This chapter (sadly) finishes out what I have written for this story! So after this the update schedule will be, "Whenever I get it finished." ...I'm just going to apologize in advance. I'm pretty busy, so my update schedule is going to be... chaotic. To put it lightly.
I hope you enjoy this! :D
the cycle starts again
Lady Cravenheart
6.
It takes only a glance for the monkeys to step out of Charlie's way; parting like the ocean around a rock. They close ranks once she's through. Antauri and Nova take the lead; Sprx by himself in the center; and Gibson and Otto bringing the rear.
Sprx watches Charlie's back. Her shoulders are rigid under her t-shirt, and she clenches and unclenches her fists at her sides. He doesn't know where she's going. He almost opens his mouth to ask.
She enters the lift, and barely gives them enough time to enter before she's pressing a button and they're whooshing upward.
Not the hangar, then.
This ride is a lot shorter than their last one; the platform shudders to a stop down another hallway. Like the other, this one is all plain white walls; silvery flooring and ceiling; and electronic doors with blinking keypads. It's all hospital sterile—like somethin' out of a horror vid.
Sprx shudders a bit. Shuggazoom, he hates those things.
Charlie stops at one of the doors and roughly punches in a code. She steps through.
It's… an apartment.
Sprx pauses in the threshold. The living room is covered in plush carpeting. There's a vid-screen on the wall, with a ceiling-high movie rack beside it. A few systems blink on below the screen, and he can see vidgame controllers sitting on the top.
That's all he gets before Gibson is pushing him inside. He throws a glare over his shoulder, and smirks in satisfaction when he finds Gibson pausing in shock as well.
Serves him right.
He turns back around and takes in the comfortable looking, well-worn couch; the mis-matched chairs; the haphazardly tossed decorative pillows. There's a pile of throw blankets on a shelf below a coffee table. The walls are lined with pictures.
His breath catches. Among pictures of Charlie, with a gap-toothed smile and black pigtails, are pictures of Chiro. Never did grow very broad—he was always such a scrawny thing, no matter how many plates of food Otto shoved in front of him—and he certainly didn't get any tanner. But he filled out. Less babyfaced; with a bit of scruff. His eyes are darker, his smile grimmer. Except when he's with Charlie. He looks—less burdened, then. Smiling down at Charlie like she's the only light in his life.
Sprx's chest squeezes.
He shakes himself. He strides forward, abandoning his team to look at pictures. He walks down the hall; peers in one room.
Nope. Bathroom.
Peers in another.
There she is.
Charlie's got a duffel bag tossed on her back; zippered maw wide open as she feeds it clothes. She's still furious, but there's a sort of tight precision to her movements. Each item she pulls form her drawers has been rolled tightly, or folded to take up as little room as possible.
Sprx looks at her room. Purple blankets and lavender pillowcases. Old newspaper print-outs from the days of the Hyper Force. A few of Captain Shuggazoom's exploits. A couple'a movie posters, but mostly posters of various bands. A few of them are signed. And copious amounts of pictures; taped to the wall. Only a handful are framed, and it's those that Sprx takes the closest look at.
One is of a couple. A woman with blonde hair and blue, blue eyes—like Charlie's. A man with black hair and dark eyes, with a sort of reckless smile. Both of them are wearing flight suits; arms tucked around each other. They're surrounded by a crew. Sprx squints. He barely catches the ship name—"SS Ingenuity." It's not a model he recognizes.
He moves on to the next picture.
Chiro's in this one, looking wearied but not haggard. He's got scruff, a little darker than the other pictures. His mouth is quirked in a half smile, and his cheek is smeared with cake. Cake attached to a small, pudgy smile as Charlie grins at the camera, pigtails askew. A cake in the background reads '5'.
"I've known Chiro since I was four."
Sprx's chest squeezes again and he turns away. He doesn't look at the other pictures.
Charlie's got a second duffle out now. The other one is zipped and swollen. She's carefully tucking electronics into one pocket of the new, smaller duffle; weapons in the other.
Sprx dares to speak. "Y'know, we've got weapons on the Super Robot."
Charlie stops. Pauses. "…what do you mean?"
"I mean that you don't have to pack those, if you don't want to," Sprx says, squinting suspiciously. What'd she think he meant?
Charlie turns to him, and her brow is furrowed. "You guys aren't… staying here?"
Sprx scoffs. "With these freaks? They'd probably sacrifice Antauri!" And angry as he is, Sprx isn't about to let them do that. "Or maybe all of us."
Charlie huffs. It sounds amused. "Point. I guess… I didn't think you'd take me with you."
Sprx rolls his eyes. "Now you're bein' ridiculous," he says. "You woke us up. So you're stuck with us."
Charlie looks down at the gun in her hands. She tucks it into the pouch. "That changes things a bit. But I'm still bringing my weapons."
"What's it change?"
"…I was maybe kind of planning to steal a cruiser?"
Sprx presses a palm to his eye. "Seriously?"
"Well, I mean, I thought you guys were gonna stay and try to talk sense into… them! Or, I don't know, leave and start a resistance of your own! Angry or not, you'd get a lot of followers." Charlie shifts. "I guess I— I didn't really consider what waking you guys up meant. I just…" She rubs her forehead. "I had the dream, about the ship, and I got the data downloaded, and I ran—and the formless saw me—and I ran some more… and… then I found the Super Robot, and I thought, 'Wow, it's been here the whole time? Seriously?' and then I killed some formless and—"
The tirade stops, and she lets out a huff. "I pulled the switch because I was hoping you guys could turn the tide, and… I guess… I thought once you were back my dad would take over again. I didn't…" She huffs again and covers her face. "Cosmos, this is a mess."
Sprx snorts. "I've been sayin' that since Mandarin, kiddo. Good luck."
She huffs, amused, and pulls her hands from her face. She zips the pockets and tucks some keepsakes and gadgetry into the larger space. She pauses as she goes to zip the big pocket. Glances at the door, and then at him.
"Me waking you up… Does that mean…" She bites her lip. She looks young, in that moment. Looks like Chiro did, when they woke up and saw him—that scrawny, undersized little runt, collapsed near the med pod. Sprx swallows.
"Does that mean… it's my job to stop Nakama?"
Sprx shifts uncomfortably. "I don't know, kiddo. I… You'd have to ask Antauri that. I'm just the pilot."
Charlie scrutinizes him a minute, and she's back to being rash and impulsive and seventeen and not—whatever that was before. She zips the bags and hoists them up. "Let's get goin', then. We're wasting daylight. Er. Metaphorically."
Sprx lets her walk out first, and gives one last glance around her room before he trots after her.
"When were you planning on telling us that Chiro was your father?" To his credit, Gibson doesn't sound accusatory.
Charlie shrugs. "I figured you'd find out once we reached the Resistance." She's subdued; the usual pep drained from her voice. She feels tired. It's not the kind of tired that could be fixed by a good, long sleep. She wishes it was. She summons a smile anyway. "One way or another. I kinda figured it'd be when he chewed me out over ditching school, if we're being honest."
"Ya didn't think it'd be a good idea to warn us?" Sprx says. He does sound accusatory, but she's used to it by now. "That's a hell of a bomb to drop on us—sorry, Antauri. Gibson."
Gibson scowls and Antauri frowns, both in disapproval. However, neither of them choose to say anything.
This time.
Charlie flexes her fingers. "It seemed fair. I didn't tell my dad I found you guys, so… I wasn't gonna tell you guys he was my dad." She shrugs. "Not like I lied about it. I just… withheld information. Because no one asked. You didn't ask how I'd met him, or whether we were close, or who my dad was, or anything! Which—all relevant things, by the way." Charlie points at them, sliding her finger in a line through the air to catch each one. "Most parents aren't too happy about their kid going off to war. Especially with a group of cybernetic simians with a reputation for danger. Dad's gonna kill me. And probably you guys too, just for safe measure. He might wait until after Nakama is gone. If we're lucky." She snorts.
"We'll keep you out of harm's way as much as possible," Antauri says, after a few beats of silence.
Charlie snorts. "Oh, I'm sure you'll try," she says. "I'm a magnet for trouble." She cocks her head to the side. "Well, not really. Trouble's the magnet and I'm the piece of metal eagerly running toward it. But. Same difference." She waves her hand dismissively.
"We'll figure something out." Nova sounds confident.
Charlie kind of wants to laugh at her. She bites back the, "You can try," sitting on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she changes the subject. "So, where to first?"
"Not going to insist we make straight for Zhang's ship?" Gibson asks dryly.
"Cosmos, no." Charlie shakes her head. "I'm nowhere near ready for that level of fighting. Can't even use my own powers yet. We'd get clobbered, and they'd probably—" She stops. "There's too much at stake for me to go rushing into the thick of it like that," she says instead. "I need training. And you guys are the teachers, so, uh. Pick somewhere to go, I guess, and I'll tell you if it's safe."
The monkeys share glances. "We should probably start with somewhere we won't be bothered. So we can get a handle on what you know, and teach you what you don't," Nova says tentatively. "We can save different masters for when you're more advanced."
"Not that most of 'em will be around anymore," Sprx points out, though in a softer voice than usual.
"And if they are, they'll be with the resistance," Gibson says.
"What do you think we should do, Charlie?" Antauri asks, turning his eyes on her. The rest of the monkeys follow suit, and Charlie shifts; uncomfortable with the sudden attention.
"Me?" she asks. "You think I'm qualified to tell you what to do?"
Sprx shrugs. "You pulled the trigger. Now you're the boss. Them's the rules. I didn't make 'em." He sent a pointed glance Antauri's way.
Charlie snorts. "More like a lever. But—alright." Charlie steeples her fingers, and considers. "There's a few human-friendly planets around that don't have anything livin' on 'em. We can use one of those for training. Once I've reached the point where experience is the best teacher, we can start takin' out her allies. We can consider who to go after then."
"Tell me the options," Sprx says, fingers poised over a holo-board.
Charlie furrows her brow. Options— Oh. Right. Feeling faintly flushed, she says, "Arda's close by. The atmo is a little thinner than Shuggazoom's but not unbearably. It's close to the Galatron Six station. It's one of those teenage-centric hubs for entertainment, but at least we can get food and stuff. Uh… There's also Albion. Atmo is friendly. Abandoned mining facility, so there's even some structures and such. Prone to dust storms, though. Also near Galatron Six. Last planet is Ixia. It's a garden world. Hasn't developed any intelligent life, but has tons of plants and such. A few animals. Mostly bugs, if we're being honest. Bee-like creatures and such. Won't run out of food there, that's for sure. For other supplies it's near Beron Two. Most people call it the Husk, though. It's a dying station. Won't find anything fancy, but between the greenhouses and the occasional shipment or traveler, they've got plenty to keep us stocked up. And those are just the legal places. If you're not adverse to trading in other places, I know of a few illegal moon bases."
Antauri raises his eyeridges; disapproval radiating off of him.
"Oi, you ever tried to get a shipment of high-powered guns the legal way? From a system that hasn't even been touched by the war yet? Not exactly easy. If we didn't go through other channels, there are a ton of people who'd've died. Worlds that would have been lost. So don't you get all self-righteous on me, Antauri." Charlie scowls at him.
Antauri pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Makes sense to me," Sprx says. "Super Robot's too valuable for us to risk bein' near the black market, though, so how 'bout we stick with legal area?" He glances at Gibson. "Ixia's out, I think."
Gibson nods fervently, and Charlie hides a smile. She'd forgotten he was afraid of bugs.
"That leaves Albion and Arda. Dust storms or thinner atmo. What's the climate like on Arda?"
"Arda and Albion are both hot as—" She cuts herself off. "They're hot. Like I said, Arda's got a thinner atmo. Nothing too bad but there can't be any strenuous training outside the Robot without some sort of measures in case. Though… that could be a good way to increase lung capacity and endurance…" Charlie trails off, then shakes her head. "There's also less protection from solar radiation, so I'd need to stay stocked with protective lotions. Also, bit of a gravity difference. That's not a big deal—sounds kind of fun actually—but I thought I'd throw it out there." She pauses, lets them adjust to the stream of information, then continues.
"Albion's a desert. Prone to dust storms, like I said. The mining facility was abandoned at the start of the war, so it's even got some metals and stuff if we ever need 'em. And the facilities to turn said metals into equipment or fuel. Atmo's friendly; I can breathe it without a spacesuit as long as there isn't too much dust in the air."
"Are these dust storms or sand storms?" Gibson asked.
Charlie shrugged and spread her hands. "I don't know. I'm just telling you what the reports said. From what I remember, I think there were both. The dust storms are massive, though. They buried an entire outpost one time." She shuddered.
Sprx leaned back. "My vote's for Arda," he said. "Atmo aside, at least we're not gonna get buried."
"I'm with Sprx," Nova said, her elbow braced against her knee, and her chin cupped in her hand.
"As am I," Gibson said. "If we want to go out to train, I'd prefer not to be suddenly consumed by sand or dust. And digging out the Robot will get wearisome quickly."
"Aw, I don't think it'd be that bad," Otto said. "I'd be more worried about the buggies than the Robot! Arda does sound the best, though, long as you don't think you'll be bothered by it, Charlie."
Charlie smiled at him. "If I am, that's why they made the spacesuit."
"Then it's settled then?" Antauri asked, floating a short ways above them.
Charlie nodded once. "It's settled. We're goin' to Arda."
