Disclaimer: Wow, I'm actually using one of these. It's given that I don't have any ownership of Advance Wars or the characters of Final Fantasy... Duh. But the characters Glenn, Brad, Aldrea, Ashley, and Cecil, are used from "Bahamut & the Guardian Forces" by the permission of Gregory Stephen/nightdragon0. So you know, you should go read it, you would enjoy it.
-Advance Wars 2
--Project Black Portal
---Chapter 1: Bad Moon Rising
The bay water was still and calm and the moonlight made the surface shimmer. It was the very short time in the Blue Moon season where the snow stopped falling and thawed for a matter of months. A pair of fishing buddies drove their old truck with a boat attached down to the for some early fishing. Both of them served in the Blue Moon Army and had received some leave time, both of them took their time off immediately. They backed their boat into the water and got out putting on gray overcoats.
"Finally, all this time shuffling orders around. It's about damn time we could get away from that blowhard." A lanky man sighed.
"Ivan, don't talk about Commander Olaf that way. If anyone hears you, you'll never hear the end of it."
"We're out in the middle of nowhere, Vlad. No one will hear us. Besides, everyone thinks about him that way. He enjoys having a reputation."
"I don't think of him that way." Vlad stated.
They said no more and began to push the boat out into the water taking their fishing equipment with them. They lowered their hooks into the water once they were halfway out and began to wait.
"So, if you don't think Commander Olaf is a blowhard, then what do you think of Commander Grit?" Ivan asked.
"Commander Grit? Hell... That would take until morning."
"We have plenty of time." Ivan laughed, then he paused. "Hey, I think I have something here."
Ivan stood up with his pole in hand and began to tug. The water around the boat began to churn as Ivan pulled harder on his rod. It seemed like no matter how much he pulled whatever the hook was on refused to come up to the surface. He laughed thinking about his catch.
"Vlad, this must be the size of a submarine! It has to be huge!"
It was then the rod was ripped from his hands and disappeared into the water. Ivan stumbled backwards and landed on his back, rocking the boat back and forth. Vlad began to laugh out loud as Ivan sat up and looked out rather amazed. Suddenly a dull gargled roar rose up from the water below them and both officers soon became quiet. They sat there in silence before Ivan spoke up again.
"What the hell was that?"
"Maybe it was the current... the waters crashing up against the..."
Vlad could get no further in his explanation before another roar could be heard. This time it was louder and water splashed up around them. The fishing rod Ivan was using soon shot up from the surface at blinding speeds and went sailing across the bay. Vlad was already moving toward the motor and tried to start it, but even before he could begin to pull, something erupted from the waters and tore their boat into pieces, sending them flying into the chilly waters to disappear below the surface...
-------
Grit stepped out of the passenger side of the jeep and onto the road looking about the area. It was easy to pick him out among the crowd of blue clad soldiers, with his duster coat and blue uniform underneath. Not to mention his lanky figure and height. As one of the commanding officers of Blue Moon, he was to oversee the investigation about a number of reports he had received all of which were confusing.
It was morning now, and the reports had led to the lockdown of the Point Stormy Bay Area., since there was a military base a couple miles from it. Helicopters whizzed by as Grit slipped a cigarette into his mouth, but didn't light it. He oversaw a blur of soldiers in blue uniforms as they swept the area. Finally, one of the captains approached Grit and saluted.
"Morning sir." The captain greeted.
"So what in blue blazes is going on out here?" Grit asked finally. "I'm hearing a hodgepodge of things. Something about Black Hole and sea monsters. It's downright confusin',"
"Um... We had radar confirmation of two Black Hole fighter jets... They shot something down into the bay... then... well..." The captain paused. "They're over there sir."
The captain pointed out to two men sitting on the back of a medical truck. They were covered by heavy blankets and talking to a medic that was checking over them. They were the two officers who had gone fishing, Ivan and Vlad, and both of them looked as scared as hell. Grit began to button his coat feeling the bay winds roll in and approached the two. They both tried to salute, but were way to cold and shaking too much to pull it off. Instead they just both gave a weak bow.
"How's these two boys doing?" Grit asked the medic.
"They'll be fine. Just soaked and cold." The medic explained.
"It... was... huge... sir..." Ivan choked out.
"It erupted from the surface... almost killed us." Vlad quivered.
"Would you boys mind tellin' me what exactly 'it' is?"
"Of course sir, sorry sir... It was like a... dragon..."
Grit paused to roll his cigarette to the other side of his mouth and gave a puzzled expression. The two officers gave a glance at each other.
"We're not crazy. We saw it! It almost killed-"
"Relax boys. I never said you were off your rockers... Just tell me everythin' that happened."
It was then the two officers retold their night of how they wanted to go fishing. How they took their boat out onto the lake, and how Vlad... No Ivan... caught something on his rod. It was torn down... shot back up... they wanted to get out of the waters. The deep roaring... The story soon became fragmented until the point where they themselves could hardly remember what happened.
"Well something is in that bay!" Ivan declared. "And it nearly drowned us!"
There was a pause as Grit turned to take a look over the area. Even he could see the many pieces of their boat that had been demolished the night before. Eventually he left the two officers and began down toward the shore where there truck had been parked.
"So... What do you think is going on sir?" The captain asked after awhile.
"Well, we don't have enough to declare anything official.." Grit paused to take the cigarette out of his mouth. "You boys stay here and check the area, see if you can turn anything up. I'm gonna go find out a way to explain this to the Bearded One without getting him all riled up..."
But before he could go back to his jeep and get in, there was shouting and nearly everyone on the shore was looking up the side. A pair of soldiers were escorting a teenager, around 18 years old, down the side of the bay. He had blond hair and was pretty fit for his age. His clothes were normal enough, black jeans with a blue t-shirt, and to add some flavor was a black jacket and fingerless gloves. There was a pendant around his neck, but the most interesting thing about him was that he was soaking wet.
"Will you guys just calm down? This is just a little misunderstanding..." He tried to reason with the soldiers pointing the assault rifles at his back.
Grit and the captain began to move forward towards the two soldiers and their guest. They met halfway on the road and one of the soldiers stepped forward to explain.
"Sir! We found his kid walking along the bay, somehow he got through our perimeter."
"Kid? I'm eighteen thank you very..." But he didn't get any further when he felt a gun jut into his back.
"Shut up." One soldier ordered him.
Grit put the cigarette back into his mouth and held his hands up.
"Alright, let's calm down here... We're obviously a little antsy about what happened last night. Let's take this slow... Ok now." Grit turned toward the guest in question and tilted his hat back a little. "What's your name son?"
"Son?" The teenager repeated with a little laugh.
Obviously it was about his accent, but Glenn soon felt another jut in his back with the gun and turned around angrily.
"Cut that out!" He demanded.
"Just answer the question kid." The captain demanded. "And don't disrespect the commander."
Finally there was a pause and he turned back towards Grit.
"Look, my name is Glenn... I'm a little lost. You see I was taking a swim..." Then he paused seeing the expression on Grit's face. "Well, I didn't mean to take a swim it was an accident..."
"Now just hold on here now son... Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're gonna go back to the Point Stormy Base and continue this little discussion." Grit explained. "We're vulnerable out here to attack as it is, the last thing we need is Black Hole showin' up to have a get together."
There was a look upon Glenn's face like he didn't want to. But he said nothing. Eventually he was shoved again and moved off toward a truck. The captain was giving hard looks at Glenn as he went by. Finally he turned back to his commander.
"I don't like him sir. There's no way he could have slipped through the perimeter... No, he was here before we arrived."
"Aw... cut that out. You don't know nothin', no one does. But we'll find out what he was doin' here anyway." Grit responded and then walked off to get into the truck along with Glenn.
---------------
Spotlights dotted the area of the facility hidden deep in the overgrowth of a small island. Stalking the area were strange creatures dressed up in space-suit like battle armor. They looked at the world through two beady red eyes, and breathed through a snout. Their suit was pitch black and on one arm could only be described as a massive gun. They did their best to make as little noise as possible as they watched over the area...
But presently, the angry yells of someone could be heard coming from inside the Black Hole compound.
"Arrggggg!!! I don't believe this! You worms! You pathetic little worms!"
The hangar sized area was being stomped through by an absolutely huge man. If his size weren't intimidating enough, he wore a spiked black helmet along with red goggles. The leather brown jacket he wore worked perfectly to emphasize his bulging muscles, and since he wore no shirt underneath it, his massive pectorals were visible as well. He was presently leading a crowd of soldiers, and two of which were at each side of him.
When they blazed past a table full of gadgets, they came across an area lined with a row of five glass cylinders. Heavy cables and tubes were hooked up from the wall to the cylinders, except two were empty while the others were filled with some sort of gas. There was vague outlines something in the three other tubes, but the huge man stopped at the empty ones and then turned to the two soldiers who were closest to him.
"What the hell is this?" The man pointed toward the tubes. "What in @#$% hell is this!"
"Commander Flak... the two creatures... they transformed..." One soldier began to explain with a distorted voice. "One minute the dragon was there and the phoenix too... the next minute... there were adolescents in their places..."
"So? Didn't you worms try to stop them?" Flak spat back. "You did see them didn't you?"
"Sir! The restrains were fitted for the respective sizes of the creatures, not for anything smaller than that... We were trying to get the others tied down before they escaped as well..." Another soldier cut in. "The two others slipped through and changed back on the outside..."
Flak gave a low growl and became suddenly silent as did the two soldiers. They almost jumped as Flak beat his knuckles together and gritting his teeth.
"I'm gonna crush each and every one of you..."
"Tee hee hee... You get so worked up sometimes Flak!" A voice called out.
All the soldiers in the room turned to see a little girl enter. Despite her size, she still looked like she belonged with a long black jacket and wild frizzy hair. She skipped along energetically as two soldiers followed after her, carrying two crates full of files. When she got up to Flak, she gave another giggle and put her hands in her jacket pockets. The child genius of the Black Hole forces, and a major source of their technology.
"You're so silly. I told Adder I should have oversaw the movement process, but noooooo. He never wants to listen to me."
"What you doin' here Lash?" Flak demanded. "I'm busy!"
"Busy messing up my projects!" She pointed at him. "What happened to the Mrs. Birdie? And Mr. Dragon? They're gone! You lost them! You lost my new friends!"
Flak lowered his head as Lash threw her accusations at him. Eventually he looked back up, having lost a lot of anger.
"They said they changed into people and took off... Got outside and flew off somewhere..." He explained. "We sent two fighters after the dragon and shot him down somewhere over Blue Moon... The phoenix thing got away but I think we clipped it with some anti-air..."
"Well no duh they escaped!!!" Lash sang. "If you read anything I gave you, you would know they were junctioned to people!"
This caused Flak to whip his head back confused. He put his huge knuckles at his side and looked at Lash rather lost.
"What are you talking about? What's this functioned stuff?"
Lash became upset and stuck her tongue out at him.
"It's junctioned! Not functioned! Here..."
She snapped her fingers and the two soldiers stepped forward dropping the crates full of files at Flak's feet. He looked down at them rather pitifully and looked back up to Lash.
"You don't expect me to read all of this do you?"
"It's your punishment, for ruining all my fun! You see, through my extensive research, I've found out that my new friends are called a lot of things, but one sticks out in particular, a GF, or guardian force. They bond with a human in order to become stronger... But I'm sure you knew that." Lash scolded with her hands on her hips. "They can revert back and forth between their human bonds and their real forms."
"I don't got time for this..." Flak grumbled and turned away from Lash. "I gotta find those two things before Sturm..."
"Fine!" Lash interrupted. "I'll just tell Adder you lost two of our specimens and see how he takes it."
Flak whipped his head up and shook it quickly. If his goggles weren't hiding his eyes, you would have been able to see them bulge. He stepped forward nearly knocking over the crates of files and looked down at Lash pitifully.
"You can't do that! Adder it just looking for a reason to demote me... Hawke is angry too cause' I botched the Orange Star invasion..."
"Then start reading! Maybe if you use that pink lump in your head, you might stop ruining all my fun! I would have been plucking the feathers right off of that birdie if it weren't for you!" Lash lashed out with childish anger.
Eventually Flak gave in and scooped up the crates under each arm and began to walk off grumbling all the way.
"Toodles Flak!" Lash waved.
She began to tap her foot thinking about something. Most of the soldiers in the area began to move off in different directions, but the two that came in with Lash still stood waiting. Eventually she put on a big grin and spun around to her soldiers.
"Tee hee hee! Listen up! It's time to play hide and seek! Mr. Dragon and Mrs. Birdie probably think they won, but we haven't even begun to look! So... where'd that fighter last mark Mr. Dragon's position?"
"Plunging into the water of the Point Stormy Bay Area, Mistress Lash." The soldier reported. "The fighter planted two missiles into it's back. As for the phoenix... we think it headed toward Green Earth on it's wounded wing."
"Goodie!" Lash cried out. "Let's get the dragon first! Just cause I might meet Mr. Scarecrow and Gramps again!"
"You mean Blue Moon COs, Grit and Olaf, don't you mistress?"
"That's what I said! Mr. Scarecrow and Gramps!" Lash corrected. "Now c'mon! Let's get get ready for a road trip!"
"Mistress... I feel it's important to mention, when our forces engaged the dragon outside, our machine gun weapons did very little to it's armored scales... The phoenix, however agile, is much more suspectible to our weapons."
Lash stopped laughing and put on a devious grin. She took a couple steps across the room to a black briefcase that was sitting on a table full of her gadgets and opened it up. There was a red glow emanating from the case. But she didn't leave it open for long and closed it. She turned back toward the soldier and laughed.
"I know... I fixed up something special... just for Mr. Dragon! Now all we gotta do is find him. Then... playtime is on! And If I know Mr. Scaregrow and Gramps... It shouldn't be too hard to find Mr. Dragon!"
The soldier nodded and turned to carry out the orders given to him. Lash opened up the case and looked over the contents again, giggling all the while.
-End Chapter
--Next Chapter: Interrogations and Nutcrackers
-Advance Wars 2
--Project Black Portal
---Chapter 1: Bad Moon Rising
The bay water was still and calm and the moonlight made the surface shimmer. It was the very short time in the Blue Moon season where the snow stopped falling and thawed for a matter of months. A pair of fishing buddies drove their old truck with a boat attached down to the for some early fishing. Both of them served in the Blue Moon Army and had received some leave time, both of them took their time off immediately. They backed their boat into the water and got out putting on gray overcoats.
"Finally, all this time shuffling orders around. It's about damn time we could get away from that blowhard." A lanky man sighed.
"Ivan, don't talk about Commander Olaf that way. If anyone hears you, you'll never hear the end of it."
"We're out in the middle of nowhere, Vlad. No one will hear us. Besides, everyone thinks about him that way. He enjoys having a reputation."
"I don't think of him that way." Vlad stated.
They said no more and began to push the boat out into the water taking their fishing equipment with them. They lowered their hooks into the water once they were halfway out and began to wait.
"So, if you don't think Commander Olaf is a blowhard, then what do you think of Commander Grit?" Ivan asked.
"Commander Grit? Hell... That would take until morning."
"We have plenty of time." Ivan laughed, then he paused. "Hey, I think I have something here."
Ivan stood up with his pole in hand and began to tug. The water around the boat began to churn as Ivan pulled harder on his rod. It seemed like no matter how much he pulled whatever the hook was on refused to come up to the surface. He laughed thinking about his catch.
"Vlad, this must be the size of a submarine! It has to be huge!"
It was then the rod was ripped from his hands and disappeared into the water. Ivan stumbled backwards and landed on his back, rocking the boat back and forth. Vlad began to laugh out loud as Ivan sat up and looked out rather amazed. Suddenly a dull gargled roar rose up from the water below them and both officers soon became quiet. They sat there in silence before Ivan spoke up again.
"What the hell was that?"
"Maybe it was the current... the waters crashing up against the..."
Vlad could get no further in his explanation before another roar could be heard. This time it was louder and water splashed up around them. The fishing rod Ivan was using soon shot up from the surface at blinding speeds and went sailing across the bay. Vlad was already moving toward the motor and tried to start it, but even before he could begin to pull, something erupted from the waters and tore their boat into pieces, sending them flying into the chilly waters to disappear below the surface...
-------
Grit stepped out of the passenger side of the jeep and onto the road looking about the area. It was easy to pick him out among the crowd of blue clad soldiers, with his duster coat and blue uniform underneath. Not to mention his lanky figure and height. As one of the commanding officers of Blue Moon, he was to oversee the investigation about a number of reports he had received all of which were confusing.
It was morning now, and the reports had led to the lockdown of the Point Stormy Bay Area., since there was a military base a couple miles from it. Helicopters whizzed by as Grit slipped a cigarette into his mouth, but didn't light it. He oversaw a blur of soldiers in blue uniforms as they swept the area. Finally, one of the captains approached Grit and saluted.
"Morning sir." The captain greeted.
"So what in blue blazes is going on out here?" Grit asked finally. "I'm hearing a hodgepodge of things. Something about Black Hole and sea monsters. It's downright confusin',"
"Um... We had radar confirmation of two Black Hole fighter jets... They shot something down into the bay... then... well..." The captain paused. "They're over there sir."
The captain pointed out to two men sitting on the back of a medical truck. They were covered by heavy blankets and talking to a medic that was checking over them. They were the two officers who had gone fishing, Ivan and Vlad, and both of them looked as scared as hell. Grit began to button his coat feeling the bay winds roll in and approached the two. They both tried to salute, but were way to cold and shaking too much to pull it off. Instead they just both gave a weak bow.
"How's these two boys doing?" Grit asked the medic.
"They'll be fine. Just soaked and cold." The medic explained.
"It... was... huge... sir..." Ivan choked out.
"It erupted from the surface... almost killed us." Vlad quivered.
"Would you boys mind tellin' me what exactly 'it' is?"
"Of course sir, sorry sir... It was like a... dragon..."
Grit paused to roll his cigarette to the other side of his mouth and gave a puzzled expression. The two officers gave a glance at each other.
"We're not crazy. We saw it! It almost killed-"
"Relax boys. I never said you were off your rockers... Just tell me everythin' that happened."
It was then the two officers retold their night of how they wanted to go fishing. How they took their boat out onto the lake, and how Vlad... No Ivan... caught something on his rod. It was torn down... shot back up... they wanted to get out of the waters. The deep roaring... The story soon became fragmented until the point where they themselves could hardly remember what happened.
"Well something is in that bay!" Ivan declared. "And it nearly drowned us!"
There was a pause as Grit turned to take a look over the area. Even he could see the many pieces of their boat that had been demolished the night before. Eventually he left the two officers and began down toward the shore where there truck had been parked.
"So... What do you think is going on sir?" The captain asked after awhile.
"Well, we don't have enough to declare anything official.." Grit paused to take the cigarette out of his mouth. "You boys stay here and check the area, see if you can turn anything up. I'm gonna go find out a way to explain this to the Bearded One without getting him all riled up..."
But before he could go back to his jeep and get in, there was shouting and nearly everyone on the shore was looking up the side. A pair of soldiers were escorting a teenager, around 18 years old, down the side of the bay. He had blond hair and was pretty fit for his age. His clothes were normal enough, black jeans with a blue t-shirt, and to add some flavor was a black jacket and fingerless gloves. There was a pendant around his neck, but the most interesting thing about him was that he was soaking wet.
"Will you guys just calm down? This is just a little misunderstanding..." He tried to reason with the soldiers pointing the assault rifles at his back.
Grit and the captain began to move forward towards the two soldiers and their guest. They met halfway on the road and one of the soldiers stepped forward to explain.
"Sir! We found his kid walking along the bay, somehow he got through our perimeter."
"Kid? I'm eighteen thank you very..." But he didn't get any further when he felt a gun jut into his back.
"Shut up." One soldier ordered him.
Grit put the cigarette back into his mouth and held his hands up.
"Alright, let's calm down here... We're obviously a little antsy about what happened last night. Let's take this slow... Ok now." Grit turned toward the guest in question and tilted his hat back a little. "What's your name son?"
"Son?" The teenager repeated with a little laugh.
Obviously it was about his accent, but Glenn soon felt another jut in his back with the gun and turned around angrily.
"Cut that out!" He demanded.
"Just answer the question kid." The captain demanded. "And don't disrespect the commander."
Finally there was a pause and he turned back towards Grit.
"Look, my name is Glenn... I'm a little lost. You see I was taking a swim..." Then he paused seeing the expression on Grit's face. "Well, I didn't mean to take a swim it was an accident..."
"Now just hold on here now son... Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're gonna go back to the Point Stormy Base and continue this little discussion." Grit explained. "We're vulnerable out here to attack as it is, the last thing we need is Black Hole showin' up to have a get together."
There was a look upon Glenn's face like he didn't want to. But he said nothing. Eventually he was shoved again and moved off toward a truck. The captain was giving hard looks at Glenn as he went by. Finally he turned back to his commander.
"I don't like him sir. There's no way he could have slipped through the perimeter... No, he was here before we arrived."
"Aw... cut that out. You don't know nothin', no one does. But we'll find out what he was doin' here anyway." Grit responded and then walked off to get into the truck along with Glenn.
---------------
Spotlights dotted the area of the facility hidden deep in the overgrowth of a small island. Stalking the area were strange creatures dressed up in space-suit like battle armor. They looked at the world through two beady red eyes, and breathed through a snout. Their suit was pitch black and on one arm could only be described as a massive gun. They did their best to make as little noise as possible as they watched over the area...
But presently, the angry yells of someone could be heard coming from inside the Black Hole compound.
"Arrggggg!!! I don't believe this! You worms! You pathetic little worms!"
The hangar sized area was being stomped through by an absolutely huge man. If his size weren't intimidating enough, he wore a spiked black helmet along with red goggles. The leather brown jacket he wore worked perfectly to emphasize his bulging muscles, and since he wore no shirt underneath it, his massive pectorals were visible as well. He was presently leading a crowd of soldiers, and two of which were at each side of him.
When they blazed past a table full of gadgets, they came across an area lined with a row of five glass cylinders. Heavy cables and tubes were hooked up from the wall to the cylinders, except two were empty while the others were filled with some sort of gas. There was vague outlines something in the three other tubes, but the huge man stopped at the empty ones and then turned to the two soldiers who were closest to him.
"What the hell is this?" The man pointed toward the tubes. "What in @#$% hell is this!"
"Commander Flak... the two creatures... they transformed..." One soldier began to explain with a distorted voice. "One minute the dragon was there and the phoenix too... the next minute... there were adolescents in their places..."
"So? Didn't you worms try to stop them?" Flak spat back. "You did see them didn't you?"
"Sir! The restrains were fitted for the respective sizes of the creatures, not for anything smaller than that... We were trying to get the others tied down before they escaped as well..." Another soldier cut in. "The two others slipped through and changed back on the outside..."
Flak gave a low growl and became suddenly silent as did the two soldiers. They almost jumped as Flak beat his knuckles together and gritting his teeth.
"I'm gonna crush each and every one of you..."
"Tee hee hee... You get so worked up sometimes Flak!" A voice called out.
All the soldiers in the room turned to see a little girl enter. Despite her size, she still looked like she belonged with a long black jacket and wild frizzy hair. She skipped along energetically as two soldiers followed after her, carrying two crates full of files. When she got up to Flak, she gave another giggle and put her hands in her jacket pockets. The child genius of the Black Hole forces, and a major source of their technology.
"You're so silly. I told Adder I should have oversaw the movement process, but noooooo. He never wants to listen to me."
"What you doin' here Lash?" Flak demanded. "I'm busy!"
"Busy messing up my projects!" She pointed at him. "What happened to the Mrs. Birdie? And Mr. Dragon? They're gone! You lost them! You lost my new friends!"
Flak lowered his head as Lash threw her accusations at him. Eventually he looked back up, having lost a lot of anger.
"They said they changed into people and took off... Got outside and flew off somewhere..." He explained. "We sent two fighters after the dragon and shot him down somewhere over Blue Moon... The phoenix thing got away but I think we clipped it with some anti-air..."
"Well no duh they escaped!!!" Lash sang. "If you read anything I gave you, you would know they were junctioned to people!"
This caused Flak to whip his head back confused. He put his huge knuckles at his side and looked at Lash rather lost.
"What are you talking about? What's this functioned stuff?"
Lash became upset and stuck her tongue out at him.
"It's junctioned! Not functioned! Here..."
She snapped her fingers and the two soldiers stepped forward dropping the crates full of files at Flak's feet. He looked down at them rather pitifully and looked back up to Lash.
"You don't expect me to read all of this do you?"
"It's your punishment, for ruining all my fun! You see, through my extensive research, I've found out that my new friends are called a lot of things, but one sticks out in particular, a GF, or guardian force. They bond with a human in order to become stronger... But I'm sure you knew that." Lash scolded with her hands on her hips. "They can revert back and forth between their human bonds and their real forms."
"I don't got time for this..." Flak grumbled and turned away from Lash. "I gotta find those two things before Sturm..."
"Fine!" Lash interrupted. "I'll just tell Adder you lost two of our specimens and see how he takes it."
Flak whipped his head up and shook it quickly. If his goggles weren't hiding his eyes, you would have been able to see them bulge. He stepped forward nearly knocking over the crates of files and looked down at Lash pitifully.
"You can't do that! Adder it just looking for a reason to demote me... Hawke is angry too cause' I botched the Orange Star invasion..."
"Then start reading! Maybe if you use that pink lump in your head, you might stop ruining all my fun! I would have been plucking the feathers right off of that birdie if it weren't for you!" Lash lashed out with childish anger.
Eventually Flak gave in and scooped up the crates under each arm and began to walk off grumbling all the way.
"Toodles Flak!" Lash waved.
She began to tap her foot thinking about something. Most of the soldiers in the area began to move off in different directions, but the two that came in with Lash still stood waiting. Eventually she put on a big grin and spun around to her soldiers.
"Tee hee hee! Listen up! It's time to play hide and seek! Mr. Dragon and Mrs. Birdie probably think they won, but we haven't even begun to look! So... where'd that fighter last mark Mr. Dragon's position?"
"Plunging into the water of the Point Stormy Bay Area, Mistress Lash." The soldier reported. "The fighter planted two missiles into it's back. As for the phoenix... we think it headed toward Green Earth on it's wounded wing."
"Goodie!" Lash cried out. "Let's get the dragon first! Just cause I might meet Mr. Scarecrow and Gramps again!"
"You mean Blue Moon COs, Grit and Olaf, don't you mistress?"
"That's what I said! Mr. Scarecrow and Gramps!" Lash corrected. "Now c'mon! Let's get get ready for a road trip!"
"Mistress... I feel it's important to mention, when our forces engaged the dragon outside, our machine gun weapons did very little to it's armored scales... The phoenix, however agile, is much more suspectible to our weapons."
Lash stopped laughing and put on a devious grin. She took a couple steps across the room to a black briefcase that was sitting on a table full of her gadgets and opened it up. There was a red glow emanating from the case. But she didn't leave it open for long and closed it. She turned back toward the soldier and laughed.
"I know... I fixed up something special... just for Mr. Dragon! Now all we gotta do is find him. Then... playtime is on! And If I know Mr. Scaregrow and Gramps... It shouldn't be too hard to find Mr. Dragon!"
The soldier nodded and turned to carry out the orders given to him. Lash opened up the case and looked over the contents again, giggling all the while.
-End Chapter
--Next Chapter: Interrogations and Nutcrackers