"Wow! I have to say, I love what you've done with the place." Numbah 1 congratulated Numbah 362 as he laid eyes on her new room for the first time. It had been Numbah 5's old room, but after she became Supreme Leader Numbah 5 moved all her stuff up to the Moonbase and Numbah 362 had settled in. She'd been shy to show her room off to the other's, stating that she didn't want to reveal it until it was perfect. But now the day had come, everyone was happy and awed by how nice and put together it was.
Numbah 362's room had the general appearance of a well kept office, with a bed and dresser in the corner and some posters stuck to the walls. "Thanks, I got a little inspiration from you, Numbah 1." Numbah 362 said cheerfully, Numbah 1 blushed when he heard that she'd taken after him. "Your room is always so neat and simplistic, I like that style too so I decided to take inspiration from it." She continued, starting to blush as well.
Just then, a loud buzzer sounded through the treehouse, alerting everyone to an urgent mission. The group rushed out to the main room of the treehouse where a large screen descended from the ceiling. The screen crackled to life revealing a stern looking Operative, Numbah 3009 if her nametag was anything to go by. "Sector V, come in! Sector V!" Numbah 3009 yelled as the static on the screen ceased.
"Sector V reporting for duty." Numbah 1 said.
"Received. I have an urgent mission for you five, there's been multiple reports of giant robots sneaking around in an isolated cave system. They've been stealing metal parts and any 2x4 technology that they can get their hands on, if the reports are to be believed. Your mission is to go down into the cave system and investigate." 3009 continued.
"Understood. We'll leave no stone unturned." Numbah 1 replied.
"Also, you'll have a guide for dangerous missions from now on. Numbah 363 will be your guide." Numbah 3009 revealed before the screen cut to black.
"363?! That kid's gonna guide us through a possibly dangerous bunch'a caves?" Numbah 4 cried out incredulously.
"You bet I am, Numbah 4!" Numbah 363's voice popped up from Numbah 1's wristwatch. "I'm here to prove myself!"
"And I'm certain that you'll do a great job." Numbah 1 said to Numbah 363 before turning to the rest of his team. "Let's go investigate those caves! Kids Next Door, BATTLE STATIONS!"
The trip to the caves was relatively quick, the kid's were at the forests edge when they saw something that made them quickly duck back into the forest. The reason? Several, towering, giant cylindrical shaped robots were carrying metal scraps into the cave. Numbah 1 recognized them as Numbah 74.293's robots that he'd deployed during the Galactic Invasion to capture people and keep them locked up in their own homes.
"Why are Numbah 74.239's Bully Bots here? I thought he recalled them all!" Numbah 2 whisper-shouted. "Apparently not. We should follow them to see why they need all that metal." Numbah 362 offered. "Good idea, 362. Let's proceed, carefully and quietly." Numbah 1 ordered. Once the robot's were a ways inside the cave, the group tip-toed after them, lurking behind them in the shadows. "I'm picking up major energy signals down here." Numbah 2 whispered as the group followed the robot's through a twisting and narrow part of the cavern. "Me too, be careful." Numbah 363 quietly added.
The narrow part let out into a wide circular area, the kids peeked around the corner to see a massive makeshift transmiter. Pipes and long metal scraps built the base, fastened at the bottom by generators and stolen engines. Wiring was hung throughout the structure in a twisting, snake-like manner and at the top a hudde of satellites were bound together by wiring like captives. One of the robot's stomped over and put what looked like a TV monitor on top of a pile of motherboards and computers tied together with rope.
"They're making a Jenga tower?" Numbah 3 guessed. "No, it's a radio transmitter." Numbah 362 corrected. The robot's were much clumiser and idle since she'd last seen them, it made sense as Numbah 74.239 wasn't there to give them orders. One Bully-Bot fumbled with the keyboard in front of them, it's huge metal fingers not made for pressing tiny buttons. The screen crackled to static for a few seconds then died out just as quickly, in response the Bully-Bot faceplanted into the screen which nearly broke it.
Numbah 1 had been slient since the discovery of the tower, putting the pieces together in his head. A gentle nudge from Numbah 2 snapped him out of his trance.
"They're trying to contact the G.K.N.D with the tower." He said simply, everyone's faces drained of colour and their eyes widened in terror. "If the G.K.N.D gets a foothold on Earth, it'll be even worse then the Galactic Invasion!" Numbah 4 whisper-shouted. Numbah 1 activated his wristwatch, "Numbah 363-" He whispered. "-can you get a reading on the radio tower's weak spot?"
"Let's see...okay. The top of the tower is extremely fragile, if you break the top the whole tower will be rendered useless." Numbah 363 relayed. "Good, thanks 363."
"TARGET SPOTTED." A robotic voice droned out behind them, Numbah 1 whirled around to have his eyes assaulted by a piercing white light before he felt the sensation of his body flying through the air. He snapped back to his senses when his body hit the dirt and skidded. He coughed as he shot up to see that the eight or so Bully-Bots in the room had spotted them. "Destroy the robot's!" Numbah 1 yelled as he used his rocket shoes to fly into the air in order to give himself some breathing room.
Sector V had been spilt up, Numbah 2 and Numbah 362 were back to back fighting, so were Numbah 3 and 4. Numbah 1 flew up towards the tower, he was almost to the top when a Bully-Bot swerved in front of him and threw a punch at him. Numbah 1 dodged and pulled out his B.A.T.T.ER, having been practicing with it in his spare time he now knew how to use it properly.
Swinging the bat at the robot, it dodged the first swing but was damaged by the second. He finally managed to get a third swing on it, bashing it's metal skull in and disabling it, but it didn't mean that he was out of the woods yet as three more Bully-Bots surrounded him. He tried to fly upwards and past them but one bot intercepted him and kicked him in the chest, sending him hurtling towards the ground.
As Numbah 1 was tumbling towards the ground, Numbah 362 saw it and sprung into action without a second thought, mowing down and slicing through Bully-Bots like they were butter with her stop sign. "Nigel!" She called out, jumping up and grabbing him just in time, skidding to a stop on one knee. "Are you okay? You gotta learn not to do everything by yourself!" She scolded, equally worried and relived. "Yeah, i-look out!" Numbah 1's sentence was cutt off by a Bully-Bot appearing behind her with it's fist raised. Numbah 362 jumped out of the way just in time, letting Numbah 1 go as she did so. Using Numbah 1's rocket shoes to gain momentum, the duo rocketed into the air to fight the three bots, navigating their way up the tower as they fought.
One hit swing of Numbah 1's bat knocked a Bully-Bot down, Numbah 362 swung her stop sign at a second robot sneaking up behind her and cleanly cut its head off in one swing. Numbah 1 pressed a button on the bottom of the base of the B.A.T.T.E.R, releasing a huge beam of energy that blew a hole in the torso of the third Bully-Bot while Numbah 362 slashed at the first robot from earlier, cutting one of it's arms off. The first one charged again, the two used the combined strength of their weapons held together like a shield to stop the one-armed robot mid-flight from jumping on them before throwing it back and clobbering it until it disabled together.
"We're almost there!" Numbah 1 cheered. They flew up to the top of the tower and started pushing against the huddle of satalites. Struggling and straining with all their might, the sounds of gears and metal clanking below them only urged the issue knowing that the rest of Sector V was fighting them below. "Look out Sector V!" Numbah 1 cried out, with one final shove the satalites were heaved off the top of the tower and fell on the remaining Bully-Bots.
With 362 in his arms, Numbah 1 flew down from the top of the tower as Sector V cheered and celebrated their victory. "Thanks for catching me back there." Numbah 1 said to 362, having already put her down. "No worries, just be careful next time. You don't have to do everything alone all the time." Numbah 362 responded.
A loud crackling from his wristwatch caught Numbah 1's attention. "Hello? Who's there?" He asked. His only response was static and garbled noise mixed in with unintelligible bits of Numbah 363's voice, who sounded quite frantic. "Harvey? What's going on?" Numbah 1 repeated. Just then, the ground underneath them began to crack and spilt, the whole cave shook violently as if it was being shaken by a giant and a loud rumbling noise filled the air like a shuddering breath from some long sleeping bememoth. "Get out! Hey out of the cave!" Numbah 363 shrieked desperately, fighting to be heard over the static and rumbling.
Sector V turned tail and ran for their lives as a huge rocks started to fall in the radio tower area, rendering the tower useless as large rock fell on it and destroyed anything that was left. The rocks were falling more and faster now as the five children sprinted for the exit, Numbah 2, 3 and 4 made it out but a large boulder suddenly fell down in front of the exit, trapping Numbah 1 and Numbah 362 inside. More boulders starting falling around the exit, Numbah 1 grabbed 362 into his arms and used his rocket shoes to fly away from the wave of falling rocks which was steadily gaining on them.
"Look! In there!" Numbah 362 exclaimed, pointing to a small depression at the far end of the cave, creating a narrow hole that was just big enough for both of them. Numbah 1 slid in just as the rocks were about to come crashing down on their heads, trapping them inside the tight space. The coughed and sputtered from the kicked up dust, the bitter smell of dirt and clay suffocated the tiny space and Numbah 1 could feel the dust and rocks scraping against his skin and clothes.
Numbah 1 started feeling around in the total darkness for Numbah 362. It didn't help that the area was incredibly tight, no room to move or turn, so tight you could only lay down. "Rachel? Rachel, are you okay?" Numbah 1 asked worriedly, afraid that he might've dropped her by accident in the chaos. He yelped when a hand suddenly smacked him in the center of his face, confirming that she was indeed stuck in there with him. "Oop-sorry! I'm here." Numbah 362 apologized as she took her hand away from his face. "Cool. Cool, great, awesome...now what?" Numbah 1 asked after a few slience seconds.
Their was the sound of fist hitting and pushing at rock, he could hear Numbah 362 straining with effort. He leaned forward and pushed against the rocks in the general direction of where the entrance was, but it was no avail and they stopped after about a minute. "We can't get out, the rocks covering the entrance are too many and too heavy. I guess we just lay here and conserve oxygen. 362 replied, her tone calm with just a hint of unease peeking through.
"What the heck, Harvey?! Why didn't you say that the cave was gonna collapse?" Numbah 2 demanded, close to yelling at Numbah 363 through his wristwatch. "I tried to tell you! Something jammed up my signal, that's why my voice was all garbled before." Numbah 363 rebutted. "Well, do you know what messed up your signal?" Numbah 3 asked, now much calmer. "I checked all my instruments and they're working fine. I did detect some sort of outside influence right before my connection got all screwed up, maybe that's what it was?" Numbah 363 offered up.
"Wait, where's Numbah 1 and Numbah 362?" Numbah 3 suddenly revealed, the remaining three members of Sector V looked around the area and to their horror, they couldn't find the other two anywhere. "Numbah 363? Are they still in the cave?" Numbah 2 asked, trying to keep calm but the terror subtly clouding his voice was undeniable.
"Let me check...checking." Numbah 363 muttered. "Yes! I found them! Their in the back of the cave in a little hole, there's a lot of dirt and rocks in your path but some kind of scooper should clear it out easily." He explained. "Cool, thanks." Numbah 2 said before turning to Numbah 3 and 4. "Numbah 4, we should have a scooper stashed around here somewhere. Numbah 3, call for backup. The sooner we get them out of that cave, the better."
A few minutes had passed since they'd been trapped in there. Now that Numbah 1's eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could properly see that 362 and him were laying facing each other. Numbah 1 kept switching between looking down at his shoes, closing his eyes and looking at the cluster of rocks behind her. Numbah 362's eyes were closed, breathing softly and slowly just as he was.
Neither of them had spoken apart from the first little bit when they realized their situation in an unspoken agreement to conserve oxygen, who knows how long they'd been stuck in here.
"Nigel?" Numbah 362 whispered, Numbah 1's eyes darted up from his shoes to the girl beside him. Her brown eyes were now open, looking right at him. Then again, there wasn't much else to look at in there.
"Um, are you okay? I can see that you've got a few scratches on your face." She continued, gesturing to her own face which did have quite the bruise on her right cheek. Numbah 1 looked away, he did have some pain in his chest from getting kicked earlier, nothing that screamed "broken ribs severe" but it did ache. He'd stolen a glance down his sweater earlier to keep his mind off their predicament, there was a fairly big bruise in the center of his chest in the shape of a giant symmetrical foot.
"A little in my chest." He said. "We'll go to the Moonbase and get checked out after this is all over. I want to make sure that you're okay." Numbah 362 replied. "You don't need to, I don't think anything's broken-"
"That's been the thing with you lately. You don't want help for anything, even when you clearly need it." Numbah 362 interrupted. "And don't get me started on the overworking I've seen out yourself through. I've seen how you put too much on your plate, how you just take the verbal insults from people, how you skirt around the topic of accepting help from others as if you don't deserve it." She paused, her face dropping in slow but steady realization as she put two and two together. "Do you...think that you don't deserve help?" She asked warily.
"I-well...it's just that-my thought process was..." Numbah 1 trailed off, his face dropped in shame and he folded his arms tightly against his chest. "Yeah, I do." Numbah 1 whimpered out, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the flood of hot tears that he could feel building in his eyes.
I feel like since i've done so much to hurt everyone, that asking for more resources to lift myself up would just put more strain on everyone. I feel...like a burden. And there's this nagging dark feeling inside of worthlessness that won't go away, no matter how hard I work, no matter how hard I try to please people, no matter how much work I put in to prove myself to myself, it doesn't go away. No matter what I do, I still feel it." Numbah 1 was crying now, body and breath shaking as all the emotions he'd been holding in for so long finally flooded out of his eyes.
Their was silence again, this time of the stunned variety. Numbah 1 slowly opened his eyes expecting anger or horror from Numbah 362, but instead was greeted with a tight hug from her, further closing the distance between them as her arms wrapped around him and squeezed so tight. "Nigel." Her voice was so soft and quiet, but so pained at the same time. "No, no, no. You are not a burden. You have and you never will be." He returned her affections, her hug was so warm and so loving, he never wanted to let go. "You do not have to prove anything to anyone. You don't have to push yourself to the breaking point to 'try hard enough'. You are enough, you're wonderful just the way you are." She was starting to cry now too.
And it was in that moment, that the darkness just...shrunk. Lost it iron hold on his psyche and drifted into the deepest recesses of his brain. It receded far away, so small and so incigifant that while it was still there it held little more standing in his mind then a bug would.
He nodded in worldless thanks, they stayed their for a good few more minutes, just hugging it out.
Wonderful.
The words rung out in both their minds, bringing forth a new revelation that'd been pushed down again and again by years of tip-toeing around each other.
Caring.
This wasn't just a silly crush anymore. It never really had been.
Love.
It was true, genuine, love. The kind of love that you hold for the person you want marry, to spend of your life with. When Numbah 1 looked to Numbah 362, he could no other girl that he'd rather share his heart with.
The remaining three members of Sector V grunted with effort as their Super-Scoopers heaved heaps of dust, rocks and grey muck out of the way. They were almost to the back of the cave and had started working at the edges in the hopes of striking gold, or in this case their friends.
Numbah 2 took a brief respite from the work to wipe the sweat of his forehead. He sighed, then checked his wristwatch to get back in touch with Numbah 363. "363, how close are we? We've gotta be almost there by now!" He said breathlessly. "Yeah, you're almost there. Just keep-" His voice was drowned out by a sharp shriek of static.
"No! Not again!" Numbah 363 yelled in frustration, Numbah 2 could hear the sounds of buttons being pressed evolving into fists pounding against metal. "You--ten--mintues!" His instructions were rapidly being warped by static and noise, nearly incomprehensible at this rate. "What are you trying to say?" Numbah 3 asked. "What happens in ten minutes?" Numbah 4 pressed for information. "Sss--o--c-c-c--suffocate!" That was the last thing Numbah 363 was able to say before the wristwatch aburptly lost connection with them. "They're gonna suffocate in ten minutes? We have to hurry!" Numbah 3 urged, her hurried pace matching the pale faced terror of her friend's.
They'd seperated from the hug for about a minute, Numbah 1 had his eyes closed when he heard the sound of fists pounding on rock again, this time sounded much more frantic then before. He opened his eyes to see Numbah 362 kicking and pounding at the rocks that were blocking them. Numbah 1 joined in with the escape attempt, but it was no use. As she said before, the rocks were too many and too heavy.
Numbah 362 mutter something under her breath, it was said quickly and hiss-like with a tone of fear. "Pardon?" Numbah 1 inquired. "Tight. It's too tight." She whimpered, pushing at the rocks all around them with invigorated panic. "Too tight? When did you become claustrophobic?" Numbah 1 asked, genuinely worried now that she might do something rash that could hurt them both.
"Operation Z.E.R.O." She rasped. Her eyes were frantic, darting around as if being chased by an invisible entity. "When the Senor Citi-zombies closed in on me, held me down. I couldn't move, I can't move!" She was getting more frantic, her shoving with more and more force and tears welled up in her eyes. "Their touch burned me, my mind was suffocated. I have to get out! I'm suffocating!" She wailed, flailing her limbs around as much as the tight space would allow, tears flowed freely from her eyes, wasting valuable oxygen with her panic. "Rachel." The boy coaxed, to little effect. Numbah 1 carefully reached forward, almost getting smacked with a flailing limb once or twice as he inched his hand closer to her.
"Rachel." He tried again, a little louder this time. His hand found her face and gently touched it, his other hand gently grabbing her squirming arm by the wrist. "Rachel, look at me. Don't look at anything else, look at me." He said firmly. She gasped at the gentle touch, her panic starting to slow as she locked eyes with him. "It's okay, no zombies are here." He said while reaching up so slowly combing his fingers through her dusted hair, she leaned into the touch and relaxed. "No one is going to hurt you. You just don't like these cramped spaces, that's all." He continued, putting his hand back on her face and slid his thumb around on her cheek to wipe away the rouge tears slipping down her face.
"No one is going to get you. I'm here, it's just me and you. Everything is okay." He soothed. She smiled softly at him, knowing she was safe. "Oh, Nigel. You're the only boy I'd want to get stuck in a cave with." She joked, the two of them sharing a giggle. They locked eyes again, Numbah's 1 other hand locked fingers with hers, bringing their hands down to his chest. Both of them leaned forward for a kiss.
It was happening! Numbah 1 could hardly contain himself! It was actually happening!
He was about to kiss the girl of his dreams! Yes!
Just as they were about to kiss, a sudden metal thud from above interrupted them. "The heck?" Numbah 1 mumbled, followed by a sudden clang noise before some of the rocks blocking them in were heaved away, slits of sunlight peeking through. Then another clang, revealing more sunlight, the cool crisp scent of fresh air filling their lungs. Another clang, then a big portion of the rock was shovled away. The grinning face of Numbah 4 leaned down into view. "Hey there, you two! Fancy catching you guys here." He said lightheartedly.
"Numbah 4!" They cheered as the rest of the rocks were heaved aside, Numbah 4 helping Numbah 362 crawl out first and then Numbah 1. They walked outside the cave, both of them inhaling the fresh air, never realized just how great air was until your access to it was limited. They looked at each other, each was covered in dirt, scratches and bruising and they both snickered at each other's disheveled appearances.
"We definitely need to get checked out at the Moonbase now." Numbah 362 cheerfully reminded him of her earlier statement. "Of course. I deserve it, after all." He joked back. "Oh, thank the Databook you two are okay! If it wasn't for Numbah 363, we would've been pulling at loose threads." Numbah 2 revealed as he stepped forward.
"Wait, Harvey helped you find us?" Numbah 1 asked, as if on cue his wristwatch crackled to life. "Yeah! Even though my signal kept getting messed with, I still did the best I could." He sheepishly admitted. "It's okay, Harvey. You did your best and you saved out lives." Numbah 362 chimed.
"Now then-" Numbah 362 said as she took Numbah 1's hand and held it, interlocking their fingers which made the boy blush. "-don't you and I have someplace to be?" She asked sarcastically, before they starting making their way to the Moonbase to get checked out.
They held hands the whole check-up.