The Giygas Defense Initiative

by Sixth Street Sandman

A combination adaptation sequel to EarthBound in which a pseudomilitary organization rises up to defend the earth against the onslaught of the returning Giygas.A work in progress, heavily edited since its first writing and still undergoing editing.

2. Chapters 6 to 12

Chapter 6 – The Delivery

One full day had passed since the meeting, and there had been not a single peep from the Giygas camp in Fiveville. Josh was getting more and more antsy to charge into battle. Bobby's work turned up nothing in the way of messages or attack convoys. Laura, who seemed to be dealing reasonably well with all the stress, worked with me on some military paperwork-type things, as I showed her the ropes of GDI leadership, as it seemed that was Craig's intention for her. The thought occurred to me more than once that while I could fill in perfectly well as GDI commander, I wasn't sure if I was cracked up to fulfill the duties of being full-time commander. To be sure, it would be infeasible to run the whole of the GDI and still be able to operate Williams Contracting, which would mean that I'd need to find new leadership for the firm, possibly in the form of Dr. Andonuts, although it seemed evident to me that his managerial and organizational skills may have been just a bit lacking.

Laura and I were working on some organizational files for the GDI's frontline infantry units when the communicator crackled to life. I looked up. "Bobby here. We've intercepted an envoy from Giygas flying the white flag. It says it has something for you and wants to deliver it."

"Isn't that dangerous..?" asked Laura. "I mean, he could be lying. What if it was a bomb, or something?"

I nodded. "Bobby, are you sure that this little present doesn't carry the side effect of sudden death?"

"The ship checks out, there are no lasers and nothing explosive on it, but the pilot won't let us inside."

"I doubt one ship could do a lot of damage… it must be legitimate. But still, I don't want to take chances."

"It won't do any damage," said Bobby. "I'm going to let it through."

Laura and I went to the window (tinted glass, of course) through which we could see the whole of the exterior of the GDI complex. We sighted a single Giygan UFO that was sailing lightly, almost methodically, over the center of the complex. Suddenly, it dropped something. My eyes widened, as I thought it was a bomb, but suddenly, Laura let loose with a blood-curdling scream and drove herself into my shoulder.

"What? What is it?" I started.

Laura tried to reply, but what she tried to say was buried in sobs. As I got a closer look, I realized what it was that the UFO, which had taken off, had dropped. "Oh, my God…" I grabbed Laura by the shoulders. "Laura, you stay here! I'm going down there!" I turned and sprinted for the elevator, but when I was about to close the door I realized that Laura was following. "Are you sure you want to go down there?" I asked her, my finger on the button.

"Yes…" she said, trying to control herself. I punched the DOWN button and we sailed down; when the elevator smoothed to a stop, the door slid open and we dashed out of it out onto the AA firing pad, where we found Craig's limp, lifeless body, cold as stone, lying there. Josh and Bobby were already there.

"Those mother…" Josh proceeded with an abundance of screaming of creative words.

"Oh my God, I can't believe it…" Laura kept saying softly, staring sometimes at Craig, more often with her eyes closed.

Bobby kneeled down and took off his right glove, and gently felt Craig's neck, his chest, his arm. "He's dead," he said. "He's been dead for a few hours, no more." He replaced his glove and stood, and stared up into the sky, as if intently looking for something.

My train of thought began to whirl around in figure-8's; I completely lost my capacity for clear thought Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I felt like breaking into sobs myself, but I refrained, if only for Laura's sake. Josh got up, marched to the steel door, grabbed hold of it and tore it from its hinges with a mighty scream, and threw it forcefully down off the firing pad. It crashed to the ground 100 feet below, and Josh marched through the open doorway in uncontrollable rage, where he would almost certainly leave a path of destruction behind him throughout the complex. I grabbed my communicator and flipped it on. "Someone follow General Wilson and clean up after him…" I said, my voice noticeably drained of emotion, which was the same way my brain felt right about then.

Sniffing, I stared up into the same sky into which Bobby was gazing. "You will pay, Giygas… you will pay."

Bobby took Craig's body into the complex, and I ordered up a coffin as Bobby took it to have it prepared for burial. But early the next morning, when I awakened after a sleepless, nightmare-haunted night, Bobby was waiting for me outside my room.

"You didn't sleep well, I see," Bobby said.

"No, that I didn't." I looked and felt like a ghost.

"I have good and bad news," said Bobby. "Craig may not be dead."

My eyes shot open, and then narrowed. "Wha..? What do you mean!"

"His body which we recovered yesterday is, technically, dead. But it warmed up… there's no heartbeat and no breathing. But it got warm. Does that sound like anything to you?"

I slowly tried to think, but nothing happened. I still couldn't think very clearly, and now weariness was weighing in. "No, not really…"

"It sounds like suspended animation to me," Bobby said. "It sounds like the condition in which Ness and his friends' bodies were when their spirits went into the past as robots." (When Ness and company defeated Giygas the first time, they had to travel into the past to do so. But life was demolished in the process of warping, so their spirits, or consciousnesses if you will, were transferred into robots for the task, their bodies being left behind.)

My eyes widened again. He was right… "Oh my… you're right. It must be..!" I had to make some phone calls; I needed to call a meeting that included Williams Contracting's top medicinal scientists. We had to try to confirm this.

Four hours later, I sat in the meeting room with five of my best doctors, who had completed their testing of Craig's body. Dr. Andonuts was giving the report of their findings. "The heart is not beating," said the doctor. "But Mr. Hokela is correct in that the body's condition is exactly like that of the bodies of Ness and his friends when their spirits were transfused into robots and sent to the past. It must therefore be our conclusion that Giygas has somehow perfected the method of removing the spirit from the body and has done so to Commander Casner. Commander Casner is alive, somewhere."

"Like, where!" shouted Josh, who also hadn't slept and now sat in a constant state of one half-step from destructive violence. "Sitting in a bottle on a bookshelf somewhere? In a robot?"

"We don't know," said another scientist. "In a bottle would be a relatively good guess, I suppose."

"Thank you," I said, motioning to the door. "You're excused from this meeting. I'll call if we need anything else." Dr. Andonuts and his entourage took their leave, leaving the usual eight people in the room.

"Well?" Josh said to me, raising his eyebrows. "We going after him, or not?"

I paused before speaking. "There are two possibilities here," I said. "The first is that they dropped the body here in order to fool us into thinking he was dead, and then burying the body prematurely, which would kill him, and then becoming enraged and going after him. The second is that that body is Giygas's ransom message, a kind of 'come and get it if you want it' message. So we need to determine which theory we choose to believe. I lean towards the second."

"I kinda think Giygas is holding him somewhere, waiting for us to come after him," said Ness.

"Or perhaps he's going to try to brainwash him..?" pondered Poo.

"Who cares!" Josh shouted. "I don't much care about your theories and your suppositions, I just want Giygas to pay, and I want Craig the hell back!"

"So do I," said Laura. "What's it matter, really? I mean, we have to at least try to get him back, don't we?"

"Yes, I'd say we have to, and soon," said Jeff.

"Alright, here's what we do then," I said. "It's been two days since our last meeting, and besides that, we have the message we were waiting for. So we – 'we' being us sitting in this room – will go in after Commander Casner. It's the same as we talked about earlier – the two objects of the game are to recover Commander Casner and to defeat Giygas."

"Defeat Giygas and recover Commander Casner if possible, you mean," corrected Bobby. He spoke so rarely that the sound of his voice was startling.

"Whatever you want to call it, Bobby," I said.

"So we're going to split up into two groups?" asked Paula.

"It makes the most sense," said Poo.

"Yeah, we shouldn't keep all our eggs in one basket here," I said. "If one group is captured, the other will have to attempt rescue, but smaller groups than four are too dangerous."

"How are we going to set this up?" asked Laura. "Are we going to use the GDI as a distraction, like we talked about?"

"I think all things considered, that's the best thing to do," I replied. "Our first priority is gaining entrance, and if the battle goes poorly, I'll have the GDI forces retreat as soon as we make it in. I really don't want a lot of casualties out there." Josh was tapping his fingers impatiently.

"When are we going to go?" asked Jeff.

"We aren't going to delay, now that we've committed," I said. "We go tomorrow morning."

"I'll drink to that," said Josh.

"Good idea," I said. "Maybe it'll mellow you out a bit if you go have a few gallons of Draino."

"Mmm… another transmission fluid here!" He wasn't enjoying himself like he usually would, though. He was in a state of deep but generally – thankfully – controlled rage.

Paula had her eyes closed. "Our enemy is far greater than we expect…" she said softly, as if to herself. "We can't underestimate him… we won't expect him when he attacks…"

Josh raised an eyebrow. "Is she gettin' psychic again?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, looks that way. You okay, Paula?"

Paula blinked. "Yes, I'm alright now. It's just… I sense a far greater evil than even when we fought Giygas the last time… I'm scared."

"I'm scared too," said Laura, "but we have to go. We can't just leave him there!"

"We can," said Bobby.

"Right, let's clarify this," I said, distracting myself from entertaining Bobby's point. "Group one will be Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. Ness is in command of that unit. Group two will have myself in command and will consist of myself, Josh, Bobby and Laura. Ness's group is assigned to locate and defeat Giygas; my group is assigned to locate and rescue Commander Casner."

"That's my kind of mission," said Josh.

"Perhaps they should receive some form of stealth training," said Bobby. "They could use it."

"Ah, I hear you volunteering yourself!" I said.

"If you like."

"Very well then, I agree with you. You can work with them this afternoon. But let's get in bed early tonight, guys, we'll need to be up by 5 AM or so. I want to launch the attack at 7:30 AM sharp."

I forced myself to stay awake most of the day so that I would get a good night's sleep; the nightmares that had haunted me the previous night were vanquished by the hope that, somewhere, Craig was still alive and awaiting us to deliver him from Giygas. I passed the time by explaining further to Laura the intricacies of operating the GDI, and by joining Bobby as he spent the day giving Ness and his friends a crash course in stealth. At 6 PM I could stay awake no longer, and I turned in for the night. I fell asleep almost instantly as I lay down in my bed, and stayed in an unusually deep sleep until the alarm came at 5.

Bobby strode outside onto the high platform atop one of the towers. There was a stiff wind blowing toward him, the sky was a deep gray, and the lightest of rain was sprinkling, the sort of rain that you could not feel hitting you but that soaked you through if you stayed out in it long enough.

Josh was standing at the edge of the platform, peering out over the city of Summers and to the storm-tossed sea, standing against the chilling wind which blew his uniform powerfully backwards but did not budge his body.

"The black wind blows…" Josh turned his head at Bobby's words; no one ever heard Bobby coming.

Josh turned back to the sea and waited awhile before he spoke. "I wanna know where the hell Craig is."

"We'll find him," said Bobby, standing beside Josh now on the platform, "but what toll must be taken?"

"It doesn't matter," said Josh, with his usual conviction but without the stubbornness he had exhibited earlier in the day. "If I'm the toll, I'm gonna pay it."

"As will I," said Bobby. "But if we're both the toll, is it worth paying?"

"That doesn't matter either," said Josh. "This isn't just a mission to rescue our commander, it's a mission to rescue my friend… of course, I wouldn't expect you to know or care what friendship is."

"I know far better than I'd like to," said Bobby. "But I do not care. I will lay down my life, but it isn't worth the both of us."

Josh shook his head. "I don't care either, Bobby. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get him back – and to make Giygas pay dearly for it."

"A vengeful mind is one of our greatest downfalls," said Bobby. "It clouds the judgment. If you die rescuing him or if we don't rescue him at all – I lose a friend either way. So do you."

Josh sighed. "You're right, I can't go to it with revenge on my mind. But still – still, it's hard not to, after what he's done. Not just to Craig, but bloody hell, he's already killed how many hundreds of innocent people? And besides, the whole point of the GDI is to kill Giygas."

"Yes, that's the mission. Keep the mission in mind, not your personal vendettas. You'll succeed."

Josh smiled. "We live by the sword…"

"We'll die by the sword," said Bobby. "Only a matter of time."

"Ha!" said Josh. "Me? Die by the sword? Don't you know I'm the greatest!"

Bobby stared out into the bleakness. "You are not the greatest. Still, it's easier to think you are."

Josh turned his head for the first time that night to look at Bobby. The small pellets of rain were collecting and dripping off his shades; Bobby did not return Josh's glance. "We'll get it done," he said with a half-smile. "Maybe I'm not the greatest – but we are the greatest, are we not?"

"Yes," replied Bobby. "The mission will succeed."

Josh stepped down from the platform and went inside. Bobby remained outside, silent and still as a statue, gazing into the clouds. No one will ever know what he was thinking about; I would hazard a guess that it was not the next day's battle, although that would be the first thing he'd tell you, if he told you anything.

Chapter 7 – Preparation

Josh glanced at his watch as he strode down the hall and knocked on Laura's door. 7:38 PM; he wouldn't be in bed until probably midnight, he knew, but he didn't know when Laura intended to turn in. "Hello?" he heard her voice uncertainly call from the inside.

"General Joshua Wilson in forward command MA'AM!" Josh shouted rapidly, raising his voice to an extremely high level for the last word. He was in better spirits than he had been earlier.

The door slowly opened. "Hi," Laura said with a smile. "I was just getting ready for bed, do you need me for something?"

"Thought you'd like to go out for a night on the town," said Josh. He chuckled and said, "No, really, I need to show you some stuff you'll need to know tomorrow. Can you roll on down to training central with me for awhile?"

"Alright, sure," said Laura. "Just lead the way." Josh gladly did so, leading her to the training center and showing her to a room.

A few assorted items lay on a table in the corner. The room was as big as a football field and had various items intended for use as targets strewn around it. Josh picked up a belt with a mechanism on the front of it that had the size and shape of a small football, although it was more flat. "This," he said, showing it to Laura, "is your shield belt. It's at 100 percent right now; get shot and it'll drop a lot, it only takes a few shots before it goes to zero. Once it's at zero, it's off and you're fair game. It recharges slowly, probably takes about a few hours to recover what you'd lose from taking one shot. So to make a long story short, don't get shot."

"Oh yeah, that sounds simple," said Laura, being funny. "No problem."

"Good," said Josh, smiling. "I like people who realize how easy it is to not get shot. These here," he picked up a small box and picked up from it an object the size and shape of a ping pong ball, "are heavy-duty grenades, packed in a small package. Two buttons on it," he said, rotating it for her to see. "The red button sets it to detonate on contact with something; the blue button gives it a four-second fuse." He turned and hit a button on the control panel behind him mounted on the wall; thirty yards away, some tread-mounted targets began to move quickly back and forth.

"So, depending on the situation, you can do it either way. You can hit targets from a distance with the auto-detonator like so." He pressed the red button, took aim, and threw the ball-grenade at a moving target; it struck the ground two feet short of the target and exploded, making a terrible noise and sending a small shock wave through the room that shook Josh and Laura. Josh, who was used to the sound of explosions, stood fast and unamused, but Laura shrieked at the great sound of the explosion and instinctively dove toward Josh, intending to bury her face in his upper arm but instead getting his lower arm due to his great height.

Once the sound and the smoke had dissipated, Laura stepped away from Josh, a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry… I just didn't…" she started.

Josh smiled. "I forgot to warn you, forgot you weren't too used to it," he said. "But you might as well get used to it now, you're gonna hear a lot of it tomorrow."

"Okay…" said Laura, who was visibly trying to slow down her heartbeat.

"Anyway, let's get on with the demonstration," said Josh. "Try not to bail when this one goes off," he said with a light laugh. "Remember, you got four seconds to get away or chuck it after you hit the blue button." He trotted out to where another target was, about forty yards away, hit the button, tossed it on the floor a little bit to the left of where an oncoming target was at, and sprinted back toward Laura, diving theatrically to the ground in front of her just as the grenade exploded. Laura flinched but didn't cry out or dive anywhere; Josh got up and dusted himself off, looking back at the wreckage behind them. "So as you can see, they pack a punch," he said.

"Now," said Josh, picking up a high-tech-looking handgun, "this is your very own Tazer Girl. Usually it's called Tazer Boy, but we figured we'd change it in your case. You see, lasers work just fine when it comes to wiping out human troops," he said, "but since most of Giygas's army is made up of robots and machinery, electricity is definitely the way to go. Now this puppy'll fire a reeeeal high amperage pulse for almost a mile, think of it as a lightning gun, 'cause that's pretty much what it is." He took aim and fired it at a target; it didn't create much noise nor could its shot be seen, but burned a big hole through it. "This really messes up robots, can make 'em explode, plus electricity is dangerous, so don't use this from anywhere close to close range. Plus, if you mess around with it you'll get zapped something nasty. Just like so," he said, reaching for the catch on the back of the weapon. For some reason, Josh rather enjoyed being zapped with electricity, so he didn't mind demonstrating what happened to Laura. He pressed the catch backwards and immediately the sound of live electricity went into the air and his body jerked and was thrown to the ground, the live gun crackling on the ground next to him before dying.

"Josh!" Laura cried. "Are you all right!"

Josh opened his eyes wide. "Wooooooooo! Nothin like a good zap to wake you up in the mornin'!" He shook his head vigorously and rose to his feet, shaking his left arm. "Man, I'm still buzzing… so much for me sleeping tonight. So anyway, if it did that to me, imagine what it'd do to little ol' you. So, don't touch anything but the trigger or else ZAP!" He tossed the weapon back onto the table. "Well, that just about concludes weapons 101 for tonight, now it's time to hit the sack. Do you got everything down pat now?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Laura after catching her breath from the last scare. "Thank you for showing me this…"

"No problem," said Josh. "It's also a great way to get you used to being surprised. Well, let's go back to our rooms now and get some snoozy-snoozy."

The alarm went off at 5:00 sharp. I always had little difficulty going to sleep and waking up, regardless of how tired I was, unlike Craig, who had to set his alarm for 4 if he wanted to drag himself out of bed by 5. I strapped on my operative uniform – mostly black, complete with gloves and boots and including all the weaponry that Josh had shown Laura, standard laser rifle on the back half of my right hip, Tazer Boy on the front, sword strapped to my back. When I had completed this, I went to the breakfast hall, where I'd set up an appointment with the rest of my team and with the people who would be operating the GDI in my absence.

Josh and Bobby were already there when I arrived, in full uniform as well. Josh's uniform was the same as mine, only a whole lot bigger (I could fit myself into one of his pantlegs). Laura's, I knew since I'd ordered it, was similar, only a shade of dark blue instead of black, and smaller of course. Bobby was in his standard combat clothing; all black, tied with a samurai-like waistband, with all the standard weaponry – similar to us from the neck down, except that he was completely solid, deep black, whereas we had shades of a more dark gray in places. His shades had been replaced by a black mask that covered his entire head, with special material over the eyes that he could see out of but no one could see into. He was truly a frightening sight in combat uniform.

"Bout time you made it here, big man!" Josh called as I took my seat across from him. "I already ordered your breakfast, hope you like bagels."

"I only eat them every day," I said.

"Heheheh, not onion ones!"

"If you ordered me onion bagels you die," I said.

"I like to live dangerously, as someone I know says," Josh replied. "So might as well die dangerously too, eh?"

"Play with fire and you get burned…" I responded. We had both just quoted things Craig liked to say.

Josh looked up and I turned; Laura was approaching. She seemed to have had little trouble with her uniform and looked pretty sharp in it now; she took a seat next to me, across from Bobby. "Good morning!" she said as cheerfully as she could muster through her obvious nervousness. Of course I was nervous too, although I also tried my best not to show it; unlike Laura, I had been on such operations before. I doubt Josh was very nervous and I know Bobby wasn't.

"What's so good about it…" Josh muttered between bites of a biscuit. "It's still rainin' out there, hard."

"Good," I said. "That provides the best cover for us to attack with."

"But it gets me wet, and I hate it," said Josh. "The weather should be whatever I darn well want it to be." Laura laughed a little; I just shook my head and smiled.

Breakfast arrived, and we partook of it, having an irrelevant little friendly conversation in the meantime. By 5:30, we were done with it. I glanced at my watch just as the company we had been awaiting arrived; two high-ranking GDI officers who would be entrusted with the invasion and with operating the GDI while we were gone.

"Bout time you fools made it," said Josh as they took their seats. "You'll be late to your own funerals probably."

"We'll be too busy listening to your rambling," said General Leslie O'Connor. She was a beautiful but fiercely independent woman of 28 years, a military genius and a battle-hardened soldier from the first war against Giygas. She was a personal favorite of Josh's (not surprising since the two of them did tend to be similar in their personalities and therefore pretended to be constantly fighting when they really weren't), but the thought of Josh ever actually dating, much less being at all serious with or marrying, someone was simply laughable. The both of them were so independent that they wouldn't survive together. The thing about Josh was that, where Leslie was attractive, Josh was simply a monster; you can say what you like about girls liking big muscles but Josh was just TOO big. Leslie had deep brown eyes that, if she wished, could burn through you like laser beams. Despite the generally intimidating nature of her complexion, she was actually bright and friendly most of the time.

"Invasion at 7:30, correct?" said General James Manolo. He would be the field leader of the assault we were to launch while General O'Connor handled things back home. Manolo was 36 years old and the oldest ranking officer in the GDI; his eyes revealed a simple intelligence similar to Craig's but somehow different. He was 5'11" and muscular, with light brown hair that he kept cut short. He had served in the Eagleland military and had joined up with the GDI shortly after the original meteorite incident in Onett that had begun the first war against Giygas. "I wouldn't want us to be late."

"We won't be late, James," said O'Connor. "I have all our units organized and ready to fly the second I drop a pin, so calm down."

"You've known me for how long, Leslie?" Manolo responded. "Have you ever known me to not be calm?"

"True," O'Connor assented. "I'd love to get hold of whatever tranquilizers you take every morning." Manolo, ever self-possessed, smiled bemusedly to himself. He was, in fact, a very even-tempered man, a rock who could be trusted and looked to in the heat of the fiercest battle, and beyond that he was incredibly capable on the battlefield and the best swordsman I had ever seen.

"Are Ness and company getting prepared?" asked Josh.

"Their stealth training is as complete as can be expected," said Bobby. "Given their powers, I expect they'll do fine if they can avoid large groups."

"The whole point to the invasion is to keep large groups away from us," I said.

"So when do I retreat?" asked Manolo.

"Ness will let you know when his group is in, and I'll let you know when mine is," I replied. "And you know to have rescue craft ready in case something goes wrong. After we're both in, it's your call when to bail."

"I like that idea," said Leslie. "I just want to minimize our casualties…"

"With any luck, most of our casualties will be machine instead of human," I said. "The front lines are made up of robots in any case… we're not fighting this battle to win. That battle will come on another day."

A sharp, shrill beep from my communicator interrupted. "Williams here."

"We're ready to go…" said Ness on the other end. "When are we going?"

"In less than an hour, since it's a 40 minute journey to get there. Your team's going to sneak in the back door, and we're going to attack from above."

"Above?" said Laura. "Like, how far above?"

"Heights," said Josh, trying not to laugh. The man was always smiling, always found something to laugh about in pretty much any situation, except for when he got angry.

I glanced up at Laura. "It'll only be about a ten foot jump from a moving helicopter. You'll manage. Or else I'll let you ride piggyback with Josh again." Laura didn't say anything more, but the fear was there in her eyes. Everyone… well, everyone but Josh and Bobby, anyway, seems to have one great fear. For Laura it was heights. "OK Ness, it's time to get loaded up and ready to roll. Meet us at the shuttlecraft bay. Do you know where that is?" He answered in the affirmative, and I flipped off the communicator.

I looked up to my three companions. "It's time to head out," I said. "We need to work with Leslie and James a little before we leave, work out the fine points. Let's go to the bay."

We rose and left the café and made our way outside to the shuttlecraft bay, situated atop a tower on the south end of the GDI building. It was a large area, at least a few football fields long and wide, and consisted mainly of hangars, few runways since all GDI shuttlecraft were helicopters. We walked the length of it – it was an extremely noisy area at this time of morning, bustling with even more activity than usual since this particular morning marked the first attack the GDI had launched in nearly two years. One had to shout in order to be heard, even by people close by. We made our way through the activity to the far end of the bay, which, like the lookout tower Josh and Bobby had ascended the previous night, provided a spectacular view of the city of Summers and of the ocean, which was tossing and turning in the storm; we were already wet from a driving rain, made worse by the gusty wind. It had been raining all night: most of the beach had been claimed by the swelling ocean, and water ran like streams through the streets. I looked up at the sky: it was a dark gray, a churning mass of a violent storm that seemed to have no end. "It's going to keep raining most of today, probably," I observed in a loud voice.

"Who cares," said Josh, who as usual was just kidding when he said during breakfast that he hated the rain. "I kinda like it that way. Rain is nice. Craig always said about how he loved the wind…"

Craig… was he alive? I wondered as I went a little distractedly through the process of organizing our attack. The testing we had done had found that he must be… his body, back in the hospital, was still warm. So his spirit was alive somewhere. Giygas was without a doubt using him as bait to draw us into his home, at which point his intent was to capture or kill us; he knew just as well as we did that we had no choice but to take the bait. Giygas's only understanding of friendship was that it was a trait that induced humans to put their own lives in great danger.

"Sir, we're ready to leave when you are," said a soldier who had come up behind us.

"Good, we're ready right now then," I shouted, and he led the way to the helicopter that would transport us below enemy radar into the heart of the Giygas base.

Chapter 8 – Stealth Invasion

One of the most expert pilots in the GDI was in control of the stealth helicopter; I rode shotgun in the co-pilot's seat. Laura and Bobby took the seat behind us, and Josh filled the back seat quite nicely, shouting plenty loud enough to be heard by us in the front.

Laura was busy asking questions to which no one would probably ever truly know an answer. "Why do you always wear your sunglasses, or your mask?" she asked Bobby.

"To keep myself invisible," he said.

"Invisible? What do you mean..?

"The eyes are the windows into the mind and the soul," Bobby said in his usual strong but emotionless tone. "If you can't see my eyes, you can't really see me. I look in your eyes and I read your thoughts and your emotions. You are insecure, frightened, and still feeling out of place among people you don't know. You don't know Craig, either, but you're still willing to risk your life to save his. …Why?" Bobby was in the midst of one of the longest speeches I've ever heard him give; it was extremely rare to get as much as a complete sentence out of him. But his assessment of Laura was on target, and she knew it.

"I… I don't know…" she said.

"I do," said Bobby. "It's because there's something within you that gives you no choice. Because he was kind and protected you, as have Carl and Josh. And now he's in trouble and you can't bear the thought. So here you are, not knowing your own emotions but still following them. It's all in the eyes…"

"I know how I feel!" said Laura. "I feel… it's just so hard to put into words. Yes… I'm scared, maybe insecure… but I want to help him!"

"Emotions are overrated…" said Bobby, turning away and gazing out the window. "They cloud the judgment."

"How can you be so cold!" Laura said, frustrated at being unable to understand him. Bobby only continued to gaze out the window.

Josh leaned forward. "It's how he stays alive," he said with his usual half-smile. "Me, I hit the bottle of cough syrup to do it. To each his own, I say."

Laura, realizing that she and Bobby were nearly exact opposites and she would never understand him, sighed heavily and turned to gaze out her window. Bobby had realized that he didn't understand Laura and never would quite some time ago; of course, it didn't bother him a whole lot. Nothing did, or at least if it did, he never let anyone else know.

"We're getting close now," I shouted over the noise of the engine and the rotor blades. "Time to swoop in under the radar and go ahead of the invasion force."

"They know we're coming by now," said the pilot. "We gotta just avoid the radar and they should be too tied up to worry about us."

"Haha, if they see us on the radar they'll blow us out of the sky with their AA guns," said Josh. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

We held on to our seats as the helicopter swooped in to about a hundred feet. Finally, through the fog and rain, we could make out the outline of the Giygas base as we joined the front lines, the only humans amidst a sea of robot-controlled aircraft; we dropped in behind the very front lines and, faintly, saw at 7:32 AM the first shot connect with the side walls of the Giygas base.

The fight was immediately on. UFOs and all manner of exotic aircraft poured from the Giygan base. Explosions shook the sky all around as we fought to maintain our altitude and direction. The fighter helicopter directly to our left exploded with the impact of an antiaircraft shell; Giygan craft were suddenly all around us. Our transport helicopter was equipped to fight, but to fire our weapons meant making ourselves highly visible to enemy craft; therefore, we wouldn't fire unless it was absolutely necessary to avoid being detected or shot down.

The dogfight in the air was an amazing sight to behold, now that I had the opportunity to watch it; I had been in plenty of air battles before, but always actively engaged in combat and unable to take in the sights. The aircraft were amazingly fast and agile, and the lasers they were firing were even more so. Laura nearly cried out as she shrank away from the explosions around us. Bobby looked around, interested, and Josh looked around, not very interested.

Suddenly, as we were about to clear the front lines, the chopper was rocked back and forth and quickly lost altitude; we were nearly on our side, extremely close to turning over and crashing. Josh cried out in surprise and Laura screamed in fear as she found herself suddenly crunched against Bobby and clutching his arm since it was the closest thing; Bobby clutched his armrest for stability and Josh simply sat against the side before being pitched back across his seat. "What's going on!" Josh called from the back.

The pilot was too busy trying to stabilize the chopper to answer; "Something hit the blades…" Bobby said loudly. He was right; I looked up through the transparent hole in the ceiling and saw one crippled rotor blade trying to keep the chopper in the sky. Of course, the chopper was equipped to handle such a situation; the pilot quickly switched on the emergency flying system.

"We're gonna have to glide in now," he said.

"We need our altitude back," I said. "Gonna have to put on the jets until we're at about 120 and then glide in, and hope we stay under the radar and over the turrets."

"I don't know if we'll have enough jet power left for me to get back outta there though," said the pilot, "But we don't have any other options right now, hang on, turning on the jets…"

The "jets" were special, compact emergency jet rockets attached to the helicopter that could be used to gain altitude or extra speed if the rotors or the engine was lost. They had an extremely short fuel supply, though; the pilot was right in that he had little chance of keeping enough altitude to make it back to base or even the nearest aircraft carrier in the storm-tossed ocean. The only option to save him would be to get a carrier stationed close enough for him to land on without it being destroyed by Giygan ships. I went to my communicator while the pilot brought our altitude back up. "Carrier 40, come in," I said into it. When the reply came, I said, "We need you to move in for an emergency rescue landing of shuttlecraft 56. Get as close as you can and radio us your position in five minutes, please." Carrier 40, which was currently the closest we had to our position, radioed back in the affirmative. It was an extremely dangerous situation for all involved; there was still a better chance than I liked to see that none of us, including the carrier, would make it out alive. Still, at this point turning back was an even worse option in terms of our survival, and even if it was feasible we wouldn't do it, not with Craig still trapped inside the complex. We were going in.

The chopper-turned-plane swept low, just ten feet or so over the roof of the fortress. All around us the dark gray, storm-tossed sky was illuminated by the flashing of the bombs and rockets going off around us. "Get ready to go, guys," I said. "We're jumping in another minute or so."

"I gotcha," said Josh to Laura. "Wanna ride on my back? It's not too far of a drop, not for me anyway."

"I guess so," said Laura, still obviously frightened at the prospect of jumping from a moving helicopter – well, basically, an airplane, the way it was now.

"Alright, here we go!" I shouted, unstrapping my seat and sliding open the hatch on the chopper's floor, situated between Laura and Bobby's feet. Josh hopped over the back of the seat and prepared to jump. "Right," I said, turning to the pilot. "Find Carrier 40 on the radar and make tracks for it as soon as we're outta here, good luck!"

"No problem, I oughta make it," said the pilot.

"Alright, arms around my neck, put a good stranglehold on me, now," Josh directed Laura, who did just that; she gripped his neck tightly enough to make his eyes visibly pop open.

"Alright, I'll go first, Bobby second, you two last!" I shouted. "And make it fast since we're still moving so fast, too! Don't break your ankles on the landing!" The chopper was still going at about 70 MPH, much faster than we'd intended on it going with functional rotor blades; if we didn't land perfectly, our ankles would probably break like plywood.

I turned and nodded to the pilot, and then slid my feet out the hatch and let fly; I hit the ground hard and immediately flew down hard onto my side, letting my feet lift off the ground so they wouldn't break, and landed hard on my right arm, causing a serious bruise. Bobby landed cleanly, agile as a cat, falling only lightly onto his side; the air resistance of a 70 MPH jump made it impossible not to fall over. Josh, knowing this, jumped backward so that he'd fall forward rather than backward, since Laura was on his back; and so forward he went, flat on his chest, which naturally knocked the wind out of him but provided a nice cushion for Laura, who rose shaking but unhurt. Josh sprawled onto his back, trying to suck oxygen for a moment; Laura's lips moved, I think asking Josh if he was hurt. But Bobby pointed into the sky and we looked, just in time for a sickening sight.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The chopper, still gliding on its wings, was making a wide, sweeping turn in its attempt to make it back to the waiting carrier. Two Giygan ships appeared from behind the base wall; one clipped a wing, throwing the chopper into chaotic motion. I knew at that moment that the chopper had no chance; I watched with a helpless and sick feeling in my stomach as it tried to steady itself, but the Giygan antiaircraft cannon had locked on. The explosion of a shell being fired ripped through the air around us, over the driving, soaking rain; a second later, we viewed the horrifying sight of the helicopter from which we had just seconds ago leaped exploding into a million fiery fragments, leaving behind it just five seconds later no trace save for a cloud of white smoke.

Laura opened her mouth to scream but Josh quickly covered it with his hand before she could; Bobby stood stock-still; I felt numb and devastated. Laura, still wanting to scream but unable to, buried her head against Josh's arm which he still was holding over her mouth, overcome by the thought of the now-dead pilot and the fact that, if we'd waited ten seconds, we too would be dead. I hung my head and closed my eyes briefly, trying to shake the image from my mind, knowing full well that we had to forget it and move on. Bobby walked cautiously to the edge of the roof section we were standing on and peered out at the battle, not caring to deal with the situation at hand.

"Man, that was a hit and a half… Josh said. He then finally pulled his hand away from Laura's mouth and turned her towards him. "Hey, listen to me!"

I shook my head hard and walked quickly over to join them; Laura was now drying her eyes, or trying to in this rain. "Look, that was horrible what just happened…" Josh was saying, "but it'll be even worse what happens to Craig if we don't get in there and find him. You gotta get yourself in that mindset."

Laura nodded, her breath finally returning to her. "I know… it's just… oh, it was awful! That pilot… it's just awful!" she repeated.

"I know it's awful," I said as quietly as I could and still be heard. "But let's go. We have to find Craig before it's too late."

Laura nodded again. "Alright, yes, let's go," she said.

I walked briskly to Bobby, who was still standing like a statue near the edge of the roof. "She's alright," I said. "We need to go in."

Bobby nodded.

I voiced the doubt that was nagging in my mind. "Will she be able to fight when she needs to?" I said. "She shies away from fighting… obviously can't handle the thought of death."

"She will fight," said Bobby. "And she will fight well. She can use PSI… don't forget that Giygas is still after her for that. If she wants to, she can fight better than any of us." I nodded; he was right. He was always so aware, even though no one really realizes it. He read people when it seemed he wasn't paying attention.

When Bobby and I returned, Laura seemed to be shaking the image of the exploding helicopter out of her head and focusing on the task ahead. We had to get into the Giygas base and then – this was the hard part – find Craig and get him out of there. Of course, we weren't looking for Craig, we had his body back at GDI headquarters; we were looking for his spirit, which Giygas had somehow extracted and now could have hidden anywhere, in any body. The hard part was exploring and staying alive long enough to find him, and not only that, get whatever body he's in back to GDI headquarters so Dr. Andonuts could put his spirit back into his body where it belonged.

Bobby climbed up to the highest point, about four feet above where we were standing, and looked around. "Over there," he said, pointing and beckoning us to follow him up, which we did quickly – we were still trying not to be detected by the various Giygan aircraft – and saw him sliding open a ventilation graft, cutting it with his dagger. He slid himself slowly in; we didn't hear a single sound as he landed on the floor. I quickly followed, sliding in, my feet making a slight sound as I hit the floor about six feet below the graft we had opened. I moved in Bobby's direction and Laura jumped down after me, landing just as cleanly; Josh followed after her, having no need to jump, he simply eased himself in and then slid the graft back in place. The passageway was only about six feet high. I could stand up in it, as obviously could Laura, but Bobby had to hunch over a little, and Josh had a lot of trouble fitting in, needing to basically crawl, and it wasn't very wide either, which also presented a squeeze problem for him.

The passageway was very dark, completely pitch-black in fact. Bobby armed his laser rifle, on which was attached a small flashlight. He led the way, which made sense since as an assassin he had many times before been in similar situations. We made our way slowly and carefully through what became an ever-lengthening labyrinth of tunnels as we crawled through the ventilation system, leaving a trail of sloppy rain water behind us as we began to dry out from the heavy rain in which we had been standing outside. All I could see was Bobby methodically finding his way around in front of me, and the slight, dull, off-white colored paneling that lined the ventilation shafts. I reached out and touched it: it gave a little, as if it were tough cushioning. We continued slowly. Right now, stealth was our chief concern.

Finally, after at least twenty minutes of crawling around and only one complaint from Josh about his creaky old muscles, Bobby stopped, causing me to almost run into him. When I stopped, I felt Laura bump into me from behind and barely contain a giggle as she whispered, "Sorry!"

Bobby slowly cut and pulled open a small grate and leaned over, peering below him. I looked down over his shoulder. What we saw was a small room with a lot of computer machinery but no soldiers. It would be about a ten foot jump down, but this time there wouldn't be room enough through the hole for Laura to ride on Josh's back. My initial idea was to have Josh go first and catch her, but then I remembered that the passageway we were in was far too narrow for even her to get around him; he was squeezed up against both sides. I turned to Laura and whispered, "We're gonna have to make a jump like…" I paused; I was going to say "like we did from the helicopter", but I didn't want to remind her of the helicopter in any way, so I recovered quickly and continued, "…like ten feet or so. You'll have to jump for it, but Bobby and I will be down there to catch you, alright?"

I could see the fear, that old fear, come across Laura's eyes as she looked into mine and blinked, beginning to overcome the fear just enough to understand. There was a long silence before she whispered, "Okay."

Bobby turned to me and nodded, and then slid himself through the hole and landed below, once again as cleanly and silently as a cat. I quickly followed, landing with an audible thump. I immediately drew my laser rifle and looked around. There was only one door, and Bobby was hiding out of its view behind a massive computer and beckoning for me to do the same on the other side of the room. I shook my head and pointed up, indicating to him that I had to wait for Laura, who obviously had no intent of her feet hitting the floor. My original plan was to have us both catch her, but Bobby kept his gun trained on the door while I waited for her. I could see her worried, frightened face looking down at me; I gave her a half smile and nodded. "Come on!" I stage whispered. "I'm down here, I'll catch you, just go for it!"

I could hear Josh whispering something from above, and chuckling, but I couldn't make out what it was, although I must say I have my guesses. She shut her eyes tightly, which seemed to be the way she intended to go, and slowly slid her feet through the hole and then paused; then, suddenly, she came down at me with a small, surprised shriek. I knew that Josh had given her a push from behind, but just as that thought came to my mind, Laura had fallen into me. My attempt to catch her just barely succeeded, with her landing ever-so-lightly on her feet and me falling backward onto my rear. Bobby didn't flinch, just kept his gun trained on the door while Josh grunted and shoved his body through a hole that was too small for it to easily fit.

When we were all on the ground and Laura had regained her breath, Bobby stepped forward to open the door. He leaned into it meticulously, slowly opening it and ignoring the creaking; he leaned his head out the door, looked out for a few seconds, and then turned back to us and nodded, indicating that we were to follow. I fell in behind him, and then Laura and Josh, the same way we had gone through the ventilation passage, as we stepped out the door. We were now in a much more roomy hallway, at the back corner of an L-shape, with a hall to our left and another straight ahead. To our left stood two massive mainframe computers. We drew our guns and kept them ready to fire as we followed Bobby straight ahead; there was a flight of metal stairs to the right (they resembled bleachers at high-school stadiums in structure and width) that turned 180 degrees to the right halfway up and then continued to a floor above us; the same pattern below. "Going down," said Bobby as he lightly stepped onto the stairs with the rest of us in cautious tow. We all made a slight clanging noise on the metal with our feet, but Bobby was absolutely noiseless; he had some form of padding in his shoes to make them silent. I'd imagined many times just how awful it would be to be Bobby's target; his stealth and his skill with his weapons were unparalleled.

When Bobby turned the corner to continue going downstairs, he fired two quick shots with his gun and then ducked back past us upstairs; we quickly fell in behind, fully ready to follow Bobby's lead. We all kept our guns trained on the corner; surely enough, four Starmen teleported right in front of us. They didn't have a chance to do anything though, before rapid-fire laser shots from all four of us, including Laura, who was actually quicker to the trigger than myself, reduced them to scrap metal. Bobby stayed crouched, intent, and therefore so did we. He was listening for any further activity, or possibly an alarm system, I knew.

After a few tense seconds, he rose and we followed him down the stairs. He leaned forward and looked left, then right, then suddenly dove his head back toward us just in time to dodge laser fire. "Get ready..!" he said, backing up a few stairs. And then they were upon us; sickeningly fast Lil' UFO's, small flying saucers the size of a pizza pan, and a few Starmen and two Atomic Power Robots, spherical robots known for exploding violently when attacked and for quickly repairing their fellow robots. We engaged quickly in a Star Wars-esque laser fight for a few seconds during which I took a hit and so did Laura, before Josh and Bobby simultaneously drew their swords and charged. I was carrying a sword but decided not to use it, and I knew Laura wasn't carrying one, so I wanted to stay back and cover her. "You take the right, I go left!" I said to Laura as I took aim with my laser. "Stay away from the round robots, they'll blow up and hurt Bobby and Josh!"

"All right!" Laura shouted as she fired and dodged around the stairway turn. Bobby and Josh were having a much easier time of it with their swords while Laura and I stayed back and held the enemies' attention with laser fire; Bobby shouted something to Josh and then dropped a grenade, and they both ran for the staircase. Two seconds later, the grenade went off, taking with its explosion the Atomic Power Robots and the two remaining Lil' UFO's.

"From above!" Josh shouted, causing us all to turn at a group of Starmen that were coming down from the floor we had just left. We engaged them for a little while, but more were coming, when I turned and saw another group of Starmen and an Atomic Power Robot from below, amidst the wreckage of the last unit.

"We're trapped!"

"Fight through!" said Bobby.

"Me and Bobby go low, Laura and Josh, you guys take care of the high ground!" I shouted, splitting us up, and into combat we went against robots that seemed to keep coming just as fast as we could dispatch them. I took up my Tazer Boy and took advantage of the Atomic Power Robot by making it explode, taking out another nearby Starman. Slowly but surely we whittled down their numbers, and then Bobby and Josh, having apparently taken care of their end of the fight, joined in and we finished them off.

"No time to talk, let's find some cover!" I said, wanting to get to somewhere where we could only be attacked from one direction, and also hoping for somewhere we could hide and catch our breath. Our shields were all low; Josh's was almost gone. I charged down the stairs and whirled around with my gun; the coast seemed clear. On the far end of the hallway we were now in to the right, I saw a door similar to the one from which we'd emerged earlier. "Let's duck in there, guys," I said. "We need to contact Ness and home base before we continue."

"This (darn) exploring around looking for Craig is gonna get us killed," said Josh as we quickly walked toward the door; I walked backwards to watch for more sentries. They knew where we were now, probably.

Bobby quietly opened the door and then closed it, and then turned to us and paused for a second before speaking. "Two technicians," he said. "They're human."

"Human? Are you sure!" I said, startled by what he'd said. Humans working in the Giygas base?

Bobby nodded. Josh looked perplexed for a moment and then shrugged. "Happened last time," Bobby said. "Giygas controls the evil in people's mind and makes them work for him. Let's get rid of them."

"Wait a second! Get rid of them?" Laura said. "They probably have families out there! We can't just kill them!"

"Military personnel are expendable," said Bobby. He turned, opened the door and fired two laser shots; the bodies hit the floor a second later. "Coast is clear."

Laura just stood there with her mouth open and a shocked expression in her eyes. Bobby and Josh were already inside the computer room we had found. "Laura," I said. I took her by the shoulders and gave a little shake to make her eyes focus. "It sounds cruel, but Bobby's right, it's war and people die in war. It's a sad thing but true. That's why we're trying to end the war! But if we didn't get rid of those two, we might have gotten killed ourselves. And there's no guarantee they're really human." I missed Craig sorely right then. He would have been able to explain it much better than I did.

Josh pulled mightily on my arm. "Will you get your lazy carcass in here before you get shot!"

I turned back to Laura. "Come on."

"All right." She seemed to be handling it better; I think she realized what I was saying, even if she didn't agree with it. We all got into the room and Laura lightly closed the door behind her.

Chapter 9 -- MechaCraig

I sat in front of the computer, which seemed remarkably like the ones we had in GDI headquarters and which had a standard English keyboard, and tried to get into the Giygan main systems, from which I hoped to be able to run a search on anything pertaining to Craig. Meanwhile, Josh was attempting to establish contact both to GDI headquarters and to Ness's group.

"Ness, come in! Wilson here…" He stage-whispered into his communicator. Bobby and Laura crouched, keeping their lasers trained on the door; Bobby had moved the bodies of the men he had killed behind a computer, out of our view.

"This is Ness! We had to wait to get into a room, sorry!" Ness's 14-year-old voice came into the communicator.

"Good! Did you find anything?" asked Josh.

"Yeah, we think we know where Giygas is at…" said Ness, "but we're still a long way from it, it's way underground…"

"Good, is your party in good shape?"

"We're alright."

"Did you come across anything about Casner?"

"Nope, not a thing."

"Alright, keep up the work…"

Meanwhile, I was staring at the computer screen, which was bombarding me with information but none of it anything that I wanted to know. I typed in various commands, trying to make the computer tell me something about the whereabouts of Craig, or his spirit, or whatever form they had him in. I went on and on and on, not finding anything, and then kept on going and still wasn't finding anything and… "Bingo!"

I said it out loud as I got a lock on what was referred to in the computers as "the Craig Casner Project" (abbreviated CCP in the computer). I downloaded and printed all the files I could, totaling 133 pages, as Josh continued trying to establish contact to home base.

"What did you find?" asked Laura, now at my shoulder, peering at a screen of code that didn't seem to make much sense to her.

"I'm still trying to find out…" I said, grabbing some papers and skimming over them, looking for some valuable information.

"What?" Josh nearly shouted, loud enough to turn our heads. "Are you sure?" He had a look in his eyes that I only saw when something very bad had happened. "All right… but everything else is alright?"

"Not too many casualties…" General O'Connor was saying over the communicator. "Besides the major one, that is… in terms of machinery we're alright even if they attack us now. The defenses are together."

"Alright, good job," said Josh. "Seems Carl found something, so we're gonna go on our little scavenger hunt now."

"Gotcha, chief," said O'Connor. "You guys better come back alright."

"I'll get back to you on that one…" Josh said as he flipped off the communicator and then looked at us.

"What happened..?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"General Manolo was shot down…" said Josh in a low voice. "KIA/BNR…"

"Shot down! Oh my God, is he alright!" asked Laura, who was unfamiliar with our military jargon.

"KIA/BNR stands for 'Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered'…" I said in a low voice, furrowing my brow. "Someone must have seen him go down… no way to recover him in the storm." I buried my hands in my face and ran them down past my neck quickly and heavily, sighed heavily and shook my head.

"Probably won't wash up, more likely he's fish food…" Josh said, shaking his head. "That totally sucks." Josh wasn't the kind to get very emotional, but he certainly spoke the truth.

"They're going to find us soon if we don't move out of here…" said Bobby, also speaking the truth. Laura stayed silent, seemingly battling to maintain control over herself and doing a fine job so far. It's an awful thing the way a person has to acquaint and harden him or her self to death in times of war. I was still shaking my head hard to try to focus myself as I looked through the papers, and finally found what I was looking for, even though it was the last thing I wanted to see.

"Dear God…" I said as I read the papers in disbelief.

"What's going on now? Did you find something about Craig?" asked Josh. Laura snapped back into awareness, out of her stunned state.

"CCP, the Craig Casner Project…" I said. "They've placed his spirit into a powerful robot… and it's been programmed to seek and destroy us. Our names are in here… 'Carl Williams, Josh Wilson, Bobby Hokela, and Laura St. Clair. The spirit knows each of them well and therefore will have no trouble recognizing them, and since we have complete control over it while we have it inside our machine, it has been programmed to eliminate them.'" I quoted from the papers, and then flipped near the end of them and read, " 'MechaCraig is currently on patrol in the complex, seeking its targets.'" I looked up.

"They know we're here…" said Bobby.

"How recently was that last thing you read put in the computer?" asked Josh.

I typed rapidly on the computer, getting it to bring up the log. "7:26 AM."

"That's just about the time we first went in here, isn't it?" asked Laura.

"Yeah, right around there…" I said.

"So, they've known we're in here all along…" said Bobby.

"Which means they're looking for us now… they have Craig looking for us now. He's going to try to kill us… by the specifics of this machine, he won't have a hard time either, if he finds us."

The door suddenly swung open. Bobby, the only one in the room who still had his weapon ready, fired twice and caused two small explosions; I dashed forward and slammed the door shut while Josh and Laura grabbed their lasers.

There was a bunch of buzzing and clicking going on outside; no robots were opening the door now, but they seemed to be communicating. I whirled my head toward Josh, Laura and Bobby as I grabbed my gun. "They're calling for something…"

"MechaCraig…" Josh said. "They must be calling him in."

"We need to escape before he gets here…" said Bobby.

"No!" Josh shouted. "I'm staying right here and facing him!"

"He'll kill us…" said Bobby. "We need to leave now."

"I'm NOT leaving Craig here! I'm gonna either wake him up or die trying!" said Josh.

I looked at Laura; she seemed to be displaying the same indecisiveness as I was at the time. They were both right, of course; I knew full well that MechaCraig would probably kill us with little trouble. Our lasers wouldn't bother him a bit, although the electricity might… but if we destroyed the robot, there was a chance we could be killing him. If we killed him, our mission would be a failure anyway… on the other hand, Josh was right. Our mission was to not leave until we had located Craig and, if he was still alive, bring his spirit back with us, and I couldn't easily leave and leave him here. Besides that, he was programmed to destroy us, and if we left he would follow us back to GDI headquarters, so eventually we'd have to face him anyway… with the GDI's war technology we could easily destroy him but, again, I didn't want to.

"Well! You're in charge!" shouted Josh. A loud noise outside turned our heads.

A heavy, metallic clang.

Another one.

Another one. Getting closer.

It was footsteps… heavy, metallic footsteps.

"It's coming…" said Bobby.

"What are we gonna do!" Laura cried, still holding her weapon at the door.

I made my decision right then and there. "Let's go out and fight him…" I said, jumping forward and kicking the door open. Immediately, the six Starmen standing outside began to fire, and I returned fire, quickly backed up by my friends; we made quick work of the Starmen.

"Oh my God…" said Laura.

I turned. "There it is..!"

MechaCraig stood before us, only fifteen feet away, staring us down. It was a gigantic robotic machine, about twelve feet high and six feet across, with a round, open top, equipped with massive guns and cannons on both sides. Inside the open top, piloting it, sat a robot, an advancement of the Starman series with a face that had been molded from Craig's but with the classic Starman black eye cover.

"So, it's you…" It was Craig's voice… it sounded like through a poor microphone, or as if he was speaking through the rotating blades of an electric fan, but it was his voice.

"Craig!" Josh shouted. "Do you know who we are!"

"Yes you fool, I know who you are…" Craig replied in a low, ominous tone. The mouth on his robotic mask wasn't moving while he talked, while he stared at us from his machine. I stood frozen, as did Laura; Bobby and Josh were tensed and ready to fight. "You… are… the enemy! And you must be destroyed!" Without warning, he fired a loud and fast laser from his right cannon, blasting Josh and throwing him hard against the wall.

"JOSH!" I screamed, falling to my knees, praying he was alive.

He was alive. "Shields are gone… damn you!" He quickly jumped back to his feet. "Wake up, Craig! WAKE UP!"

"He isn't hypnotized…" said Bobby. "His spirit has been transferred from good to evil…"

"You are the evil!" shouted Craig in his metallic voice. Suddenly, the machine charged us with astonishing quickness. We dodged out of the way, but he was after Bobby. Bobby fired at Craig, but the lasers bounced off without denting the machinery. He had Bobby pinned against the wall now. He stared down at him. "More than anything you fear death, assassin," he said. "Now… it is time to face your fear!"

"NO!" I shouted, charging forward without the slightest idea what I intended to do. I was blasted backward by a sickeningly powerful laser blast, knocking me fifteen feet down the hall and hitting the floor hard. As I lay there trying to regain the breath that had been powerfully knocked out of me, Laura ran and knelt by my side.

"Carl! Are you alright!" The overwhelming concern and fear was in both her voice and her eyes. She whirled her head around to look at Craig, MechaCraig, whatever the thing was.

I slowly propped myself up on my elbows as blood dribbled out of my mouth from my tongue, which had been cut open by my teeth as I had hit the ground. "I'm fine," I said, spitting out blood. I didn't have to look to know that my shield gauge, like Josh's, was now at zero. But I got back up and ran back to where Josh stood helplessly watching Craig verbally assault Bobby, playing with his food, so to speak.

"First, let's just break the sword arm…" said Craig, almost playfully, beginning to lean on Bobby. Bobby's right forearm broke with an audible crack. He made no sound, even in the excruciating pain in which he must have been. I shut my eyes tight, trying to drive out the horrible sound.

"Now for the other arm…" said Craig.

"NO! PLEASE!" Laura cried, dropping to her knees, sobbing. "Don't hurt him any more! Please, Craig… don't…" she lost her voice in tears.

"Laura…" I said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"You sick son of a bitch!" Josh screamed, back on his feet, glaring at Craig. "How dare you do this to this man! How DARE you put this innocent girl through this!" Laura continued quietly sobbing.

Craig hesitated. He backed the machine off a step from where he had Bobby pinned against the wall; Bobby dropped hard to the floor, immediately clutching his badly broken right arm. Craig stared down at Laura for a few seconds, not saying anything, and then suddenly shook his metallic head. "Then I'll put her out of her misery fir—GAAAAH!"

Bobby, from the ground, was firing repeat pulses from his Tazer Boy, which undoubtedly were screwing with Craig's circuitry as the robot convulsed and made strange metallic noises. Bobby continued firing until the rider machine fell to its knees and Craig – or, rather, the Craig robot – tumbled out onto its stomach, still convulsing even though Bobby had stopped firing.

"Let's get out, NOW!" Bobby shouted, jumping up; he was tying his right arm to his waist with a rope he carried to keep it in place.

"What about Craig!" Josh shouted.

Bobby didn't bother to answer. He ran, we followed, and Josh had no choice but to do the same. We were a good way down the hall, at this point being pursued by a growing legion of Starmen, when we heard the dull sound of an explosion behind us. We knew it was MechaCraig. We had no way right then, however, of knowing whether Craig was now dead, and we really didn't have a chance to think much about it. We could think now of only one thing: A desperate attempt to escape. I grabbed my communicator. "O'Connor!" I shouted while we were running.

"O'Connor here!" she relayed back immediately, sensing my urgency.

"I need multiple stealth shuttlecrafts to the initial invasion point RIGHT NOW!" I said and put the communicator back on my hip; we followed Bobby around a corner and into a room, where he and Josh shot two Starmen and one human technician. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my back and hit the floor hard; I had been shot by a laser with my shields down, and was now writhing on the ground, gasping for air. I suddenly felt myself being lifted up and seemingly floating through the air; I felt the oxygen leave me and I lost consciousness.

I was being carried on Josh's shoulder up into the ventilation system, unconscious now, as Starmen were still hot on our trail. They were hoping against hope that the shuttlecraft I had sent for would be awaiting them when they made it out. It was their only hope to make it back to GDI. Our mission, for better or worse, was over, and we had no chance at this point of helping Ness and his friends, who were at this point on their own. Wretched, defeated, all we could do was hope and believe in the Chosen Four.

Bobby led the way, somehow shutting out the crushing pain from his arm that vibrated throughout his whole body. Having been in many similar situations before, dating back to years before the GDI existed, he had an instinctive knowledge of where to go and how to stay ahead of his pursuers. Josh and Laura followed closely behind him, with me still slung over Josh's right shoulder. Josh said later that on multiple occasions he hit my head off the ceiling (he was too tall for the passageways in the ventilation system to begin with).

Their heads turned at the sound of a small buzzing throughout the ventilation system. "What the heck is that!" Josh shouted.

"They're turning on the heat," said Bobby as he continued running. "We have to get out now, if we're still in here when the heat comes on we're dead." He found the first possible exit, slammed it open and climbed out; Laura and Josh followed, and immediately they were dodging laser and missile fire from Giygan battle craft that were trying to kill us. Bobby stood and looked around, looking for the point from which we had initially entered, unable to find it. His head swerved at the sound of the explosion of a defeated Giygan craft, a joyous sound to hear because it meant it had been destroyed by a GDI shuttlecraft. Bobby ran in the direction of the explosion, followed closely by Josh and Laura; a laser blast grazed my arm and opened a deep wound that would leave a permanent scar. Sure enough, the shuttlecraft appeared, and we leaped onto it just as it took off at 450 MPH toward the GDI headquarters, dodging laser and missile fire all the way. This time, the missiles did collateral damage to Summers, although thankfully no people were hurt. Finally, at 3:28 PM, only about eight hours after the initial invasion, we the GDI invaders returned to GDI headquarters, battered and bruised both in body and spirit.

Chapter 10 – The Awakening

Josh, who was still carrying me on his shoulder, Bobby, and Laura walked back into GDI headquarters. They were met immediately by General O'Connor, who took one look at them and knew just what they had been through. She greeted them with "You guys need to get down to the hospital right now!"

"Really? You think?" Josh said with all the sarcasm he could muster; even he was showing signs of wear after those past few hours that had seemed as if they had taken forever.

"I'll send for gurneys, you guys wait here," Leslie said.

Josh turned. "Can you walk, Laura?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine…" Laura said miserably, snapping out of the daydream in which she had been engaged.

"Good, we can handle it then," said Josh. "I'm sure Bobby won't complain."

"Why's your arm tied down?" Leslie asked, glancing at Bobby's right arm.

"Broken," he said. "Long story."

"We'll tell it later," Josh growled over his shoulder as they continued walking. He led them down to the GDI hospital complex, easily the most high-tech hospital in the world. Josh dropped my limp body down on the first bed he could find and crashed on the next. All four of us were taken in for treatment. As it turned out, Josh had hauled me all the way out of the building with a heavily bruised left ribcage; he never complained or even winced about it once. Bobby's fracture was severe but, thankfully, clean; the doctors inserted a small metal rod and an internal body cast and stitched it back up. His arm would be functional, although it would put him in pain when he used it. Like Josh, though, he wouldn't complain about it, so it's hard to say how much it really did hurt him.

I was in worse shape. The laser shot had narrowly missed my spinal cord; another inch to the right and I would never have walked again. As it was, the beam punctured my left lung and chipped a rib, leaving clean entry and exit wounds. It also nicked a major vein near my heart, but luckily the heat of the beam caused the wound to seal itself. If it hadn't, I'd have bled to death. Lucky me. I would be fine by the next day. Laura had a clean bill of health, she was just a little worn down emotionally. But that would change soon.

I returned to consciousness to be greeted by Josh's always-humorous looking face. "Hey, Carl! Welcome back to the land of the living!"

"Uhh…" I propped myself up on my elbows and frowned at the IV tubes in both my hands. "GDI hospital… I got shot…"

"Right in the back, the cheap bastards," Josh said, shaking his head. "Missed your spinal cord by about this much." He held his fingers about an inch apart.

"Mmm, my back is so sore…" I said, gingerly wincing. It hurt to breathe. "Got my lung, didn't it…"

"Mm-hmm." Josh nodded. "Punctured your left lung, but it's been all patched up now. You'll be fine in a few."

"General Williams!" Dr. Andrew Williams, our chief doctor, strode up.

"Andrew, can we get rid of these needles now?" I said, beckoning towards my hands with my head.

"Oh! Yes, certainly." He flipped off the machines. "This will hurt just a bit…"

Josh laughed. "Just a bit, ha! What he means is it'll hurt like hell, but oh well." He was right, of course, but, to repeat what he said since I can't phrase it better, oh well. I winced at the pain that shot through my arms as Dr. Williams quickly pulled out the needles, taking no time to ease pain.

"As I was saying!" Dr. Williams continued. "Commander Casner is back alive!"

Three of our pairs of eyes (Laura was there too but quiet at the time) shot wide open. Bobby remained stoic. "Alive! Are you serious!"

"Very! His spirit somehow just suddenly returned to his body… no side effects, he's his same old self now!"

"Haha, it worked!" Josh shouted, overcome with joy for one of the few times in his life. "It really WORKED!" I'd never seen him smile so widely before.

I shot up off the bed, wincing and groaning just slightly at the pain from my side. "Where is he?"

Dr. Williams turned around. "Should be… ah, right there!"

"Craig!" Laura was first to the draw, with the first word I'd heard her speak since we left the Giygan base.

"Oh, Laura… guys…" Craig was standing there in the flesh, healthy as ever, it seemed – but it looked as if he were somehow even more tired than us.

"Craig!" Josh jumped at him and grabbed his arms and shook him. "Haha, it's really you!" He smiled widely and lifted Craig in a bearhug. "You have no idea what we've been doing!"

Craig was smiling too, but the smile faded when Josh released him. "That's not entirely true… I remember bits and pieces of things…"

"What!" I said, perplexed. "You remember MechaCraig...?"

"Only a little bit…" he said. His voice sounded tired. "I passed into consciousness a few times… it was strange. I think I was unaware of what I was doing most of the time, but…"

"What happened?" I asked.

"When they captured me… they took me into one of their ships and to the base. At the base, they threw me into a tube. I felt a terrible pain and passed out… when I woke up, I felt like I was in a dream. Everything was blurry… everything sounded funny. I heard two people or things talking… saying something like 'he will do our bidding' and 'he is nearly complete'. I looked down at myself and saw only metal… and then I passed out again."

"Were you awake later?" said Josh. "Did you..?"

Craig breathed heavily. He was terribly troubled in mind. "Let me finish. The next time I woke up, I was marching down the hall… it felt strange. I knew I was after you, but I didn't know why… I was piloting a huge metal machine… that must have been MechaCraig, as you were saying, Carl. But I knew where you were and I wanted to find you… I couldn't tell what I was feeling. But then I lapsed into unconsciousness again.

"I awoke a third time… I looked down and I was pinning Bobby against the wall. I… I don't know why, but I wanted to…" He shut his eyes briefly and then shook his head. "I wanted to hurt him. Josh was shouting something at me I couldn't make out… I wanted to hurt him, too. I don't know why… I never in a million years would…"

"They were controlling you, Craig…" I said, stepping forward, not noticing for a moment that Bobby and Laura had joined me, forming a semicircle around him.

He shook his head hard, as if trying to fight the image of an awful nightmare out of his head. "Then I heard Laura's voice… I let Bobby go and turned toward it, I couldn't help it and I still didn't know why. I saw her crying on the ground, saying something I couldn't hear… I don't know what happened. This huge wave of… of something swept over me, I felt overwhelmed and then I lapsed out of consciousness again… guys… what happened? I did that to you, didn't I..? He was looking at Bobby's wrapped-up arm.

"Yes," Bobby replied.

"They were controlling you, Craig… it wasn't really you," I said. "You have to believe that… we're still the best friends you have. We always will be. It wasn't you we were fighting…"

"No!" Craig thundered, taking me aback. He shook his head hard again. "It was me! It's just like the weird way people were acting before… yes, it was control… but he was controlling the evil in my mind… the evil in my mind overcame the good! Why? Is there so much evil…?" Tears were coming into his eyes; I had seen him cry only twice before. It took a lot to move him that far. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry I betrayed you…"

"You did NOT betray us!" Josh shouted. His face was red, the veins in his neck bulging in anger. "Snap out of it! We ALL have evil in us, Craig, you know that! He was controlling it, and he isn't anymore! It could've been any one of us if he'd decided to take us!" He paused. "And we're still here with you!" Josh was growing frustrated watching Craig in such a state.

Craig sighed. "I need to rest… and we still have a war to fight. But I have to rest and sort things out… I'm sorry." He pushed past me and exited the hospital, making for his personal room, no doubt. We just stood there in shock for a few minutes. Craig was always so level-headed. Even in the toughest, most stressful situations, even in circumstances that would have killed a lesser man, Craig never flinched. I'd never in my life seen him so badly shaken.

Bobby, of all people, broke the silence. "Leave him alone. He'll be all right."

"He might rest, but he's not gonna sleep…" said Josh. Then something almost audibly clicked in his head, and he turned to me. "Carl, we gotta get in touch with Ness right about now!"

Chapter 11 – The Battle of Battles

Poo leaned over with his hands on his knees, panting while the Chosen Four hid and rested after the latest fight against legions of Starmen. The Starmen were really little match for their PSI, but still, they were wearing out the group of kids. The Chosen Four had been journeying through the complex, working their way deep underground, for well over twelve hours now; it had been a few hours since we had left.

"Ness! Come in!"

Ness flipped on his communicator. "This is Ness…"

"General Williams here." I could hear the fatigue in his voice. "Are you guys doing all right?"

"We're getting tired…" said Ness, glancing at his watch, which read 8:56 PM. "But we're getting close."

"We're terribly close…" Paula said. "I can sense the evil…"

"Did you guys find Commander Casner?" Ness asked.

"Yes, we found him," I said. "He's back here now, thank God. We're all praying for you back here."

"Thank you…" said Ness. "It was the prayers of others that defeated Giygas the last time… I hope history repeats."

"It's up to you, but you are not alone…" I said. "You fight representing the whole world. And we're all behind you."

"We need to move on…" Ness said. "Before we get too tired."

"Good luck, Ness," I said. "We'll see you soon." I clicked out. And these were just kids; truly remarkable.

"Alright, guys," said Ness.

"It's time," said Poo.

"I have an awful feeling…" said Paula.

"Are you okay?" asked Ness, concerned.

"Yes… I don't know what it is, but we must fight!" A brave group of kids, this was.

"Let's go."

The group came out of the room in which they were hiding and continued fighting their way through the swarms of Starmen and Octobots, down a seemingly endless stream of stairs, poles and elevators, deep into the heart of the increasingly dark labyrinth beneath the Giygas base.

Ness's watch read 10:12 PM when they came to what seemed to be some sort of portal. "Listen…" said Poo.

"It's… it's Giygas…" Jeff said as he listened along with his friends to the horrible alien groans. Slowly, they began to pick out a word.

"Neeeeessssss… Neeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss…"

"He knows we're here…" there was no mistaking the fear in Paula's eyes.

There was no mistaking the fear in anyone's eyes, but it was only an instant before their eyes turned to fierce determination. "We must go… for the sake of the Earth, we must go!" Prince Poo said.

Ness slowly lifted up his hands toward the stretching black curtain that was slowly pulsating with evil energy. Suddenly, as his fingers made contact, he was pulled through with frightening speed, without even time to cry out.

"NESS!" Paula screamed. She didn't hesitate for a second; she dove in after him. Jeff and Poo were right behind.

"Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss…"

Ness stood. His friends stood beside him, their weapons drawn. They looked down; they were standing on nothing. All around them was blackness, but their own figures were illuminated with a strange aura, the perfect image of good standing out against a great expanse of evil. Suddenly, in front of them charged at them a quickly and frighteningly growing image of the horrible face of Giygas. "AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEE!" They all screamed as they hit the deck, but the image of Giygas filled the entire void in which they were standing.

"Neeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss…" Giygas's head returned to a similar huge size to what it had been when they fought him in the tunnel of the past. "I'm so sad, Ness…. I…m… h…a…p…p…y…"

Giygas's attack came at them like a freight train, a terrible cold that slammed them and knocked them down; Jeff found himself unable to move.

"Your… world… means… noth…ing… to… me…"

"But it means everything to us!" cried Paula, standing.

Poo swung his Sword of Kings mightily at the image of Giygas that hovered before them. Giygas groaned with pain and flashed a shade of pink. Paula prayed with her whole heart… "Somebody… please help us…"

"There will… be… no… heeeeelp… this… time…"

Ness closed his eyes and concentrated hard. Powerful psychokinetic rays slammed into Giygas, causing the alien mastermind to groan again.

"I… do not… perrrrrriiiish…" Again, Giygas's attack slammed into them, powerful electricity that caused them all to cry out in pain.

"Someone, anyone… please help us…" Paula prayed, sweating in concentration. Suddenly, Giygas began flashing and the void began to shake. Giygas was weakening.

"It's working..!" Jeff cried, moving again and setting off a Multi-Bottle Rocket. It fired through Giygas's form until it could be seen or heard no more.

"Gruuuuuuuuuuuu… Neeeeeeessssssssss… It hurts…. It hurts…" Giygas's attack exploded in a monstrous white flash. Suddenly, Poo keeled over and fell unconscious. "I… I can't move!" Jeff cried.

Ness was crying uncontrollably, unable to see through the blur created by the tears in his eyes. He concentrated on Poo. "Healing! Heal Poo now!"

Poo slowly rose to his feet and closed his eyes, healing himself to full strength.

"Someone… help us… please!" Paula's call echoed, being absorbed by the darkness.

"Your calls… will… not… be… answered… this… time… you… shall… peeeeerish…"

Another wave of shocking cold slammed into the group like a train. They were weakening. Paula continued praying hard, blocking out the pain and Giygas's awful, foreboding groans.

"Your… lives… are… over… here…" The very sound of Giygas's horrible voice caused the group to fear, but they stood strong as the Chosen Ones against Giygas.

"Yes… yes!" Paula cried out, lifting up her head. "I can feel the waves! Giygas shall be slain!"

The void around them began to shake and flash violently. "Gruuuuuuuuuu… noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…" Giygas uttered a long, horrible groan. "If I… die… I'm… taaaaaaakiiiiing… you… with… meeeeeeeee…"

What!" Ness shouted. But before any more could be said, the entire void exploded in a blast of bright, pinkish light.

Ness looked up. He heard the sound of an intercom. "Giygan Self-Destruct mode activated," a robotic voice echoed. The base will self-destruct in fifteen seconds."

"NESS!" Jeff screamed. "This thing's gonna blow up in fifteen seconds! We have to try to escape!"

Ness leaped to his feet; his friends were already up. They were in a small room; desperately, they ran out, looking for any means of escape, but immediately hundreds of Starmen clogged the halls. Poo unleashed a blast of Starstorm, but the Starmen kept coming. Teleport was useless. They were trapped…

Hopeless.

"Oh, my God!" Jeff cried, tears streaming down his face.

"Ten… nine… eight…"

Ness looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard, tearing up. They had defeated Giygas… but it would be their last act, he realized with a sickening wrenching of his stomach. They were going to die.

"Seven… six…"

Poo closed his eyes. "We're still so young…"

"Five… four… three…"

Jeff fell to his knees, the energy completely drained out of him. Paula dropped lightly down to hers as well and closed her eyes tight. "We have accomplished our goal… we have fulfilled our destiny. Giygas… is defeated." Two tears trickled down her face.

"Two… one…"

With a horrible, earth-shattering explosion at nearly twice the sonic-boom noise threshold, the gigantic Giygas Base violently exploded, breaking the entire island of Fiveville into indiscernible pieces and rocking the earth with such force that it damaged buildings in Summers, forty miles away. Debris from the explosion was found as far away as Twoson.

Chapter 12 – Revival of a Leader

"What in the hell was THAT!" Josh shouted as the terrible, vicious sound ripped through, its shock waves creating an earthquake that measured 4.1 on the Richter Scale from the shores of Summers.

"Earthquake…" I said. "But there aren't any faults around here… what happened?"

"Wonder if it has to do with the Giygas base…" Josh said, taking his communicator. "Ness! Do you read me? NESS!"

"I have a bad feeling about this…" said Laura.

"Let's go figure this out…" I said, walking briskly past the other three to where Marshal Dave Bausner was on duty monitoring the area, downstairs in the Control Center room. They fell in line behind me, Bobby, Josh, then Laura.

We hadn't seen any of Craig since he'd left our company and gone to his room two hours before. We had established contact with Ness, and last we heard the Chosen Four were getting very close to Giygas. I was very worried about Craig, who had seemed extremely upset at his previous acts and had gone off by himself. He often excused himself from our company when he wished to be alone and think things out. He did it quite often, but usually when times were hardest he wanted to be in the company of his friends. I wanted to drop in on him, but something I couldn't entirely put my finger on was holding me back. Looking at Josh, it seemed he felt much the same way. Laura, however, seemed more troubled than anyone, but she followed silently behind us as we made our way to Control Center.

"Dave!" I shouted. "What happened here!"

Marshal Bausner rose from his chair and looked at us with a look in his eyes that told us he had some major news, not entirely good. "I have good news and bad news, General."

"Out with it, no playing games," Josh snarled.

"Very well," Bausner said with a slightly sad shrug. "The good news is that that was the shock waves from the Giygas Base. It has been completely destroyed; it, and Fiveville in fact, no longer exists. The bad news…"

"Oh God…" Laura's voice broke. We all knew what the bad news was.

"Ness…" I whispered into the startling stillness.

Marshal Bausner nodded slowly, avoiding Josh's piercing eyes. "They were inside… we lost contact with them for awhile but regained it fifteen seconds before it went off. There was a countdown… as far as we can tell, a massive self-destruct was enabled. They were inside… I don't believe there's any chance that they're alive. Do you want to change their status..?"

"Change their status" meant change them from OA (On Assignment) to KIA/BNR (Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered, as stated earlier). For once, I was glad to no longer be in command of the GDI. "Commander Casner is back now," I said. "I'm no longer in command, so he'll have to do it."

"I tried to contact him, but he said he wasn't prepared to leave his quarters yet," said Bausner.

"Does he know..?" I asked.

"Yes, I told him," Bausner said. "He said he would remain in his quarters until tomorrow, most likely. He sounded like he wasn't feeling well."

"No, he's not…" I said.

"Needs some sense slapped into him if you ask me, but I'll just back off for now…" said Josh. Laura shot him a "how could you?" kind of glance, but it was just the way he was. Craig was in fact one of Josh's closest friends.

At this point there was a long period of silence. We were all dumbfounded and overwhelmed with grief, just staring at the floor. Tears silently streamed down Laura's cheeks. Josh bit his lip so hard it began to bleed.

After what felt like an eternity, I sighed heavily. "So the mission is accomplished… but at what a cost…"

"The worst thing is there's no guarantee Giygas is dead anyway, he mighta escaped right before it went off… just like last time," Josh said.

"We don't think so," said Bausner. "He faded slowly for a few minutes, got very weak, and then disappeared off our detectors this time. Last time they fought him, he just disappeared all of a sudden. We think he died…"

"But are you one hundred percent sure?" asked Josh.

Bausner moved his head from side to side, thinking to himself. "No, we can't be one hundred percent sure, of course not… but we're fairly sure of it."

"Can't disband the GDI then, can we?" said Josh.

"We'll burn that bridge when we get there…" I said. I glanced at my watch and breathed heavily. "It's late, we need to get some sleep…"

"Yeah, SURE I'll sleep, no problem at all, after Craig and now this…" Josh said, shaking his head. "Might as well turn in, anyway. Nothin' I like better than nightmares, after all…" I find it hard to believe he had nightmares, since he wasn't afraid of anything.

"There's still no sense in hanging around awake…" I sighed heavily again. "This has been the longest day of my life, and I'm worn out. I'm going to bed and I recommend you all do the same. Good night." I made my way past them and walked quickly upstairs. On the way to my room, I thought of Craig and hoped that he would be alright after resting some more; I missed the Craig I knew, the one who had been kidnapped by Giygas. We might have gotten his spirit back into his body, but we still didn't seem to have him back. I hoped Josh would be able to sleep, and thought about how humorous it seemed that he, of all people, would be worried about something. Despite all the tough exterior, and for the most part tough interior, the deaths of the Chosen Four hit him hard; I was fairly certain he'd be back in his usual spirits by the morning, though. And then there was Laura, who was trusting us a little more but was obviously as troubled as I was about Craig. She had to rebuild her life, too. And I hoped that Ness, Paula, Jeff and Prince Poo, the heroes who had saved the world twice now, would be able to rest in peace. The war was over.

Craig rose his head from his desk at the sound of his door buzzer. "Who is it? I really don't feel like doing anything right now…"

"Um… Craig? You said once to call you Craig…"

He raised his eyebrows and then frowned. "Laura? Is that you?"

"Yes…" she said. "Um, can I come in and talk to you?"

There was a long pause as Craig shut his eyes. He remembered that flash when he was in Giygas's robotic armor; poised to kill Bobby, he had hesitated and returned to consciousness briefly at the sight of Laura. Why? Finally, he looked up at the door and hit the button to open it. "Sure, I told you the day before they took me that I would talk to you again…" He sighed as she entered the room timidly and slowly made her way to a chair in front of Craig's desk. From behind the desk, he watched her sit. Craig was leaning forward with his elbows on his desk, his arms crossed. "What's on your mind?" he said, trying unsuccessfully not to sound weary.

"Well, I…" she hesitated. "I mean, I was just wondering if you're alright…" she was staring down at the front of his desk as she said the words.

Craig sighed heavily and looked up from the desktop. "I don't know… what I've done is so horrible… how could I ever be forgiven?"

"That's not true! You were under control…" Laura cut in. "It wasn't your fault, Craig… the only thing that's hurting us is how you're being… this way…"

Craig closed his eyes and sighed again. "I don't know, Laura… I presume you're aware of what happened to Ness and his friends?"

Laura nodded.

"All dead… yes, they saved the world… but did it really have to come out this way? If I hadn't been attacking you…"

Laura rose and gazed out the window of the office; it was a spectacular view of the Summers beach, late at night. After the storm earlier that day, it was now a crystal-clear night, and the stars twinkled and reflected off the calm ocean.

Craig watched as she walked slowly to the window. "Why… why did you come here? I mean, to my office just now?"

"I just wanted you to be your old self again…" she said. "I didn't know you very well, but… when you talked to me, I liked it… I liked you then. I just… I just want everything to be normal again!" A small tear rolled down her left cheek as she stammered.

Craig rose and stood looking out the same window, keeping a five foot or so distance from Laura to her right. "The GDI's intent was always to save lives… and now look… General Manolo is dead… Ness, Paula, Jeff, Poo… all dead… and I was about to… to…" he shut his eyes and winced hard, as if in terrible pain, but he finished his sentence. "…I was about to kill the four of you, my only true friends… what have I done? I'm supposed to be the leader of the GDI…"

"But you've done so well!" cried Laura, raising her voice for the first time since she'd arrived with the GDI. "You HAVE saved so many lives…" she broke down into tears as she continued with her sentence, "… all of my friends… my home… Giygas destroyed them all… but you… the GDI have beaten him! He can't hurt me like this anymore…" The tears continued to flow; she was overwhelmed by the reality of her own situation and the seeming futility of making Craig see the light.

But, slowly and suddenly at the same time, Craig saw it. He looked at this girl that stood before him… a pretty young woman, in reality, who had lost everything she had at the hands of Giygas… a young woman with nothing left. He realized the foolishness of his own self-pity in that moment, watching the tears stream down her face… he wanted more than anything to stop her pain. And he realized then why her weeping had awakened and frozen him in the Giygas base, saving Bobby's life and probably the lives of us his other friends.

After a few moments of pondering this realization, he spoke with wide open eyes. "I… I'm sorry…" he said lowly, walking slowly near her. "I have no right to complain… you've lost everything and you're still here… I can't believe I could be so self-centered like that, Laura. I'm sorry." He heaved a heavy sigh and repeated himself. "You're right, and I'm sorry."

She looked up at him through her tears, now no more than a foot away. "It's you, isn't it, Craig..?"

Craig nodded. "Yes, it's me… Craig Casner, commander of the Giygas Defense Initiative." He said it with resolve, sounding like his old self for the first time since he'd been rescued. He lowered his voice. "Laura, I'm so sorry for what's happened to you… I wish I could change…"

He placed a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but then changed his mind and wrapped both arms around her and closed his eyes as she buried her face in his chest. Somewhere amongst the stillness and the tears flowing from both their eyes, he heard and then echoed her whispered words. "Thank you…"