "Yes, I suppose you're right..."
Behind them, the rest of the FuturePreventers were glued to the TV, arguing over whether Kucha or Ogakor would win the immunity challenge this time.
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"Okay, does anyone remember which colony Aunt Sally said OSCFB was located?" Chelsea asked. She was met with silence. "Hey...guys?"
"I've failed in my mission!" Christy suddenly cried, "I forgot to remember the enemy's location! I am a worthless soldier!"
"I forgot too! Father, I have failed you as a son and as a warrior of the Dragon Clan! I must pay for my incompetence!" Chris also lamented.
"Hey, what are they doing?" Chelsea exclaimed in horror.
"Gah! They're trying to kill themselves!" Sandy choked. Sure enough, the two obsessed Neo Gundam pilots had come out of their mechs and were now floating in empty space, veeeeeeery sloooooowly reaching to take off their space helmets...
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Sandy and Chelsea cried, their Gundams lunging forward in slow motion. Riiiiiiiiight at the last minute, they snatched the two suicidals and shoved them back into their own Gundams.
"Stay!" Chelsea shrieked frantically.
"Yeah, don't SCARE us like that!" Sandy yelled furiously.
"But, we are now inferior beings for our inability to--"
"Oh, shut up!"
Christy and Chris scowled.
A minute later, Chelsea suddenly had an idea about their current predicament. "Hey, we'll just ask Uncle Zechs!" she said brightly. Pressing a button, she activated the commlink in her Gundam and was soon faced with a very statickey screen which had FutureZechs' image on it.
"Chelsea, is everything all right?"
"Except for Christy and Chris trying to kill themselves, yeah. The thing is...we all forgot which colony we're supposed to go to."
"Oh. Well, that's easy - it's colony #9284759847598274543 in the L3 cluster."
"No wonder we forgot," Sandy mumbled.
"Everything seems to happen on L3, doesn't it," Chris mused.
Chelsea saluted. "Thanks, Uncle Zechs!"
"Anytime," FutureZechs said before cutting the transmission.
"All RIGHT!" Chelsea said enthusiastically, sounding frighteningly like Ash from Pokémon, "Let's go capture some CLOW CARDS!"
The other three gave her weird looks.
"Um...I meant-- never mind."
TWENTY SOME-ODD YEARS IN THE PAST:
Her fingers closed over the familiar contours of her glasses, and she couldn't help a fond smile. It had been so long since she'd worn these... Pulling them out suddenly and jamming them onto her face, Colonel Une immediately swept into action, karate-chopping a couple of the guards to the ground before they could even react, and then getting rid of the rest with the spiked end of one of her high-heeled shoes.
A twisted, bloodthirsty smile on her lips, Une quickly did up her hair in the braided cinnabuns, then snatched up a gun and ran out of the room. Feet pounding down hallway after carpeted hallway, she couldn't help a few peals of evil laughter as she delighted in her long-forgotten state of the Ruthless Bad Girl we all know and love. Any members of DTO/REO she happened to run into were quickly brought down. With her growing collection of guns blazing, the gal was hot.
All of a sudden as she ran past one open door, Une skidded to a halt, nearly fell, and then crept back breathlessly to peer into the room. "Treize-sama...?" she whispered.
TWENTY SOME-ODD YEARS IN THE FUTURE:
"Agh! I didn't expect their defense line to be so strong!" Sandy yelled, slashing at a couple of enemy mobile suits with his beam scythe.
"We'll just have to charge through - there is no way I'll let this mission fail like the last one did," Christy growled.
Sandy looked simultaneously guilty and annoyed. "Hey, was it my fault Uncle Wufei decided to show up and save me?"
"Shut up!" Chris shouted over the commlinks, blasting an arc of dragonfire at some more mechs.
"We can't let James and Uncle Trowa down; we've got to save him!" Chelsea said determinedly.
"Enough of this," Christy said finally, holding up her triple-beam cannon. "Get outta my WAY!"
"Line stealer," Sandy said irritably as the army of opposing forces was obliterated in the blast.
"Just come on!" The other Gundams followed Angel Gem deeper into the colony.
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James looked up as he heard faint shouts and footsteps running past his cell door. From far away he thought he could hear the sound of a blaring alarm, and for a moment he held his breath, hardly daring to hope.
Was it possible that they were finally coming to save him? "Come on, guys, get me out of here," he whispered.
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"Hai-YAH!" Chris smashed through a final door with Dragonfire's - excuse me, Nataka's - beam glaive. "Come on, we're through!"
"I think it would be better if we left our Gundams here and continued on foot," Christy said, opening Angel Gem's hatch and climbing out. The others were quick to follow suit.
"Should we split up?" Sandy asked, readying his gun.
Chelsea shook her head. "Nah. That's what everyone does."
"It'll be just what they're expecting," Christy hissed with almost mad satisfaction. She suddenly threw back her head and let loose with an evil-sounding cackle.
"Don't do that, you sound like Uncle Heero when he gets scary!" Sandy yelped.
Christy shook her head, ignoring him. "Troops, onward!"
Chris pulled out his katana. "BRING IT ON!"
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"Not much to bring on," Chelsea muttered an hour later. They had been wandering around, looking for the prison block, and had passed by swarms of OSCFB soldiers who hadn't even given them a second glance.
"Will they please shut up with the stupid ALARMS!" Sandy snarled. He blasted at the ceiling in annoyance, which, of course, had no effect.
"True soldiers aren't bothered by such trivial nuisances," Christy sniffed haughtily.
"Yeah, you are WEAK!" Chris added almost gleefully.
Sandy rounded on him with the gun. "Will you just drop it? That's getting on my nerves, too."
"Oh. Sorry, Sandy," Chris said.
"That's okay." The two boys lowered their weapons and continued on with the girls.
ANOTHER HOUR LATER:
"Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! That stupid siren is driving me INSANE!" Sandy shrieked, practically blowing the ceiling to bits in his wild attempt to cease the agony.
"Hey, watch it!" Christy yelled, covering her head as what was once the paneling above them began to rain down on their heads.
"Why can't we all just be friends here?" Chelsea pleaded.
Chris sighed. "Are we any nearer to finding the prison block than we were before?"
"No, but here's the cafeteria," Sandy suddenly said. "Let's have lunch, then keep looking later."
Everyone shrugged and silently agreed.
YET ANOTHER HOUR LATER:
"Yeah, so she says to me, 'Harold, why didn't you make the spaghetti before you watered the lawn?' and I said, 'Why, 'cause we HAVE no lawn!'"
The OSCFB soldiers and Neo Gundam Brats burst into laughter. They were all sitting at one of the tables and enjoying conversation after having finished lunch.
"So then what did Mary say after that?" Christy asked, interested.
"She didn't say anything - she went to pick up the clothes from the dry cleaners!" the enemy soldier said gleefully.
Everyone burst laughter again, then wondered why.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER:
"Well, gotta get back to work; I hear the new Gundam pilots are loose in the base," the guy called Harold finally said, standing and picking up his long-empty bowl. Some of the other soldiers rose to leave too, as did the Neo Brats.
"Yeah. Well, it was nice talking with you," Chelsea said. "Bye!"
"Bye!" some of the other soldiers called, and everyone went their separate ways.
"They still haven't turned off the stupid alarm," Sandy sighed as they continued on down the corridors.
"You get used to it," Chris muttered.
YET ANOTHER HOUR LATER:
"Argh! We've been looking forEVER!" Chelsea whined, plopping down on the floor. "I'm tired and hungry and scared and cold and lost and I wanna go home!"
"We just had lunch," Sandy said. "We're in no danger, it feels like the air conditioner's broken down, and we haven't found James yet."
"Oh...well, I'm still tired and lost!"
"Excuse me," Chris said, catching the arm of a random OSCFB soldier who was running by, "do you know where the prison block is?"
"Yeah, it's down that hallway right there. Just go straight for two doors, then take a left, follow the walrus tracks and then turn left again at the bus stop sign."
"Thanks."
"And, while we're at it, could you help me? They say the Gundam pilots have invaded the base; have you seen 'em?"
"Yeah, they went that way," Sandy said, pointing in a random direction.
"Thanks! See you later," the man said, saluting, then ran off.
Sandy shook his head. "Are all bad guys this stupid?"
"I wish. Remember your dad," Chelsea said quietly.
Sandy looked away. His fingers slowly clenched into a fist.
"Don't worry about that now, we're almost there," Christy said. "Let's go!"
"Right." They all followed her down the corridor that led to the prison block.
"One, two," Chelsea counted. "Here."
Everyone turned left, then halted in astonishment.
"Walrus tracks," Chris muttered in mixed disgust and disbelief.
They followed the tracks somewhat suspiciously, then halted and stared again. Right there, smack-dab in the middle of a corridor in the secret enemy base of the Outer Space Colony Freedom Bureau on colony #9284759847598274543 in the L3 cluster, stood a cheery, bright yellow stop sign.
"Kinda makes you wonder about the sanity of this place," Chelsea said finally.
"'Kinda makes you wonder?'" Sandy said, giving her an annoyed glance. "Chelsea!"
"What?" she asked innocently.
"Never mind."
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James caught his breath as he heard voices outside his cell. Familiar voices. "Guys?" he called. "Sandy? Christy?"
"It's James!" someone cried from outside. There was a scuffling sound, a pause, and then a small, almost soundless explosion near the door's lock, before it was pried open and his friends were standing there.
"JAMES!" Chelsea shrieked, bounding inside and glomping him, "We were so WORRIED about you! Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Are you all right? Are you hungry? Oh, Uncle Trowa's going to be sooooo happy!"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said quickly, managing to extract himself with some difficulty. "Could use some food, though...you sure took your sweet time about rescuing me!" he said indignantly as Sandy handed him a bag full of leftovers from lunch.
"Sorry. We had to try and rescue Uncle Duo first," Christy apologized.
"Is he okay?" James asked.
Everyone jumped when Sandy suddenly turned away and pounded his fist on the wall. "No, he's NOT okay," he growled, "I couldn't save him, and I ended up getting Uncle Wufei captured too."
"Oh...I'm sorry, Sandy," James said helplessly.
"Come on, we don't have time for this. We'll figure out what to do about Uncle Duo and the Nerds later; right now we should be concentrating on escaping from here," Christy said.
Chris and Chelsea nodded. "Right."
James nodded as well, giving Sandy a worried glance. "Yeah. Come on, man."
Sandy gritted his teeth, then sighed and went with them reluctantly.
Outside in the corridor, they hadn't gotten far when the alarms suddenly stopped.
"MAN!" Sandy yelled almost fearfully, "That feels weird! It's so...so quiet."
"Sudden silence after more than four hours of repetitive NOISE will do that to you," Christy growled, more alarmed than she was letting on. She cocked her gun, darted agitated glances around them, and tuned her ears for any sign of danger. She didn't like how the alarms for their intrusion had suddenly shut off like that. Almost as if they'd been--
"Discovered," an icy voice finished her thought. Christy whirled around to find an entire legion of armed OSCFB soldiers blocking the hallway. She whipped back around to see that they were now surrounded.
"I didn't do it! I'm a good girl!" Chelsea shrieked, dropping her gun and leaping into Sandy's arms in terror. He sighed and decided not to let go of her, considering it gave him a good excuse to not raise his hands in surrender.
Christy, Chris, and James, however, were not so lucky, and were reluctantly forced to drop their weapons before lifting their hands stiffly into the air.
The man who had spoken grinned cruelly as he gave a signal, and several men came forward to restrain their new prisoners. "Gundam pilots, I welcome you. Come with me, and I will tell you something interesting..."
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"WHAT?!" Chris shrieked indignantly, and the two officers standing on either side of him grabbed his shoulders to hold him back. "How DARE you make such a preposterous proposal? I REFUSE to turn traitor against my own friends and family! It is injustice!"
"Well you know, Chris, your family doesn't exactly have the cleanest record in the world for keeping on the same side as their allies," Sandy muttered. He grinned a little as he remembered the self-righteous stories his father used to tell of Uncle Wufei joining the enemy.
Then Sandy remembered that his father was no longer waiting for him at home to tell anymore self-righteous stories, and his eyes hardened once again into blue ice.
Chris blushed. "Well, you know...whatever."
"Humph. So, you won't join us?" the OSCFB man said.
"Never," Sandy spat. "I didn't join the Nerds, and I WON'T take sides with you either!"
"The Nerds asked you to join them, too?" Christy hissed in horror.
Sandy shrugged. "Hey, when you got it, you got it."
"Though I'd be wary of the attraction for evil forces that you seem to possess," Chris said darkly.
"My dad asked me to join them - the Nerds talking through my dad, you know - and I didn't agree to it," Sandy growled. "Don't start thinking I'm the enemy! I nearly got killed fighting him!"
"Hey, quit arguing! We can't win if we don't stick together," Chelsea said.
"Well then," the man continued, "if you refuse to join us, then we'll just have to convince you to change your minds." He snapped his fingers.
Sandy's eyes widened as one of the soldiers came towards him with a pair of scissors. He suddenly screamed and began to struggle wildly as he felt them take hold of his hair. "Don't you DARE touch my braid, you--!"
"Ack! My innocence!" Chelsea squeaked, trying to plug up her ears against Sandy's curses. She had little success, since her hands were shackled together.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" the man cackled evilly. "I've got you now, Gundam brats! If you don't join us, WE'LL CUT OFF MAXWELL'S BRAID!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sandy howled in desperation. "Not my hair! Please! Not my hair! Anything but that! I'll join you, I'll join you! I'll be your most loyal soldier, I swear!"
"Traitor!" Christy and Chris screeched at the same time, while James uncertainly looked back and forth between them, and Chelsea still attempted to cover her ears with her stuck-together hands.
The man grinned wickedly. From the depths of the base, a sound seemed to well up.
'Chriiiiiiiiiiistyyyyyyy...Cooooooooome baaaaaaaack aaaaaaaaand kiiiiiiiiiill meeeeeeee!'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Christy screamed, throwing herself to the floor in an attempt to bash her brains out rather than listen to the hated sound. "Noooo! I'll join you too, just please STOP it!"
"Christy?!" Chris said in a strangled voice. Then his shocked look changed to one of rage. "WEAKLING!"
"Bwahahahahaha!" the man laughed villainously. And then--
'Sera MUUUUUUUN! Do do de do de do do do DE dooo! Do do de do de do do SERA MUUUUN! Do do de do de do do! Do do de do de do do! Hm mm hm mmm mmmmm, SERA MUUUUUUN!'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Chris screamed, backing away in terror. Every single vid-screen in the room had suddenly begun displaying one of Sailor Moon's transformation sequences. "Turn it off, turn it off! Women are weak! Cartoons are weak! Sailor Moon is weak! I will not tolerate weakness! TURN IT OFF!"
"Only if you swear your undying loyalty and allegiance to us," the man said craftily.
"All right, all right! I swear! SHUT IT OFF! I'M BEGGING YOU!" The OSCFB man snapped his fingers again, and the screens went blank. Chris collapsed to the ground with relief.
The men then turned to James, who made a choking sound and threw up his hands defensively. "I'll join you, I'll join you! You think I'm crazy enough to let that happen to me?" He pointed at the others. Chris was rolling around on the ground, moaning curses upon Sailor Moon; Christy was also on the floor and struggling to recover; Sandy was clinging frantically to Chelsea, nearly hyperventilating as he stared with intense, bloodshot eyes at the surrounding guards.
Satisfied, the man looked to Chelsea, but her eyes were glowing strangely and her hair seemed to be flying around in an odd manner.
"I won't let you hurt my friends," Chelsea said in a weird voice. "Spaceheart, guide me in the path for peace! Take THIS!" She held up her hands, and a beam of light shot out of them, heading straight for the head OSCFB man and--
--didn't do much.
The guy blinked. "Um...what exactly was that supposed to do?"
"The Spaceheart thingy didn't work!" Sandy yelled in frustration.
The glow in Chelsea's eyes faded, and her hair stopped flying around. "Uh - well, I tried!" she said helplessly. "Guess I should've listened to Dad when he was teaching me how to do it right. Don't hurt me! I'm nice!" With a little squeal she darted to hide behind the recovered Chris, who glared at her.
"You know, you really aren't being fair," James spoke up tentatively in a last gamble for their freedom. "I mean, you kidnap us and then blackmail us into turning on our loved ones and joining up with you. But I mean, that's not very smart, is it? If you make us work for you against our will, we're gonna eventually turn on you and escape, and then you'll be in even more trouble than ever. If I were you, it would be wiser to have us--" he stopped himself just in time from saying "executed," which would have been the logical thing for OSCFB to do to them, "--have us set free. Because then," he cast around for a convincing-sounding reason, "uh, then we can all be happy and live in peace like Heero Yuy and King Peacecraft would have wanted." Chelsea beamed at him happily while the others shot him exasperated looks.
OSCFB seemed to be buying it, though. "Hm...well, I suppose you're right. Never mind, you're free to go."
"Awesome!" Sandy couldn't help saying as their manacles were being taken off. Just at that moment, one of the guards suddenly punched him in the stomach for no particular reason. "Ow..."
"Hey, what'd you do that for?" Chelsea exclaimed indignantly.
"Don't sweat it. It's the Maxwell Family Curse," Sandy grunted as he doubled over, wincing. "Manacles and being punched in the stomach. Happens all the time."
"Oh. Okay."
The Neo Generation Gundam Brats started to walk off into the sunset, heading for their Gundams and then home, satisfied in the fact that they had successfully completed their mission to rescue James Barton. The OSCFB man's voice suddenly drifted up from behind them.
"You know...if you became part of the Outer Space Colony Freedom Bureau...we have hour-long coffee breaks."
The Brats stopped, looking at each other.
"And...we've got a pool hall and a good arcade. What do you say?"
They looked at each other, and they slowly grinned, then turned back to the guy. "Well, in that case..."
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Villainous laughter reverberated throughout the secret base, the voice of OSCFB's leader accompanied by five younger voices.
to be continued...