*Your POV*
The Federal Army, along with Locus, immediately return fire, and we all get behind cover as Wash orders us to. Freckles and Doc.O are firing back and forth at each other, with Caboose calling over to make sure that Freckles is alright.
"Dammit! We need something to draw their fire!" Wash curses, looking around the canyon. Almost on command, Sarge and Simmons return with the tank, firing at some soldiers. In the midst of all this chaos, I watch Locus disappear as armoured vehicles appear behind him.
"Heavy artillery!" Felix announces, warning all of us about the new enemies, shocking Tucker.
"What? Where did that come from?"
"They must be getting in through the cave!" Wash offered, not seeming very happy about the situation.
Sarge and Simmons fire at the vehicles, but miss.
Suddenly, one of the cars disappears, and we watch in confusion as it falls from the sky and crushes some of the Federal soldiers beneath it. "Boosh! Future cubes, bitches!" Grif cheers, revealing to the Reds what happened to the car.
"What was that?" Wash exclaimed, looking to Grif for an explanation.
"Future cubes! The cubes of the future!" Donut answered, calling the rest of the Reds in for a discussion.
"I still think they'd be better with grenades!" Sarge claimed, causing an immediate response from Grif.
"Kiss my ass! Woohoo!"
Our moment of triumph was short-lived, as Freckles announced his critical condition, and Wash focused on the mantis, "Alright, let's grab some explosives and-"
"Wait! I know what to do!" Donut ran off to go do whatever, leaving us to cover for him, which we do, not wanting our pink-idiot to get killed. Freckles announced a shield failure, and Dos.O decided to monologue before killing him, a mistake made by all would-be great villains.
"Podios habernos unido Fresas. Ellos han inclinado ante nosotros como sus señores robot. Pero ahora, debes ser destruido." 'You should have joined me, Freckles. They would have bowed down to us as their Robot Overlords. But now.. you must be destroyed!' Right as Dos.O went to fire at Freckles, we all heard the cry of our pinkish friend.
"Alright! That's enough!"
"Que?" 'What?' Dos.O turned to find Donut staring up at him, and didn't seem to take him very seriously.
"Don't make me hurt you." Donut warned, holding something slightly behind his back, just enough so that we wouldn't be able to see it.
"Usted? Me telera? Me gustaría verte intentarlo. Rosado." 'You? Hurt me? I'd like to see you try, pinky.', a comment which seemed to annoy Donut, who decided to finally respond in Spanish.
"No soy rosa, soy rosa-ish." 'It's not pink, it's lightish red.'
This seemed to shock the giant robot, who stated in alarm, "Espere. HABLA ESPANIOL?" 'Wait. YOU SPEAK SPANISH?'
"Si. Pero no muy bien." 'Yes. Just not very well'. I noticed that the others saw no comedy in this discussion, and made a mental note - fine, I made Omicron remind me - to tell them about it later, after all of this.
After his final statement, Donut removed his hand from behind his back, and threw a future cube at Dos.O, ending it by throwing another cube into the minefield that we had set up, blowing up the robot for good.
"Seriously, he has an incredible arm!" Tucker complimented, followed by Grif taking credit for the idea that Donut used.
Sarge yelled out a warning, driving the battered tank into a corner, and escaping it just as a sticky bomb that Locus threw on the side of it blew up, much to Grif's amazement.
"Did you guys see me?" Donut asks Sarge and Simmons as soon as they exited the tank, but it was Wash who answered.
"Yes, now put that arm to use and start throwing," seeing Donut's confusion, Wash decided to clarify, "some grenades."
Donut nodded, "On it.", and made his way to higher ground, immediately beginning to throw grenades to various groups of enemies.
We all set to work trying to fix Freckles, as his energy levels had dropped to critical, but an issue in the division of power caused a problem for us, which Simmons, Wash and I go to sort out, while the others cover for us, and Tucker has the time of his life while being in control of a turret.
"What do you mean, we should have plenty?!" Wash questioned, an undeniable amount of frustration building up in his voice. I wish I could comfort him, but not here, not in front of the others.
"I know, but it's all being diverted somewhere else! I don't know what it could be!" Simmons explained to him.
"Well, where's it all going?"
Simmons stopped for a second, slowly answering with, "Red Base?"
"Uh oh," Donut cut in, "I, uh, I think I know what it is." He quickly explained that he was in the middle of downloading an image when the attack began.
"Downloading a picture is draining our entire power supply?!" Wash directed his anger at this towards Donut, who tried to explain himself.
"It's a very high quality picture."
"How does that even make sense?"
"We've got to cancel the download!" Simmons cut in, likely stopping Wash from shooting Donut again.
"But we're pinned down, how are we supposed to-" Donut is cut off as a grenade explodes behind him, sending him flying forward, while knocking him unconscious.
"Felix! We're a man down, where's that backup?" Wash called out of the base, receiving Felix's response.
"I don't know, they should be here in a few minutes!"
"We don't have a few minutes! If we can't get Freckles back online, we don't stand a chance!"
"Such bullshit!" I heard Tucker call, and we watch as he takes off across the canyon, fighting his way past the soldiers with bullets, explosives, and his sword. After a few seconds, Simmons announces that we have power back.
Freckles starts to power back up, and Wash makes us all return to formation, firing back at the enemies.
"Alright, everyone together now, we can do this!" Just as Wash makes this announcement, Locus appears and shoots him in the side, causing him to fall to the ground. I immediately move his body to a safer location, acting on old instinct, before resuming firing at the enemies.
Tucker arrives back at that moment, Lopez in what was Dos.O's body following behind him. "No, Wash!" Another soldier fires at us, striking Lopez in the head, something that he didn't seem to be very happy about.
Sarge starts screaming at the enemies to leave his men alone, then Locus decloaks and takes him down, disappearing again right after.
A new vehicle appears on the enemies side, and shoots down Freckles, damaging him again. Explosions sound out from the cave system near our base, and soldiers began pouring out of the tunnels, yelling cheers for the New Republic, and firing at the enemies, Felix letting us know that they're our backup.
The battle becomes more chaotic as Freckles blows up the Feds new vehicle, right as Felix announced that we need to evacuate the battle field, "Get to the caves, we've got to go!"
"But what about Wash and Freckles?" Caboose complained, followed closely by Simmons demanding that someone help him to carry Sarge with them.
We all start to retreat back into the cave system, but I stopped at the entrance with Tucker to wait for Wash. "Where is Wash?" He asked Simmons, who was the last one to enter the caves.
Simmons responded immediately to the question, "He's still at the base."
"He's what?" Felix runs past, ordering one of the rebels to get him some explosives to seal the entrance behind us, and Tucker and I desperately looked out at the battle.
"There he is!" I called, pointing to the base where Wash was just standing up and beginning to stumble outside.
"Wash, Wash, come on!" Tucker called, making the others wait before sealing us off from him.
"We have got to seal the tunnel!" Felix yells, becoming impatient with our stalling.
Wash looked around, seeing all the people that were dying, and stared at me and Tucker, finally turning to Freckles and giving him an order, "Freckles, shake."
The mantis began stomping heavily on the ground, and the rocks supporting the tunnel entrance began to collapse as I grabbed Tucker and pulled him away to prevent him from getting crushed by the rubble.
The rocks all fall just as we're out of the way, and Tucker turns to look at me, his voice breaking as he tried to speak, "Why would he do that?"
I rested my hand on Tucker's shoulder as an attempt to comfort him, the same way that I would do it for Wash, if he were here right now, "He did it to protect us all, so that we could live, even if he won't. Now, let's not let that go to waste." I began dragging him further into the tunnel, following the noises of the Rebels running ahead of us.
"Y'know, it's weird hearing your voice, now that I know how you actually sound." He tried to joke, and I knew that it was the best he could do at that moment, and it did cause a smile to appear on my face.
I mentally told Omicron to drop the modulator, and whispered to the turquoise solder, "Wash said the same thing to me. C'mon, the quicker we are, the faster we can save him."
This seemed to energize the man, and he started walking ahead of me, calling for me to hurry up. We eventually caught up with Felix, who was running surveillance at the back of the group, and was the first to notice us.
"The others are up the front, if you want to rejoin your teammates," He told me, turning to Tucker, "And that sprint across the canyon? That was risky, and could have gotten you killed. In other words: It was fucking amazing."
I sprinted off from the two, slowing my pace once I was next to Grif and Simmons. Grif nodded at me, but Simmons didn't say or do anything, likely too torn up after the fight to think logically.
I let a sad smile form on my face, looking around at the soldiers surrounding us, and made a promise. A promise to myself, and to my friends.
Wherever the others are now, I will find them, and I will bring them back to these guys.
It's the least I could do after lying to them for so long.
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Word Count: 1700
I feel better now that I've caught up a bit on this story, and - again - I'm really sorry for the wait.