Chapter Eight

Demolition Ecklie

"Which way do you think he went?" Grissom asked fervently, tearing out of the cave and glancing every-which-way. "Nick? NICK?" he yelled.

"Hey, hey, hey, Grissom," Liz said sternly, stepping up next to him. "Who did you hire to find this guy? Who are you paying $40 an hour to find Nick?" She marched past Grissom, who was still looking around frantically for the missing subject.

"Nick!" she shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth. "Nicholas Matthew Stokes!"

"Matthew?" Grissom said curiously. "How did you know that?"

Mindy answered him proudly, "I told her! Since I discovered his incredible hotness, I decided to learn everything I could about the marvel that is Nicholas Matthew Stokes!" She beamed pompously and placed her hands on her hips.

Liz and Grissom stared openmouthed at her.

"Anyway," Catherine interrupted sternly, brushing past Mindy. The redhead glared evilly at Catherine. "NICK! GET YOUR TEXAN, CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG OBSESSED BEHIND OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"

The others turned to stare at her, before faintly they heard a voice, embroidered with a true Texas accent.

"Hey, hey I'm here! And I want you to meet somebody!"

Catherine grinned proudly. Then, hoisting the eaglet into a comfortable position, she took off walking towards the voice. Grissom was smiling and followed Catherine, followed by everybody else. But Mindy was the one who took off as fast as her thick legs could carry her, rushing past everyone again. Sara appeared to have gotten over her enormous flatulence problem, and could almost stand completely straight without any help.

"Texas Teddy?" Mindy called, running along the mountain path. "Nicky? Hottie? Are you there?" She dashed over a steep cliff, throttling herself along until the people left behind heard a sudden shriek of glee. "OH! Nicky you're all right! And you're as hot as ever! Oh my GOD! I'm so glad you're all right!"

Grissom was the next to reach the location of dearest Nicholas Matthew Stokes. He was sitting pleasantly in a cave, a small ball of eagle fluff in his lap, his hair filled with bits of green and his face rather dirty, but other than that, he looked perfectly unharmed.

"Nick! You're all right!" Grissom said excitedly, smiling and walking into the cave. Sara and Warrick followed, Liz next, followed by the monotone Molly.

"Howdy!" Nick said brightly, though he appeared slightly distressed with Mindy staring at him bright-eyed and grinning madly.

"Nick, we've been looking everywhere for you!" Grissom cried, bending down next to him, still smiling.

"Ah, yes, well, I didn't know. I didn't exactly feel lost either, because I met up with Catherine and Warrick, and yeah, well, everything was good." Nick smiled then he turned his gaze to the empty cave entrance. "Hey, ho, chitty-chitty-bang-bang, we love you, hey ho, chitty-chitty-bang-bang, we love you!"

Grissom stared at Nick, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes, well, uh…Nick, we have to go now. You're going to come back to the lab with us, now that we've found you."

"Huh? Oh no I can't, I have to go find the one case I'm on. Some dead old lady in the rainforest but I can't find her, plus I can't take Poncho here with me because he'd die in the rainforest. He belongs in the mountains."

"Dead old lady?" Grissom repeated interestedly.

"Yeah, Brass phoned me about her. Said I needed to drive out to find her. Hey, ho, chitty-chitty-bang-bang, we love you!"

The gears began to churn in Grissom's head, 'Come up with a plan, come up with a plan,'

"Hey, Nick, we'll go find that old lady, all right? Come on let's go outside."

Grissom stood up, and Mindy took it to herself to grab Nick's arm to hoist him up. He nodded politely to her and Grissom thought Mindy would faint on the spot.

The group walked out of the cave, Grissom leading the way, Mindy attempting to grab onto Nick's arm, though she was stuck behind Warrick, Liz, Molly, and Sara. Instead, Catherine took Mindy's place by Nick's side, scratching Poncho the eaglet under its chin.

"Okay…er…Nick," Grissom began, "Warrick is going to call some eagles to take us over to the…er…'dead old lady'." Grissom winked twice at Warrick who nodded, but just when he was about to stick his fingers in his mouth, a sudden bang erupted from the mountain around them.

"What was that?" Sara asked, placing a hand over her forehead as a shield from the light and looking for the source of the noise.

But she was answered quickly, and yet absurdly by a tan jeep, hurtling out of the sky. The group took an astounded step back as the thing landed right-side-up on an area of path before them. They would have thought it was unharmed by its graceful landing, but it was covered with numerous dents and its entire front end was smashed, as well as a busted back-bumper.

"Greg you idiot!" Ecklie shouted from his position in the passenger seat. "You call that demolition? You got pummeled out there! And look! We're all the way out here because of you! I can't believe you let that guy beat you to a pulp out in that bomb detonation site! Why? Why did I let you drive? I should have left you on the curbside! You aren't worthy! You aren't worthy of demolition derby!"

Grissom, Sara, Catherine, Molly, Mindy, Nick, and Liz stared, the three eaglets cheeping in their caretakers arms.

"G-Greg?" Grissom stuttered, his jaw dropped. "W-What are you doing here?"

Greg, whose hair was mussed and filled with sand, stepped out of the jeep and slammed the door. Without answering Grissom, he stomped over to Ecklie's side of the vehicle and thrust Ecklie's door open. Ecklie stared at him curiously for a moment, when suddenly Greg's hands shot out and grabbed Ecklie by his sports jacket collar.

"You think I wanted to be in that demolition derby? You think I liked being pummeled by all those freaky American jeeps? I CAN'T EVEN DRIVE STICKSHIFT!"

Ecklie pulled himself out of Greg's grasp and stood up.

"Well maybe if you hadn't gotten us stuck out here I wouldn't have to worry about how we're supposed to win that demolition trophy! I'm Conrad S. Ecklie! I'm supposed to win that trophy!"

"Yeah, well, trophy this." Greg suddenly spat on Ecklie's shoe. Ecklie's mouth fell open and he stared at Greg, utterly surprised. His bald head was covered with a thin layer of dust and dirt, and his eyelashes and eyebrows were disguised beneath the sand.

"I quit." Greg stated, folding his arms. "I don't want to be in your darned demolition derby no more." He stuck out his tongue.

The Las Vegas CSI's silently watching behind them, poorly attempting to conceal grins. The Chicago CSI's appeared confused, except for Molly, who never showed any emotion.

Ecklie appeared at a loss for words, then suddenly he spat furiously, "You can't do that to me Sanders!" He put his finger in Greg's face, causing the younger man to back up, close to the edge of the mountain cliff. "You can't do that! You know why? You signed a contract! You agreed to be in the demolition derby with me! But you know what? It doesn't matter, because we're out of the ring and officially disqualified! But that doesn't seem to matter to you, does it? I can't win that trophy and you don't care! I can't believe you don't care!"

Greg was about a foot from the edge of the cliff now. He looked behind him and noted that he was about 1000 feet from the ground, nothing separating him from it other than a cliff full of sharp pointed rocks.

Ecklie's face was contorted now, and the Las Vegans' grins were replaced with looks of true concern. Ecklie heaved with bull-like breaths, and then with a sudden yell of rage, he lunged at Greg.

Greg grunted, holding his hands out as he went down, with a foot in Ecklie's stomach, Ecklie did a flip over Greg, off the face of the cliff, falling through a cloud, and disappearing from sight.

Greg stood up, panting slightly.

"Yeah, well I'm glad you're dead, you jerk! Yeah you heard me, JERK!"

He turned to the group, whose mouths were wide open.

"I always wanted to say that," he said cheerily.

Then suddenly the sound of muffling was heard faintly from the beat-up jeep. Greg raised an eyebrow then looked to the group ahead of him who shrugged. Mindy appeared very entranced for some peculiar reason.

"Er…Greg, I'm going to avoid asking what you were doing with Ecklie in a demolition derby, if you'll answer this one question…who's in the trunk?" Grissom asked.

"Er…uhh…erm…er…I don't know."

Their eyes fleeted to the trunk where the mumblings grew louder. Greg turned to it and, with a cautious pause, he took a set of keys out of his pocket and popped the trunk.

Inside lay Brass, curled up with a couple beer bottles, some Lays Chips package wrappers and a stack of magazines.

"Er…hi Greg!" he said brightly, smiling and waving at him. "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but if I'm right, then I have this to say: I am not trying to get the full experience of a demolition derby by stowing away in your trunk."

Greg's eyes were wide and he raised an eyebrow at Brass. The older man clambered out of the trunk, and once he was out on his two feet, he stretched, cracked his back, and then straightened out his sports jacket.

"Okay, this is too weird. I'm not even going to bother asking this time. I know better than to ask." Grissom muttered, putting a hand to his head and shaking it back and forth.

Warrick spoke. "Well…we were just about to go help Nick 'go find the dead old lady'." He began to put his fingers in his mouth when Brass let out a hearty laugh.

"HA! You actually fell for that? That's hilarious! Why would there be a dead old lady in a rainforest, in Nevada! Ha! I can't believe you believed me!" He snorted with laughter and doubled over. Nick looked heartbroken, and Mindy patted his arm sympathetically, having finally bustled past the wall of people before her and made her way to Nick's side.

"It's okay Nicky; everything is going to be all right. I don't hate you for being gullible." Though she was eyeing Greg with a certain glint in her eye, her glasses only partially concealing the greedy look in them.

"Well…then…what now?" Warrick asked.

Grissom shrugged.

"We go home I guess."

"Hmm…" Then Warrick blew into his fingers. The five eagles appeared almost instantly, landing daintily as they had before. The eaglets chirped excitedly. "All aboard!" Warrick cried.

"I want to ride with Nicky!" Mindy cried, pulling on Nick's arm, tugging him towards an eagle.

Molly grunted and headed over to the eagle she had ridden before. It screeched and waddled away as best its legs would allow.

"Er…Molly, why don't you ride this one?" Liz offered, showing her a different, larger, stronger looking eagle.

Liz and Catherine took the eagle that was scared of Molly, and it balanced their weight, plus the weight of the chick, quite well. Warrick, Grissom, and Warrick's eaglet shared the noble eagle that Warrick and Liz had ridden earlier. Sara and Greg shared one as well, and Sara began to fill Greg in on her broccoli adventure, and Greg interjected with his heroic efforts in the demolition derby. Nick reluctantly went with Mindy on the final eagle, Poncho the eaglet safely in his lap.

And then, as Warrick whistled, the eagles took off over the forest, flying gloriously along through the bright blue sky.

"Hey! Hey what about me!" Brass called from where he stood, firmly on the ground. There had been no room for him, what with Molly being almost too much for her eagle to hold. The eagles continued, and with a sigh, Brass headed over to the demolition jeep and sat, waiting for the slim chance of return of an eagle that would allow him to go back to Las Vegas. But of course, that's what the others had been counting on.

A/N: Hey guys! Well, umm...the North side ofmy town was kind of killed by tornados (It made National news, geez that's weird because nothing ever happens in our town) Anyway, I'm perfectly okay. (Thank GOD) But my friend's backyard was completely destroyed, although her house is untouched. But only 1 person died so okay then. Well, in other news. I turned 14 on the 7th of August. There is only ONE more chapter count it! ONE chapter left! But I promise it will be as funny as the rest of the chapters, and just as random. Also, I have some questions to ask you: Who is your favorite character of my creation? Liz (based off me) Molly, or Mindy? You might want to wait until after the final chapter, but...yeah, well, just something for you to think about in the wait for the final chapter. :) I had great fun writing this, and it's been excellent reading your reviews!