Sailor Moon Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Project Tempest ❯ The Obstacle Course ( Chapter 4 )

“Alright guys, we’re gonna pair up with someone but we won’t split up, okay? We’re just gonna partner everyone up so that it’ll be easier to keep track of everyone.” said Curtis.

“Hurry up Curt! We don’t have much time.” said Gifford.

“Alright, alright these are the pairs. Makoto and Emily, me and Naraku, Rylie and Mandy-”

“What!?!” cried Mandy.

“Just get over it!” snapped Curtis. “Blake and Haruka-,”

“I detest this pairing up stuff!” said Mandy.

“Don’t worry honey, you can have your boyfriend after I’m finished with him. That is if he still wants you.” said Haruka teasingly. There was a glint of challenge in her eyes and she smirked when she saw the blonde’s face turn cherry red.

“You keep your hands off him!” cried Mandy.

“Ladies! Let’s fight about this later.” said Curtis. “Now, Gifford and Claire you guys are partners. Ready?”

“Ready.” replied everyone.

“Good, let’s go.”

They all ran together and quickly started a system of hiding behind trees and bushes until the group leaders, which were Curtis, Naraku and Gifford, said it was okay to come out. For the most part everything went down fine. Everyone would make sure to stay low and every now and then you could see Mandy eyeing Haruka and in response Haruka would wink at her just for kicks. Haruka hadn’t done anything to Blake but it was still fun making jeers at Mandy every now and then.

The group was making good progress all until there was an unsettling interception of another team.

“Shooting for last place again, Gifford?” came a voice from the other team.

Annoyed, Gifford turned around and came face to face with his worst enemy; Gail of the blue team.

“Don’t push your luck Gail ol’ pal. This is my game.” said Gifford. In that instant Gifford began shooting incessantly and sparked a small war between the blue and the black team. It seemed mostly to be a war between the blue team and Gifford due to the lack of preparation on the black teams behalf. You could see Mandy fumbling with her weapon and trying hard to find a safe spot to hide, then there was Emily who was on the verge of an anxiety attack and could hardly move. Even Makoto was caught surprised at the sudden outbreak. Meanwhile, Gifford was constantly yelling for backup and was upset when his team didn’t perform as quickly as he had wanted them to. Enraged, he continued on his own and kept shooting and throwing anything he could get hold of, and in his great horror he went to pull the trigger again and nothing was left.

Silently he cursed and jumped behind a tree for protection. He leaned up against the tree and tried to catch his breath as he tried to think of a strategy.

“Argh, where’s my team?” he yelled in frustration. To his surprise they were no where to be found. It seemed that he had been so caught up in the fight that he had gradually moved away from the rest of his team mates. Suddenly he felt something tug on his foot and before he knew it he was dangling from a rather thick tree limb.

“Hey, where’s Gifford?” yelled Curtis from across the way.

With a sudden recognition of the missing Gifford everyone began to look feverously around for their missing comrade. The team in turn began pulling back away from the blue team because they were being overpowered and huddled together in a small ditch behind a large stone.

“Alright, is everyone here?” said Naraku. Everyone nodded in response. “Good, now we’ve got to get going to the base.”

“No, we can’t,” protested Curtis. “We can’t leave Gifford!”

“Okay, whoever wants to fail and go home empty handed go look for Gifford. As for me, I’m going for the base and whoever wants to follow can follow.” replied Naraku. He then stood up and began walking away. Slowly, Mandy, Claire and Blake left after him.

“Sorry,” said Blake. “But, I didn’t come here for nothing.”

With a sigh Curtis hung his head down low and rubbed it in an attempt to ease his headache. “Anyone else?”

“Oh be quiet and get up,” snorted Haruka. “You wanted to stay and find Gifford, so guess what. We’re gonna go find ‘im. And if we don’t get going now then there’s no chance we’ll make it to the base in time. Now get up you slacker and get movin’, we don’t have all day.”

Curtis looked up and nodded. “Alright, lets go.”

Quickly they ran through the forest and retraced their steps. They searched high and low, but couldn’t find any trace of Gifford.

“Guys, I don’t mean to be a bother, but I need to rest,” said Emily. “I’ve got really bad asthma and I forgot my inhaler.”

The other four looked at her in disbelief.

“Oh great,” cried Rylie. “Of all people, we had to have you in the group.”

“I-I’m sorry,” said Emily. “I didn’t mean-

“Hey guys, look at this,” came Curtis’ voice. They temporarily forgot the situation and went to look at what Curtis had found. It was a black canister that was supposed to be the holographic knife that was given to all of the participants. “He must be close by,” said Curtis.

The excitement was finally coming back as everyone’s hopes were brightened by this new discovery. They began running again and a beeping noise erupted from somewhere and made the group jump. Emily blushed.

“Sorry, I synchronized my watch with the time limit that we have in the test and I set the alarm on to beep at 15 minutes until the match is over,” she explained.

In relief everyone sighed and for once were happy to have Emily on the team. For she was the only one who had the time and this made the others a little bit at ease, because now they actually knew the time that they needed to finish everything.

“Let’s just take a breather for a few seconds,” said Curtis as he leaned up against a tree. In agreement everyone sat a while and caught their breaths.

“Did you hear that?” asked Makoto.

“Hear what?” asked Emily and Curtis.

“I-I don’t know. I just thought I heard something.” responded Makoto.

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Rylie.

“Me either,” said Haruka.

“Okay.” said Makoto. “Sorry about that.”

“We should probably get going,” said Curtis as he got up.

They all began walking when Emily had spotted a squirrel. “Look at that!” said Emily. The squirrel then began climbing up the tree and Emily with pure intent watched it go up and suddenly produced an ear shattering scream. She stumbled and tripped over a rock and began to rock back and forth in pain and buried her face in her hands. She was sobbing and panting for reasons no one could figure out.

“What now?” said Rylie under her breath.

“What’s wrong Emily?” asked Makoto as she tried to cradle the sobbing Emily. Emily tried and tried to say something but there was no success in her attempts. Finally she gave up with trying to speak and slowly raised her hand and pointed to the sky. Curious, everyone looked up and saw a dangling body up ahead.

“It’s Gifford!” yelled Curtis.

Sure enough Gifford was hanging upside down unconscious and was mistaken by Emily to have been a dead person that was hanging above.

“He’s alive?” asked Emily.

“Yep, he’s alive,” said Curtis as he climbed down the tree with Gifford on his back. Gifford was a fairly heavy guy but Curtis was big in stature and could handle him with ease. As they got to the ground Emily pulled out a small package from her pocket and gave it to Curtis.

“Just put it up to his nose and he should be up in no time.” she said, and sure enough Gifford’s eyes popped open and he looked at all of them with strange looks.

“Man Giff, you’re a lot lighter than I thought,” spoke Curtis. “I would’ve thought that it would have been a lot harder to carry you down.”

“Are you alright, Gifford?” said Emily. “You look a little different.”

“Oh get off it,” said Rylie. “We’ve got ten minutes to finish this course, so lets get going.”

Gifford scoffed and gave a small laugh. “I’m afraid that won’t be happening.” he said with a broad smile.

“What are you talking about Giff?” said Curtis.

There was a glitch in Gifford’s appearance, similar to the one that was present when the holographic knives showed when they were running low on batteries.

“You’re not Gifford.” said Emily. “You’re wearing a holographic cover to change your appearance.”

“Wow.” said the fake Gifford. “I am truly impressed.” the hologram then faded to reveal a blue eyed chestnut haired boy with a long braid and a huge smile.

“Where’s Gifford,” said Curtis bitterly.

“In safe hands,” said the boy.

Everyone stood there shocked at what was happening and slowly a group of men began to surround them. One, of which, was a Chinese boy with sleek black hair that was pulled into a tight ponytail.

“You should all just give up,” said the Chinese boy.

“Oh, come on Wu Fei,” said the chestnut haired boy with the braid. “Let them try and fight their way through. I would especially like to see what this babe can do against a trained soldier,” he said while pointing at Rylie. “General Shower has told us of your reputation and I just want to confirm its truth for myself.” Rylie scoffed in response.

“Well then, if your just interested in Rylie then let us go so that you don’t waste our time,” said Haruka. Rylie then shot her a glance of disgust and Haruka just shook it off. The braided haired boy laughed.

“It’s a nice proposal but I’m afraid we can’t let that happen. You see, we’ve all been running around this forest for the past fifteen minutes trying to stall some groups a little and finally we promised ourselves that we would trap the next group that we run into, because stalling them just was no fun at all.” he said with a smirk. “Fortunately for us, we ran into you guys!”

“Look, we don’t want to fight you and we never intended to so please just let us go and we promise to pay you back after,” said Makoto. Duo’s smile widened as he spoke again.

“As nice as that may sound, I am afraid we cannot do that. We have our mind set on having some kind of fun today and that just so happens to include you guys.” Within seconds, he then pulled out his gun and began to shoot. Surprised, Emily fell backwards and frantically tried to pull out her own weapon out but it kept slipping every time. Haruka and Rylie on the other hand were engaged in hand to hand battle with the other soldiers. They were shockingly quick and surprised most of the men that they fought. Rylie was living up to her reputation and Haruka was proving that she was not a person to mess with. Then there was Curtis who was fighting angrily with Duo who was holding the broadest grin. All that was left was Makoto who had been shooting her gun with no success being as her aim was terrible and she never really worked with any kind of gun before.

“Just stop shooting, Makoto!” yelled Haruka. “Your hurting us more than helping!”

In compliance Makoto dropped the gun and pulled her knives and was about to throw it when something had caught her eye.

It was some sort of gray building about fifteen feet away, there was just so many trees in the way, that she couldn’t really tell whether it was really a building or something else. She squinted hard and saw some figures suddenly emerge from the gray area and her thoughts were confirmed. She watched as the doors of the gray building swung shut and there above it was a timer. 4 minutes and 37 seconds and counting. Her heart beat then began to quicken with excitement.

“Hey guys! I can see the base!” yelled Makoto. No one really paid much attention except Haruka and suddenly before Makoto knew it, she was sprinting with the others to the base. How they managed to take off without the other highly trained soldiers at their tail was unbeknownst to her, the adrenaline in her body was just taking control. They had even managed to get Gifford who was conscious and healthy.

“We’re almost there!” cried Curtis. Then another nightmare happened. The braided boy, Duo, was standing just a few feet in front of them with the same grin in a relax stance with his hands in his pocket. Haruka cursed under her breath and Rylie for once held a look of surprise. How could they get there so fast? They had all stopped running and stood out of breath with the exception of Haruka and the boys who would not show that they were tired.

“You guys left so soon. I feel so heartbroken that you would leave when we were just beginning to have some fun.” pouted Duo.

“You seem to be enjoying this don’t you?” said Emily. “Do you like to crush peoples’ hopes and dreams for the cost of your enjoyment. Do you bask in the ambience of stepping on people and killing their sacrifices by using your superiority that they had not chance to gain because of people like you who make it their unproclaimed job to prevent people like us from ever achieving your same status and skill. Why must you people continue to hinder us from making our dreams a reality?”

Everyone looked at her as if she was from another planet. Sure it was frustrating that this hotshot American named Duo kept popping up in front of them with the same smug look, but Emily seem to have taken it a little bit to the extreme.

“Don’t take it personally, babe. I’m the same to every person, you can go ahead and ask the guys.” as he said this, the soldiers from before came out from hiding but this time it looked as if there were more than there were before. “Really, it’s not that I don’t like you or anything. You guys were just at the right spot at the right time.”

“Wouldn’t it be at the wrong spot at the wrong time?” said Rylie.

Duo looked at her and winked, “No, because it was a good thing to have found you when we did or else we would’ve been missing in action. And we wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“Could you stop talking for once,” said Wu-Fei who was standing behind Duo now. “We didn’t come to listen to your speeches you baka, we came to fight.”

“Then what are you waiting for, Wu-man? You never waited for my order to fight, so why are you waiting now?” retorted Duo. The two then started to argue and called each other names back and forth.

“You forget Maxwell that I know where you go everyday and could easily cut off that blasted braid of yours when you least expect it.”

Slowly without the notice of the two boys, Duo and Maxwell, Haruka and Gifford began to sneak away slowly and motioned for the rest to follow. They were doing well until they made the mistake of allowing Emily to be the last one to inch away. As Makoto was nearly out of sight of Emily she heard Emily scream. The others had heard it too and began to sprint. Makoto was almost about to follow, but her conscience got the best of her.

‘I can’t just leave her there,’ she thought to herself. She stood there at a stand still for what seemed like an eternity and finally made up her mind. She sprinted back to Emily and pulled out her paint ball gun which she didn’t use much (due to her terrible aiming skills) and went in shooting. The boy Duo looked back surprised as did Wu-Fei. Duo’s face got pale as he saw Makoto running in with her paintball gun, but when she began shooting, the fear left and Duo regained his composure.

He stood there clapping and Makoto stopped.

“I’m impressed,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone was coming back for this one.” he said as he pointed to Emily. Makoto looked at her and began to simulate a plan.

“If your that impressed then give her to me and let us go,” said Makoto in response.

Duo smirked and stared at Makoto for some while. “Sorry babe, but it won’t happen.”

“Suit yourself,” said Makoto. With a blink of an eye, she pulled out one of her holographic daggers and threw it at the net that hung from the tree with Emily inside. There was a loud clunk and Makoto inwardly apologized to Emily about it and quickly ran over there to help her up. Before she could reach Emily, Wu-Fei came at her from nowhere and began a warfare. Meanwhile Emily was disentangling herself from the net and eventually made it out. From the corner of her eye, Makoto could see Duo heading for Emily so she kicked something at him to stall him. Unfortunately for Duo, the cylinder that was the holographic dagger came flying at his head. Before he could even respond it hit him smack dab in the middle of his head.

“Emily, run!” yelled Makoto as she kept trying to hold off Wu-Fei. In obedience, Emily nodded and began to run for the base. There was only a minute and a half left and it didn’t look as if Makoto was going to make it.

She was so preoccupied with keeping track of the time that she wasn’t paying attention to the round house kick that was coming at her and it hit full force. She was knocked to the floor and panted for breath. She had put her arm up and it caught Wu-Fei’s leg but wasn’t sturdy enough to keep the kick from hurting even more. It hit her injury on her shoulder and opened it back up. The blood was seeping through her shirt and she was slowly becoming to get angrier.

“Just give up, onna,” said Wu-Fei as she stayed on the ground. This was no help in calming Makoto and she soon sprung up in rage and began a real fight. She was consumed with rage for the first time in a long time. Wu-Fei staggered a little, but he was too prideful to show his weakness. He continued to fight her and Duo watched from the side.

Makoto had been advancing on him from left to right and Wu-Fei was losing his cool. She jumped towards him and he suddenly pulled out his katana and absent mindedly went after her with it. No one realized what was going on until Makoto dropped to the ground clasping her side.

‘Not more cuts,’ said Makoto as she was left on her knees grasping her new wound. Wu-Fei then dropped his katana in a horrified state, he couldn’t believe what he had done. Duo then ran up to Makoto and attempted to try to help her but she stubbornly pushed him to the side.

“I’m fine,” she answered. “Just leave me alone.” she could not believe her luck. Yeah sure it was fun finding out that she could fight the way she did, but when it meant that she would receive deep gashes all over her body then she would’ve gladly given her ability to someone else. She stood up and heard the timer go off and felt her heart drop to her stomach. That was her chance…there was nothing else left to do. She failed once again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Well that’s all. I know it’s long and somewhat boring but let me know how I can make it better. Later guys! And don’t forget to review!

P.S

Thank you everyone else that reviewed I really do appreciate it!