Now for the arc you've all been waiting for (And the one I was most eager to write)...
By the time the rest of the Reds, Blues, and ex-freelancerscaught up with Caboose and Nyu, they had already crossed the town to the other side. Luckily, Carolina's mongoose has transported with them so it made it less difficult... for some of them.
"Damn it Nyu! You know not to go running off!" Tucker exclaims. Nyu turns around to see most of the crew is panting after having run after her.
"Nyuuuu." Nyu whimpers, feeling bad that she made them feel tired.
"What about Caboose?" Carolina questions.
"He's not smart enough to comprehend not running off. He abandoned his post one day in Blood Gulch to chase after and interesting butterfly." Church answers for her. Nyu then thought of ways she could cheer them up. She could have them rub her chest. That always makes her feel good, though the last few times she tried to cheer someone up that way, it only seemed to make them uncomfortable. Maybe she could try rubbing their chests instead! That would make them feel good then! But they didn't have the same chest she did except that new person who was coloured like Tucker, but she didn't see how she could touch those while she was wearing her armour.
"So.. what now? Can't we just use the ball to teleport back?" Wash questions.
"Yeah, it worked last time. Donut where is it?" Tucker asks.
"I never picked it up the first time I dropped it." Donut answers.
"Wow. Deja-vu." Church mutters.
"So we are stuck 500 years in the past, or in an alternate reality?" Carolina questions.
"Seems that way." Simmons says.
"Not stuck. If Carolina's mongoose got transported here, the ball must have as well." Wash says.
"It probably would have remained somewhere on the beach then." Carolina realizes. "We need to get there before someone finds it and accidentally sends themselves to our time."
"Nyu!" Nyu agrees, ready to race though the city again.
"Wait, Nyu! Don't!" Church cries out.
"Nyu takes off running before she trips on something and lands face first on the ground. Luckily, she didn't get very far.
"At least she'll be easier to manage when Kaede wakes up now." Simmons says.
"You guys stay here." Carolina says getting on her mongoose. "I'll make a grab for the orb." However, Carolina's mongoose fails to start. "What? This was working just fine a minute ago?"
"Oh... um... yeah- abo- about that. Um, you ran out of, um, gas. And we all agree that it was Donut's fault." Caboose says.
"Whats!" Donut cries incredulously.
"And uh... maybe Tucker had a little something to do with it." Caboose adds.
"At least he hasn't killed someone with it." Church brings up. Kaede is then brought to her feet.
"Ugh, what happened?" She groans.
"I can field this one!" Donut volunteers.
"No!" Everyone but the freelancers, Kaede, and Caboose shout.
"Damn it. Where are we?" Kaede asks.
"Uh... I dunno how to tell you this Kaede but... welcome home." Tucker says Kaede looks around.
"This isn't Blood Gulch?" She questions.
"He means before that." Sarge clarifies.
"You mean..." Kaede's breath catches.
"Yeah. Turns out Donut had on of those special grenades." Tucker explains.
"That he lost." Carolina reminds them. "One that we need to find... right now."
"Yeah. We'll talk about losing a valuable piece of technology later, pinky pants." Sarge says to a certain someone who visibly deflates.
"Is.. is it a one time thing after we use it?" Kaede asks.
"I dunno. The last one we had broke." Church says, looking at Tucker.
"Can this wait later? We need to retrieve it." Carolina urges.
"Why the rush? We transported here so it should be around here somewhere." Kaede says.
"Actually, we landed on a beach." Simmons informs her. "We just had to chase Nyu and Caboose across town before we did anything."
"Ohhhh- I'm so-"
"Don't apologize for your other, lets just get moving." Tucker interrupts her. The group then walk, quickly as they can, back to the beach. During their walk, they attract the attention of Kamakura's residents who stop their activities to gaze at the strange soldiers. Some of the soldiers either felt uncomfortable or indifferent to this.
"We better be more discrete when moving about this city." Carolina says to Wash.
"Yeah. Move through the shadows. This armour attracts to much attention." He agrees.
"Can we hurry it up?" Kaede asks, hidden in the troop. As the only one who didn't have armour, this made it all the more embarrassing as onlookers could easily see her face along with the fact that she stood out more being the odd one out of the group.
"Hey, your other made us run through here. You're not making us repeat that." Grif snaps at her.
"Actually, maybe we should." Sarge says. "Make Grif burn some calories for once in his life."
"No running, It'll only attract even more attention if we start booking it." Wash says.
"I know! We should just say we are dressing up for Halo." Caboose suggests.
"What?" Simmons questions.
"Doesn't matter we're almost there." Carolina assures them.
"Gasp! What is that!" Caboose exclaims before taking off.
"Damn it. I should have seen this coming." Church groans.
"You guys go after him. I'll continue on to search the beach." Kaede says. The BGC run after him.
"Alone?" Wash exclaims.
"I have my invisible arms to help me. Besides, I'm less of an eyesore around here. I'd be surprised if the police aren't notified of strange armoured people running around." Kaede explains.
"After we catch Caboose, we could find a more secluded spot that we could hole up in while we wait for Kaede. She can meet us there and we can all transport back without any onlookers." Carolina agrees.
"Okay. We'll do that. After awhile, either myself or Carolina will go out to bring you to the spot you find." Wash says.
"Okay. Good luck." Kaede says.
"You too." Wash says, the two freelancers then take off after the BGC. Kaede breathes a sigh of relief.
"Finally. I can travel around with out being stared at." She says as she reflexively pats her head to be sure her bow is on. "To the beach! After that I can probably go sight seeing. Maybe even run into Kou- Wait, Kouta said he lived elsewhere. Hokkaido was it? Maybe some day I can come back to this time... dimension? And visit him. I hope he still remembers me." Kaede then realizes something. "Grif was right. Simmons and I do talk to ourselves a lot. Well, starting from now, I'll stop doing that. That was the last one... okay-"
"Caboose, its just a dog! Stop fucking running!" Tucker yells as the others chase him.
"Keep going! Some of us need to get back into shape!" Sarge yells before looking to the heavily panting Grif. "Although I use the loosest possible definition of get back into."
"Agh. Fuck you." Grif gets out.
"What was that, private?" Sarge asks.
"Fuck you, sir." Grif corrects himself.
"Thats better." Sarge says. With that, the soldiers arrive on the beach, though it looks like this section was being used as a storage area.
"He made us run after a dog only for us to end up where we needed to go?" Donut questions.
"Not quite. But I gather this isn't far from where we need to be." Wash says, he and Carolina finally catching up. The dog enters a certain section to which Caboose follows.
"There you are Wanta." A girl with short, brown hair and wearing a sweater says as the dog leaps into her arms.
"Hello." Caboose greets.
"Ahh!" The girl leaps back, startled.
"My name is Michael J. Caboose!" Caboose continues, oblivious to the girls slight fear and discomfort.
"H-hi. I... I'm Mayu." The girl, Mayu introduces. The rest then join in,
"Caboose what did you-" Tucker stops, noticing the girl. "Oh. Sorry about him. He's not the brightest around." He apologizes to her.
"Thats a bit of an understatement." Wash quietly mutters.
"Oh- n-n-no. Its fine." The girl meekly says.
"So... what's your dogs name?" Caboose asks. "He is cute." Wanta barks a happy bark in reply.
"Caboose, I think this girl wants to be left alone." Wash says to him. "We should probably go."
"Oh, oh! Sorry." Caboose then turns to Mayu. "Sorry Mayu! I hole we meet again!" He exclaims. before casually walking out.
"Again, we're so sorry for him." Wash says to the nervous girl.
"I-its no problem. Really." Mayu assures. The Reds and Blues and Freelancer then leave the girl to her lonesome.
"I think that girl is homeless." Church says.
"What makes you say that?" Simmons asks.
"She's awfully dirty, like she couldn't take a shower or bath in awhile. Also, why would she be hanging out in some beach storage area alone?" He explains.
"Huh. I wish there was some way to help her." Tucker sighs.
Kaede recognized the familiar path to the beach. She was getting close. Back when she lived in the orphanage, she went here to look out to the ocean occasionally. Usually if there weren't many people around. She then finally arrived and went down the steps that took her to the sand. She then used her invisible arms to comb through the sand, looking for the ball. As she does this, she takes a look to the ocean to see two people already looking out to it. A man with black hair and a girl with short brown hair.
Her slight gasp of surprise of seeing others there catches their attention, turning them towards her. She lets out another gasp, more audible than the last at seeing their faces, HIS face.
"K-Kouta?" She ventures. Full attention on the boy.
"K-Kaede?!" Kouta exclaims. He did remember her! After all this time.
The girl looks frantically at the two, face twisted in an expression of surprise. "Huh!?" She exclaims. "Whats going on? Kouta, who is this girl!?"