Kaede sat patiently in the back of the Pelican Simmons found and Grif was somehow able to fly. Simmons and Tucker sat on either sides of her.
"Ladies and gentlemen this is your co-pilot speaking. We'll be flying at altitudes of varying heights as we struggle desperately with the controls and then we will be slamming into the ground at high velocity. We'll be slightly ahead of schedule now if you'll please direct your attention to Caboose. He'll demonstrate the safety features of our D77H TCI drop ship." Sarge says over some speaker from the front.
"Oh boy, here we go." Kaede smiles. Although slightly afraid of crashing, she was excited for upcoming comedy fest that was sure to occur.
"Hello all blue vs red airlines come equipped with three emergency exits which are welded shut for your safety reasons." Caboose announces.
"Helpful." Kaede quips.
"Please keep your hands inside the vehicles at all times. No flash photography and please take crying babies to the lobby." Caboose continues. "In the event of a water landing. Start swimming."
"Uh, what if some of us aren't very good swimmers?" Simmons asks.
"Then figure something out." Caboose responds. "In the event of a fire landing. Please burn."
"I guess thats accurate." Tucker retorts.
"If we have an air landing, that means we are still flying." Caboose continues. Kaede bursts out laughing at this piece of "information". "And if we experience a snow landing, everyone should fall outside the vehicle while it slides across a big icy plane, and then does this tilty teetering thing on the edge of a cliff before it tumbles into the ocean below. That almost never happens though."
"Do we at least get any peanuts?" Simmons asks, already bored.
"No we have a community jar of peanut butter that you can stick your finger in and lick." Caboose answers.
"What the fuck?" Tucker and Kaede both say at once.
"Gross how about a drink?" Simmons suggests.
"Oh that would be great, and while you're getting one would you please get something for me." Caboose asks.
"Uhh this is the co-pilot again. Yep we're crashin' yaaaaoooo!" Sarge exclaims.
"We want to thank you for crashing with blue vs red airlines. We know you have a choice when it comes to crashing. We hope you consider us for all your future crashing needs." Caboose says.
Simmons begins to scream and run around in the middle of Caboose talking.
"Panic panic panic panic panic panic!" Simmons screams.
"Terror in the sky! Terror in the sky!" Sarge exclaims.
"Oh man, this is gonna suck!" Tucker adds. Kaede and Tucker tighten their safety harnesses as Simmons continues to panic. Eventually, Kaede gets ahold of him with her invisible arms to steady him. It is then that they feel they've hit soldier ground and are sliding on it. Despite the pain of being jerked around so harshly, Kaede put all her concentration into keeping her arms materialized so Simmons wouldn't get hurt. Eventually, they come to a stop.
After the group recovers, they quickly exit the downed Pelican.
"Grif! Look what you did to my ship!" Sarge complains.
"Eh, fuck it, its a rental." Grif dismissively says.
"Eh, good point. Fuck it." Sarge agrees before kicking the Pelican, causing it to topple over the edge that it was apparently hanging on, and into the freezing ocean. Church approaches the group with a black and yellow soldier behind him.
"Church!" Kaede exclaims. Ecstatic that Church is safe.
"Has anybody seen Tex?" Church asks.
"I'm sorry, Epsilon. The Meta captured her inside of the memory unit." The black and yellow soldier says.
"There it is!" Church exclaims. He rushes over to a strange black device with slow pulsing red lights. The others slowly follow behind him.
"Epsilon, there's nothing we can do. She's stuck in there." The soldier says
"So let her out!" Church exclaims.
"We rigged it so it's one way. We didn't want you to escape again."
"Well, unrig it!" Church demands.
"I need to get it to a lab. Somewhere with tools."
"Simmons?" Church prompts.
"Hey, he's the expert. I don't know what I can do to help." Simmons responds.
"Who's he?" Kaede whispers to Grif.
"Thats Agent Washington. He betrayed us but I guess we're cool with him now." Grif explains.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna leave that alone." Kaede says. "Fuck it."
"Fuck it." Grif agrees, not explaining things further.
"We should try something." Simmons says.
"If I let her out, you have to come with me." Washington says to Church
"Yes, fine, just get her out!" Church frustratedly agrees.
"Caboose, Tucker, Kaede, get in the base. See if you can find some tools" Washington orders them.
"Okay!" Caboose exclaims.
"Alright, we'll be right back." Tucker says. The three take off towards the nearby base in the snow. They find what they think is a workshop inside and begin scavenging around. Unfortunately, all they have is junk. "Doesn't anyone keep some fucking tools around here!?" Tucker exclaims. Kaede doubles her search efforts as she frantically throws junk around in an attempt to look under it or get to some boxes buried under said junk.
True, she didn't like Tex, but Church was family to her and he loved Tex (Kaede really couldn't tell you why, though) and she didn't want to see him sad over losing someone really important to him. Just like her and-. Kaede suddenly stops. 'I'm still thinking about him after all this time.' She thinks. She shakes her head and gets determined again. 'I have to move on. I've either gone forward in time or to another universe. I don't think I'll see Kouta ever again.' Nevertheless, the thought brought sadness to her very core. How can she forget HIM?
The sound of distant explosions brought her out of her thoughts.
"Oh, what now." Tucker exasperatedly asks. The three along with the Reds approach just as Church was blown towards them.
"What happened?" Sarge asks.
"The Meta... there…" Church groans. The group see Washington fighting the Meta, not gaining any ground on his foe.
"And I was afraid we wouldn't get to kick a little ass today! Come on, fellas!" Sarge says before leading the charge. Everyone minus Caboose and Church follow him. The battle continues as the group approach, just as Washington is blown out of commission, the group gets into attack range and rains hell fire from their guns (Rocket launcher in Simmons case [Also, Kaede got ammo for her pistol]) and all the grenades they had. "Attack!" Sarge yells.
"Get him!" Simmons adds.
"We're gonna fucking die!" Grif exclaims.
"Shut up!" Kaede yells. However, the Meta raises some kind of bubble shield to block their attacks. Kaede then realizes it might have been better to ask about what this guy could do before engaging him, but they had no time! The Meta then leaps out through an opening at the top and fires at Grif and Tucker who quickly roll out of the way. Simmons then raises his rocket launcher up and fires at the Meta.
"Fire in the hole!" Simmons exclaims as he fires. The Meta flips over the rocket and crashes down in front of Simmons, slicing his launcher in half. With his weapons blade. Now that it was up close, Kaede realized she had never seen his weapon before. Up close. Kaede smirked realizing he was in striking distance. She threw out an invisible arm aimed at his neck, for a lethal strike this time. Her attack hit true, but the Meta wasn't decapitated like Kaede thought he would be. Instead, he was encompassed in some sort of yellow aura he kicked her away to only then block a strike from Tucker.
"What! I put an invisible arm straight to his neck and he didn't even flinch!" Kaede exclaims.
"It must be the Meta's over shields. They're probably deflecting your blows now that they're active again!" Simmons exclaims before the two are hit with a flying Sarge. Kaede quickly gets up and charges at the Meta. As the most capable of the group, she had to keep him busy while the others either thought up a strategy against this guy, or they decided to escape.
As she runs towards the fight, Tucker stabs him in the chest, going through his over shields. Maybe if she attacked him enough, they would fail and go down? Like in games. Just as Tucker is beaten down, Kaede arrives and delivers a heavy strike with all for of her arms, causing the shield to flare up again and actually knock him back a little. With the power she put behind her attack, he should have been thrown a far ways away! Just how strong was he!?
The Meta looks at Kaede and lets out a growl before charging at the girl with murderous intent. He attempts to tackle her, but Kaede blocks him with her arms. While his attack is foiled, Kaede is still pushed back and has to continue to give all her effort to keep her shield up. Okay, so attack him head on is foolish, maybe a more evasive strategy would work? Meta attempts a right punch but Kaede steps to side while pushing his fist away with an invisible hand, creating an opening. She uses this to use her remaining arms to strike at Meta as much as she can prompting the shield to come back up.
As soon as the Meta recovers, she uses her arms to put some distance between the two. As she states down her opponent, she notices he is cackling with electricity. Did she do it? Is the shield down? Then, the Metas just gone.
"Huh?" Kaede says. She then feels someone grab her right arm. She turns around just in time to get a glimpse of the Meta before she is picked up by said arm and thrown in an arc over the Meta and into the ground. She uses her arms to shield her from the impact, but that doesn't follow the sickening snap coming from the arm he grabbed and the large amounts of pain that followed.
Kaede screams in pain as she clutched her broken arm. She kept trying to summon her arms to push him away but they wouldn't come out. A shotgun blast rings through the area as the Meta's shields once again flare up.
"Come here, you big son of a bitch!" She heres Sarge yell. She watches as Sarge and Meta slowly approach each other, Sarge firing his shot gun and Meta just eating it up. She focuses on getting up, which is a challenge all in itself, and keeps trying to bring her invisible arms out. When she finally does get up, she is greeted to the sight of the Meta strangling Sarge.
"Hey Grif! I've lost my shotgun! What am I going to do without my shotgun? Shotgun, dammit!" Sarge yells out. She then looks to see Sarge attach one of a warthogs tow hooks to the Meta's chest. Seeing what he was doing, Kaede quickly makes her way towards the broken warthog (as quick as someone in pain from a broken arm can).
"Augh... Ahh... Hey Meta… Settle a bet, would you? Does that thing kind of look like a big cat to you?" Sarge asks. Kaede then joins Grif and Simmons in pushing the warthog of the cliff the Pelican just went over. She had to push with her back considering she had only one functional arm in this instance, but she still helped get the warthog over the side. Sarge grabs the memory unit from Meta before the line tightens and begins to pull him down too. He drops Sarge as he is drug down, roaring with fury. As he nears the edge, he catches hold of Grif leg to take him down with him.
Through the pain, Kaede manages to summon and arm and sever the Meta's hand that was holding Grif. The Meta lets out a roar of pain as blood pumps out of his stump. 'That was pay back for my arm.' Kaede thinks as Meta is finally taken over the edge, belting one last roar before plummeting down into the freezing ocean.
With the adrenaline wearing off, Kaede collapses on her back as the pain and the cold come back to her.
"Kaede!" Simmons exclaims.
"Shit, I think her arm's broken." Grif says.
"Hold on Kaede, we'll get you help." Simmons assures.
"It hurts. Just let me die." Kaede moans, trying to dispel the tension. Trying being the keyword.
"Don't give us that! We'll get doc!" Simmons exclaims.
"Doc?" Kaede questions. "Oh yeah... him."
"Yeah, I also forgot he was here." Grif adds.
A.N. And thats The Recollection trilogy! Except for this, its more like Recollection duology (probably misspelt that.) Anyway, I needed to say I'm putting this fic on a small hiatus so I can plan on how season 10 and beyond are gonna go. (Already have a chapter detailing season 9 written. I write one chapter ahead for this fic.) If anyone has any suggestions on what Kaede and the Reds and Blues should do whist Carolina is terrorizing them, I would sure like to know.