Okay, here's the scoop. No, I did not forget about Joanna. You'll see why if you keep reading.
Now it's Elite Medic Gij, Elite pilot Benn, Elite soldier Doom, Tallest Red, Mona, Maize and Dib. This is the Armada's army atm, but it'll have to do.
Zim2 will come into an important role a bit later.
No telling!! keep reading!!
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As their sorry group flitted from shadow to shadow, Maize riding on her father's head because she was too small to keep up, Elite medic Gin voiced a nutty question.
"Commander, what about your human friend? Joanna?"
Mona stopped, panting, and peered out from behind the building they had hidden behind. OUt in the distance stood Chi's Vort ship, and, guarding it, her blue-clad soldiers.
"I think she's safer where she is for the moment. She can kick ass when the time calls for it, but I don't want to get her involved in this," said Mona quietly, not paying attention to Gij.
Suddenly there was a sharp prick on her left butt cheek.
She jumped.
"Ouch!!" she hissed, and turned around. Gij stood there with an empty syringe and an annoyed look on his face.
"But this is THEIR planet. Her home. Shouldn't she be involved?" he retorted.
Mona was about to tell him off for stabbing people with needles, but then thought of what he said. He was right, of course. And Jo was hurt. What had she been thinking?
She nodded sadly, and looked off into the distance. She had no idea where they had taken her British friend.
"Does anyone have a tracking device of any kind?" she asked the small group.
Benn pulled something out of his PAK and fiddled with it for a moment.
"I can locate any humans with this, by tracking their non-Irken DNA," he said.
Mona nodded.
"Okay, she might be all by her self with the cats. I think Chi's the type to use loved ones as leaveridge,..." said Mona, glaring indiscriminately at the ugly black-gray Vort ship. Her breath plumed out in front of her as she remembered the brief but firious battle on the Massive. She hoped Chi's finger REALLY hurt.
There was a moment when all but the shouts of Chi's soldiers were the only noises and Benn's machine thing beeped.
He pointed one black-gloved finger at a long, low building similar to the one she had been thrown into.
"Three non-Irken life forms in there. One bigger than the other two. Should we split up?" he asked.
Mona exchanged a glance with Red and he nodded.
"Seven of us is a lot more suspicious than a couple. Mona, me and Maize go get Joanna. You four go for Purple. And Don't Be Seen!" hissed Red.
The three ragtag Elites sprinted off into the next available shadow towards the jail where Purple was being held, led by Benn because he's already been there once.
Maize held on tighter to her father's head as he began to hover towards the building that held Joanna. Mona followed, her boots hindering her more than helping.
Clanky, unneccesary-shaped boots were better than bare feet in snow, at any rate.
They were one building away when Maize fell off Red's head and into plain sight. She cried out in surprise as she hit the snow.
Red and Mona were well hidden by shadows but Maize's cry had caught the attention of two of Chi's blue-clad goons. They joggged over to the little smeet and pointed their shock prods at her in a threatening gesture.
She shook the snow out of her crooked antennae and got to her feet, backing away in fear. Small tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
"State your business, smeet," spat one of the two. He had a long, ugly green scar running down the side of his head, forcing his left antenna to the side.
"Um, I... uh... I was heading to the smeetery... please don't hurt me..." Maize lied quickly. A tear ran down her cheek and the look on her face was pure terror.
The scarred irken withdrew his shock stick and began laughing arrogantly.
"I think we scared the little thing!" he joked to his comrad.
The other one glared at his partner.
"Congratulations. You can scare a baby. Now let's get back to our posts and leave THIS,-", he kicked her in the side and got her moving,"- to the cold. Before Chi comes around!"
They both walked away, leaving Maize crying in the snow.
Mona cast one quick, nervous look at the blue soldiers, darted out, bent down, grabbed Maize and darted back into the shadows in about a second. No one appeared to see her.
Maize clung to the front of Mona's filthy tattered uniform and buried her face between her breasts. She was still crying.
Feeling oddly protective, Mona held her close until they reached the place where Benn said Jo was probably being kept.
As was predicted, the door was locked.
Fortunately, said door faced away from sight of any of Chi's soldiers.
Mona took out one of the soldiers guarding the cell building with her ray gun to his left temple. Red tok the other out with an odd, chopping move to his shoulder.
He smirked.
"We have out weak spots, too," he explained.
Mona shot the locking mechanism off the door with her ray gun and kicked the door in.
Joanna jumped from where she sat on the floor and so did the two cats with her. Oreo recognized her owner and ran out to Red and Mona's cat stayed where she was, blinking forlornly in the light from day and glancing regally at her kitten as if to show her how to behave.
"Mona!!" Joanna cried.
"Jo!!"
Mona set Maize down on the floor and ran to her best friend. She looked awful. Her shirt was ruined, torn beyond recognition, her bra was broken, there was an ugly looking scab on her neck and crusted, dried blood up and down both her arms. The skin there looked horribly raw and irritated. Her glasses were broken and the ring through her eyebrow had been torn but not disconnected. A thin streak of blood dried brown ran down the side of her face as a result.
The two hugged as if they'd never see each other again, one human, one mostly alien, and Maize joined in the hug after a few seconds.
"I knew you'd come after me at some point," said Jo. She was grinning ear to ear at the sight of her old friend and Mona had a similar expression on her face.
Before she could stop her, Jo planted a big dry kiss on both Maona's cheek and Maize's, and once she stood up and stood on her toes, planted one on Red's cheek too. Red blushed a furious deep green and shied away.
Mona smiled at seeing her oldest and best friend in good spirits despite being hurt and, taking her by the hand like little girls at a slumber party, exited her prison cell. Jo grabbed Maize's other little hand and together, they all headed as fast as they could towards the building that housed Purple. With any more luck, the others would already have sprung him from jail.
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Grorl wasn't easy to bribe.
Gij was pleading with the eccentric medic to let Purple go and claim ignorance to Chi, but he was having none of it.
He had all four of them backed against a far wall, his gun pointed at them. It was almost dead, but they didn't know that...
Dib was trying to reason with him, too, but made a mistake of calling him a "filthy alien". Grorl, who had been listening intently up till thatpoint, growled at them and brandished his gun at the boy. Dib swallowed and shut his mouth.
At that moment, Tallest Red, Mona, Maize and Joanna burst in. Joanna held Maize's hand and Red held the two cats. The gray one looked content and lay in the crook of his arm, purring. The multi-colored one looked bored.
Grorl didn't dare turn his gun on the free Tallest. He was a lowly PAK trader and a medic, not a felon on the run. Only desperate people did desperate things. He was not so desperate.
He let his gun fall and raised a questioning antennae their way. It was him against a whole group. Tallest Red, the little oddball smeet, the human boy with the big head, Commander Mona, her human friend, and three Irken Elites. Tallest Purple would have to go free.
"Oh, what the Irk. Here. Chi can find herself a new medic anyway," Grorl muttered. He flung the keys at Mona and she wasted no time in freeing Purple.
Mona was staring hard at him, along with Gij, the other medic. His uniform was only different from a normal Elite's by the red cross on his chest.
"Join us?"
It was the little smeet who had asked. She wore an open, curious expression on her face. She was serious!
He must have been making a face becuse Mona brought out her own gun. Grorl was willing to bet hers wasn't dead.
"Join us."
Grorl felt compelled to comply.
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WOOO!! Another update!! Hooray-ness for all the corn nuts out there!! Please review!!