Well um, I guess I found time sooner than I expected xD! An unexpected surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! An actual update! YAASSSS! Now mind you, this chapter is a bit shorter than the previous ones but at least I'm back in the swing of things, right? Plus I've been wanting to get to this part ever since I started this whole thing, so I got the feeling if everything goes well, I'll be updating just a bit more frequently. We'll see what happens, though.
For now, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Trevor's back babeh!
Trevor's P.O.V., three months later:
It all went so well after that.
Three months. Three whole months of me finally doing what I love: sniping and defending our home from bloons. I still wasn't a hero, but at least I was having fun, which meant I kept my promise to Mason. If only he was here to see me today…
My contribution was recognized well. The number of deaths caused by bloons getting past us was significantly decreased ever since I participated. Every single chance I had, I tried to learn something from an invasion to apply it to the next one, even suggesting on which monkeys to bring in what order or discovering a new material to create more effective projectiles.
Whenever we weren't fending off invasions, we did all KINDS of other things. Training and target practice were the activities we did the most. Apart from that, I would mostly just hang out with the team, mostly Frank. During these three months, he apparently found an interest for the electric guitar, and practiced every time he could. I would just spend the rest of my time tinkering and modifying weapons just for the fun of it, even if I wasn't gonna use them professionally. Aura and Argent were my favorite creations, so naturally I always kept them as secondary weapons. This also applied to ammo as well.
I once decided to take the remnants of a popped bloon to study it even more and found a way to use its biology to create a special bioweapon-like projectile. Dr. Monkey was fascinated by it, did some testing, and eventually crafted a bullet with about the same caliber as a .50 BMG round. It had the ability to strip camo, regrow, and fortification all at the same time, while also making a MOAB-class bloon's children one level lower. Unfortunately, though, it took some really complicated handiwork even I couldn't master with my current skills, so mass-producing them was out of the question. We used them only for emergencies.
Of course, work wasn't without its bad times. I'm more than obviously not perfect, and some mistakes I made earned me some scoldings. Just like a kid getting scolded, though, I would feel afraid, sometimes even cry but then realize it was for the better. It improved my performance significantly in the long run. Sam and his henchmen were also a pain in the butt, with constant pranks getting me countless times. I just focused on the good times, though, and usually finished the day off by spending the night video gaming or watching anime with Frank.
Life was good, and little did I know, it was about to be a trillion times better.
…
One day, during training, we were called to room 2A by General Brickell herself. She usually doesn't tell us anything except if it's about recruiting someone new or telling us something extremely important, so we were thinking all sorts of things. Striker Jones didn't come because he needed to supervise the rest during training. Once she, Frank, Summer, Wendy, and me were all in the room, however, she began.
"Squad 2A, someone new is coming to your team. And this time, it could be a familiar face," she said.
We just looked at each other for a moment, and when Brickell turned her head to signal the recruit to come inside, it did so. Then I noticed it was a girl. She looked about the same age as us, in her late teens. She wore blue overalls with red wristbands and a headband, red and white socks, and purple sneakers. Her weapon was what looked to be a flamethrower. But what really caught my attention was her hair. It was long and had the shape and color of a flame. All of this made me conclude that she specialized in fire attacks, most probably.
"Everyone, this is Gwendolin Jane," said Brickell. Then Frank took a step forward.
"Wait a minute, the Gwendolin?" he said.
Gwendolin didn't stop smiling. "Yup," she said.
"The Queen of Fire? The Pyromaniac?" said Frank getting more and more excited.
"Uh-huh. That's me!"
Then Frank spoke as fast as a race car, "The same Gwendolin Jane that incinerated the lead off about 200 lead bloons and vaporized all the others, making her one of the best soldiers in history who was so close to becoming a hero!?"
"The one and only," Brickell said with a smirk.
That settled it. An immense grin came on Frank's face, followed by him moving so fast all over the place like an ecstatic cartoon character. When he finally calmed down a bit, he ran up to Gwendolin and shook her hand extremely fast. Gwendolin complied with a nervous laugh.
"I'm such a huge fan! I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it on the Banana Weekly, but now you're joining our squad? Amazing!" said Frank while still talking like Ape-inem. "OH! OH! OH! Can I ask for your autograph? Could you sign my dartling gun!?"
"Oh come on! I'm not that famous," Gwendolin said modestly. "But…if you insist." She then took out a pen and signed her full name on one of the barrels in Frank's dartling gun. After some more fanboying, Brickell exited the room laughing to leave us to talk. All the while I didn't stop staring at her, but strangely, she didn't seem to notice.
"Welp, we know who you are now, so it's time for us to make the introductions! My name is Frank Davis," he said. Then he walked to the rest to present them. "This is Summer Lee, the helicopter pilot, and Wendy Wilson, a monkey ace."
"Nice to meet you all. I'm sure we will get along just fine!" Gwendolin replied.
"And right here," said Frank as he approached me, "is my best friend…and probably the best soldier you'll ever see, Trevor Castle!" He then suddenly put his arm around my back, which of course made me jump back.
"I THOUGHT WE AGREED NO TOUCHING!" I yelled. Frank nervously put his hands up.
"Sorry! Sorry, I forgot, won't happen again," said Frank with a nervous chuckle.
"It better not! The first time we hung out I made it very clear! No touching! Don't change my routine! Have patience! And above all, no touching! Yes we are friends, but not that close! I made it very clear! I did! I did," I repeated while pacing across the room. I didn't really care about the impression I was leaving, I was too disturbed at that moment.
"Please forgive him," Frank told Gwendolin. "He's autistic. He's just different, not a bad guy, so pretty please forgive him!"
"I don't see a problem with that," Gwendolin said calmly. I was a lot calmer by that time, staying put. She then slowly approached me. My hands never left each other, but I was able to gently raise my head.
"Trevor, right? I'm Gwendolin. Pleasure to meet you," she said as she stuck out her hand. "But…you don't have to if you want."
However, before she could lower it, I slowly and shakily raised mine, and was only able to move her hand with my fingers. She smiled as I did it, making me feel…safe?
"Whoa, that's sweaty," she laughed. "Don't worry. I may look like it, but I don't bite in real life. Trust me, we'll have a good time."
Right then, we were called to the In The Loop map. I remembered what it looked like while we were getting our weapons. It was a field full of an autumn color, filled with leaves. The track had three loops, one of which had a pond inside it. Then, when I was the one to exit the room last, I noticed Gwendolin was right. For whatever reason, my hands were extremely sweaty. I just passed it off as the nervous fit and wiped them on my pants, running to fight off the invasion.
…
The invasion was pretty normal. A level 3. Not too intense, but also not child's play. I could handle them well. As usual, I climbed the tree to get above Frank and shoot down every single bloon I saw. More bloons meant more monkeys, upgrades, you get the idea. However, there was one point where I saw Gwendolin inside my scope. Taking extra care not to aim at her, I saw her through it.
She was good at this. Really good. She was far away from us, in the entrance point, doing her best to incinerate every bloon that she saw. Occassionally she would throw bottles of molotov cocktail on the track to erect a wall of fire. Honestly, adding more troops to our defense seemed unnecessary from how well she was doing, and, I didn't know what it was but, for whatever reason I couldn't look away. I've never seen someone do such a magnificent job defending.
"Trevor? Trevor!? TREVOR!" Frank shouted beneath me. I was startled a bit and shook my head rapidly, but I was able to keep my balance to not fall off the tree. "You okay, dude? I haven't heard you shoot at all!"
"Right, right, sorry!" I said, and I went back to shooting. The invasion was handled normally, although it was rather quicker than previous ones, most likely because the bloons were incinerated so rapidly. As it ended, I couldn't help but notice everyone was looking at Gwendolin as she was heading back to our room. Was it because of her fire prowess? But right as I was going to think about reasons for the constant staring, Frank started talking to me.
"You okay bro? You stopped sniping for quite a few minutes," he said. "You're lucky the sound of all our weapons and powers drown out the sound of your shots, otherwise Jones would've noticed! But the point is, this almost never happens to you. Did something happen?"
"I…I don't know to be honest," I said after a pause. "I just saw Gwendolin use her fire to…pretty much get rid of every single bloon she could see. The stories in the Banana Weekly seemed far-fetched, but…they are true after all. And for whatever reason, I just, couldn't look away."
Frank rubbed his chin as he thought for a moment, but then I could've sworn I saw him do a small, brief chuckle.
"What is it?" I asked.
"What? Oh no, nothing, don't worry about it. C'mon, we should get going to room 2A!" he replied. He picked up his dartling gun and ran off, with me right behind him.
One thing is certain, I am quite curious as to how things will turn out with this Gwendolin girl. She doesn't look like any other recruit, that's for sure.
Like I said, this chapter is a lot shorter than the previous ones, mainly because I found this file in my folder where I store the chapters I'm writing, and when I opened it it was unfinished, so I wanted to give it the ending it needed. That and I was away for a long while, hehe. I thought it would take me much longer to upload the next chapter, but then again, my estimations as well as my updates are erratic as fuck, so I'm really sorry that some of you guys are sometimes kept in suspense for so long.
On the bright side, though, I finally started the next story arc for this fic! This was the point I wanted to get to ever since I wrote the first word in this story, and I'm finally glad I made it. I'm just praying I'll make enough time to get back in the swing of things. My writing skills may be a little rusty from my long absence, but hey, practice makes perfect, right?
One more thing, I won't say what it is, but I tried so incredibly hard with an element in this chapter to make it not blatantly obvious or given away completely. I feel like I failed, though, xD! If you know what I'm talking about then congratulations, you saw through my extremely obvious plan! If not, though, I'm lucky I was able to hide this element well enough, haha.
With all that out of the way, I'll see you all in the next chapter (hopefully, very hopefully, very soon), and have yourselves a good one! In the words of a character from Independence Day, who's name I don't remember:
"HELLOOOO BOOOOYYYYYYSSSS! I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!"