We follow Joey, Mikael and Beauty across the highway to the large warehouse where the girls are being held. With their plan set, will they be able to spring the girls, or will they end up prisoners to their own mission? And will the bonds of friendship hold as the three campers enact their daring rescue?
Find out in this exciting installment of: Mega Man Otherworldly Adventures!
Joey, Beauty and Mikael are hiding under an unattended forklift watching the guards cycle in and out of their shifts, drinking coffee as they converse with each other, probably hoping for something to do.
"Are you sure you want to do this Joey?" Mikael asks timidly. In response, Joey simply winks and runs out from out of the bottom of the forklift, acting like he had been through hell. His shirt was drenched with blood, and a small stream had formed from the edge of his mouth. His face and arms were covered in bruises, and he was barefoot. He walks into the view of the guards, who, upon seeing him, raise their guns at first, but when they see his identity, a young and injured teen, they lower their weapons and come to his aid. As if by a perfect performance, Joey collapses into the arms of a nearby guard and allows him to be carried off. Two other guards accompany him and they carry him away to a bench. After they carefully place Joey on the bench, Mikael then decides it is time for him to make his move.
Mikael and Joey kiss for a brief second and Mikael goes off to the direction of a large group of guards, Beauty makes her way through stacks of supplies to sneak around them. Running frantically, the guards raise their weapons to the crazed Mikael, but once they hear his dilemma, they lower their arms.
"Help me! Help! Please! Where's my friend?" Mikael asked with crocodile tears running down his dirt-covered face. "Where is he? He's really hurt! Please! Somebody help!" In response, a guard came up to him to calm the shaken child, other guards followed, while a majority of them watched in confusion. In the midst of all the horror, Beauty snuck around the rows of guards to reach the back of the factory. Carefully following the directions that Zero had previously given her, she made her way past the rows of distracted guards, silently and moving carefully in the shadows. She had so much to gain and so much to lose, Joey literally had to cut open his chest to do this, and if they get caught, all of the girls are pretty much screwed.
In all of the confusion, one apathetic guard simply sipped his coffee as the others embarrassed themselves with the hurt teenage boy. The guard, simply known as Booker, has no kids of his own, and he never plans to again. He had one baby girl with his wife, but when she was 9, on his watch, she went missing, she was never found again. The police had told them that she was gone for good, but he never believed. Eventually, he had lost hope. His wife tried to cheer him up, but they were so depressed at the time they almost split up. What hurt him most was the fact that he was so irresponsible at that one moment, that when he turned around, she was gone; that he was unable to protect her from whatever made her disappear from his life forever. He broke his promise to her that he would always be her protector, her guardian. He secretly swore that he was never going to have a child again, never wanting to go through the same pain and utter hopelessness he felt that day when he lost his little angel.
He slurped down the rest of his bad coffee and crushes the small paper cup in his hand, throwing it to the floor. He looks at the boy with bitterness, as if to not trudge up old feelings. However, he senses that something is amiss. Why would these kids find help in here of all places? When there are plenty of firemen and police officers on the highway? Just when he was ready to pass off his thoughts as simple-minded paranoia, he sees something that completely changes his tone. Beauty, thinking she was perfectly concealed, was not swift enough, and her foot was caught by the guards' sharp eye as she turned a corner. Not wanting to cause a ruckus at what might just be a trick of his eye, he slowly clenches his hand around is gun and slowly makes his way to the direction of Beauty.
After a little while, as well as some creative rock throwing paired with box and supply climbing, she manages to find the crate in question. Looking around, she sees three guards blocking the way, but this was all part of the plan. Zero managed to get the guard's alternating schedule, which means that she has a thirty second window to pick the lock to the crate. In three… two… one…
Just as planned, a little beeping came from the watch of one of the guards, and he signaled the others to follow as he led himself out of the room. As soon as they were out of sight, she ran silently, previously having removed her shoes to make sure she stayed quiet and positioned herself at the crate's padlock. She removed her trusty bobby pin that she kept in her hair and quickly made work of the simple lock. Good thing Faulder was cheap enough to spring for such a piece of junk.
As she stood up and removed the lock though, she heard the unmistakable click-click of a pistol behind her. The simple two-beat sounds made all of her muscles tense as her ears readied for the inevitable warning.
"Hands up girly." Booker said as he raised the gun to her spine. She slowly put her hands behind her head and turned around to face her antagonist. With the sight on her chest, she was almost too scared to speak reason to the guard; almost.
"Who are you?" Booker asked with blatant frustration in his tone. "What the hell do you think you and your little friends are doing here? This isn't kid stuff missy." He says sternly.
"Look, "Beauty says. "Please, you have no idea what you are involved with here…"
"I have no idea?" says Booker with great displeasure. "You and your buddies are in big trouble for this, do you hear me? We are going to call your parents…" Suddenly, a crazy idea came to Beauty's mind. Maybe she caught it from Amy, maybe her mind is on a dangerous streak today, but before she tries it, she continues to reason with the guard.
"Listen, Faulder's a bad guy, and he's going to do something really illegal if you don't let me show you what's inside this crate right now, please!" Beauty pleads, but her cries of desperation fall on deaf ears. Slowly, he lowers his gun and walks over to her, preparing to grab her by the arm and drag her out of there.
"I don't have time for this kid…"Booker grabs Beauty's arm and in reaction, she abruptly shakes herself free and tries to make a grab for his gun. Shoulder to shoulder, Beauty manages to startle Booker enough for him to make a shot using his own gun. The shot startled the guards from their locations and some stayed behind as others made their way toward the direction of the bang. The shot was harmless, as Beauty intended it to be, but it manages to hit the upper half of the crate and bounce off with a loud Sha-ting! From the inside, the young girls, the ones probably told to stay silent, screamed.
Because of this, Booker stopped in his tracks almost entirely. He allows Beauty to step away and she watches as Booker slowly makes his way to the sealed container. He places both his hands on the handles on the container, hesitating just slightly as a bead of sweat rushes down past his two wide eyes. He blinks harshly and swings open the doors of the container, gazing upon the 126 girls held captive inside of it. They all look on at Booker as if he's either an angel or the devil, someone who is either going to save them or put them into servitude for the remaining few years of their lives. Girls as young as eight cried into the arms of ones as old as fourteen, tears of pure fright. The girls of all colors looked as if they had pale skin, and their hair was matted and dirty. Not a single girl in their looks like they had a full stomach for a while, they are severely malnourished and desperate looking. Little girls, he thought gloomily, they are all just scared little girls, and… I had no idea.
The sight is enough to make a grown man cry, and it appears to have done just that. Booker drops to his knees and drops his gun, clutching the floor with his hands, letting the tears spill from his face. He had almost allowed this to happen; he was almost the man who made these little angels disappear, just like his baby girl had done three years ago.
Beauty, puzzled by the guard's change of heart, heard the approaching footsteps of the other guards suddenly stall, either at the terrified girls in the container or one of their own crying on the floor, so broken. Beauty looked on with so much pity, trying to hold back tears of her own.
Booker clenched his face in one of his gruff hands, gritting his teeth and trying to avoid crying in front of his men who some, unbeknownst to him, started tearing slightly as well.
As the poor girls attempted to come out, one of the girls had a wide-eyed expression on her face the entire time, she was in the darkened back-half of the crate and held a small seven-year old between her arms. She handed the small child to her friend, wanting to get out of the enclosed space as soon as possible. Her friend assumes it is because she wants to see sunlight again, due in part to her constant mention of it, but no, it was not that at all. Her slow zombie-like steps quickly turned to a speed walk, and even more swiftly into a fumbling run as the girls in the front were still trying to find the courage to come out. As the others saw her struggling to get out, they created a ruckus to clear a small path for her, wondering what made her so frantic to escape. Tears ran down the girls' face as she came into the light, knowing that she was mere feet away from the source of her bravery.
She leaps from the crate and wraps her arms around the crying officer with his face in his hands. Startled by the unexpected action, he falls back into the dirt, catching himself with his arms, seeing his baby girl hugging him again. Sobbing, she can barely contain herself as she once again tries to find that beloved warmth that her dad had given her so much before in the past.
"DADDY!" she sobs and sobs, burying her face in her Booker's shoulder, "Oh my god, thank you, oh my god, you're here…" She continues to sob as Booker hugs his arms around her in return, carrying her as he finds the renewed strength to allow him to stand tall, the strength that he had so long ago forgotten. The tears run down his face as she is in his arms, his little angel, his world, is back with him. "My God, God, thank you so much…" Booker whispers as he clenches his eyes to stop the tears from flowing, acknowledging once again that he has his little girl again, that he's a father again.
"Daddy… I love you! Don't ever go away again! I love you daddy!" She cries as she finds her sanity in her father's arms.
"I love you too, my god, my god Emily, you have no idea how much I love you!" Booker cries as he clutches onto his baby girl.
The two shared a moment all to themselves, impartial to the cheers of happiness and whistles of congratulations from both the guards and girls as their moment of happiness inspired them to venture from their long-held fright out of the container. Beauty announces to them that Faulder can no longer hurt them, that they were finally free to live their lives once again. And as the guards phoned in the situation from their radios, as the police sirens were heard in the distance, when the police came to organize the girls, and the guards spoke with them the situation, when computer codes were given to the police, and files was taken from the building as evidence, one thing stood consistent. That Booker and Emily stood together holding hands, in the magical father-daughter bond that could not, was not, and would not be broken.
Awww, how sweet! With this disaster now averted, will Zero and Amy be able to make their move to save Rock? Or will Wily still be able to go ahead with his plan? And now that his heinous crimes have been revealed, what will happen with Faulder?
Find out in the next action-packed installment of: Mega Man Otherworldly Adventures!