Episode 18: FUBAR

A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out. It's pretty fucking long and I wanted to get it...well...perfect isn't exactly the right word I'd use but I mean what else can I say. The season is winding down and so I wanna make the last 6-8 episodes really good. So expect the updates to be pretty damn sporadic because of that.

Elsa wished that she could just die. That when she slipped into her unconscious state she would never have to wake up. That she wouldn't have to deal with anything or anyone ever again. She hated everything about this place. She hated this shitty ass canyon with all its dirt and grass and rocks. She hated the one fucking tree that wasn't even on their side of the base. She hated the base! This awful, dirty, metal base that she had called "home" for so long. She hated every square inch of this place.

And worst of all she hated her troops.

Those lousy, insubordinate slackers who didn't give a damn about anything. She hated how she had to put with all their crap. She hated how they were so unmotivated to do anything and wouldn't listen to a damn word that she said. Always leaving the base without telling her. Always going out on bullshit "missions" without telling her. Always doing anything without telling her. It was annoying and rude and she fucking hated it.

There was this nagging little question on the back of her slowly fading mind that she just couldn't get out of her head: Why was she here? On this canyon. With these soldiers that didn't give a damn about her. And the only person that did care about her was taken away from her. Why was she here? Well she didn't have to answer that question anymore. In a few moments she would close her eyes for the last time and breath her final breath. All her problems, all her worries, would just go away.

Of course life had other plans. Elsa couldn't even fall into an unconscious state correctly. Time went by in a series of slow blinks.

The first thing she remembered was lying face down in the grass, reaching out for the portal that had disintegrated moments ago. One blink and she saw two soldiers, one in green and another in purple running towards her. Another blink and she saw the green soldier hunched over her, his voice muted and he seemed to be gesturing to someone behind him. She couldn't really tell her voice was incredibly blurry, his face was unrecognizable even at such a close distance. Another blink and she felt herself...floating? Yes she was floating. There was a prodding weight on her back on the back of her knees that made it so her arms and legs dangled down underneath her. She was being carried. Before Elsa could get a good look at the person carrying her she felt herself "blinking" once more. This time she felt herself on a bed. An uncomfortable one at that. There was a strange bareness on her shoulder and stomach, as if someone had removed the armor from them. In her blurred haze Elsa was able to make out four or five soldiers in the room. One of them in green had just shoved another soldier in red and white onto a wall and they seemed to be having some sort of heated argument. Of course Elsa couldn't understand a word they were saying, but surely it wasn't important. Nothing felt very important right now, especially through the dull, aching pain.

One more blink and this time she was finally awake. She stared up at the dreary gray ceiling, the shoddy light fixtures doing their best to illuminate the room. Turning her head, which was a challenge in its own right, she noticed that the room was quiet, but not empty. On the far side of the room sat a red and white soldier, the same one she sort of saw in her nearly unconscious state, leaning back on a chair with his eyes half shut.

If turning her head had proven to be such a daunting task Elsa dreaded even attempting to get up. But it had to be done. A few deep breaths later, or at least as deep as she could make them, Elsa attempted the nearly impossible task of getting up out of bed. One inch of the ground and she could already feel the searing pain coming from her abdomen and she had to drop back down on the bed, letting out a loud and painful groan which woke up the medic from his nap.

Elsa clutched her bandaged stomach as this dull burning pain shot up from her stomach through to the rest of her body. Trying to get up was a horrible idea. In a flash the medic was beside her, panic and guilt rampant in his eyes for sleeping on the job.

"Are you okay?" he asked apologetically. "Oh who am I kidding? Of course you're not okay you got shot in the goddamn shoulder and the stomach."

Elsa looked at the medic as sternly as she could through the agonizing pain, trying to find the right words to say in this situation. The pain had clouded every inch of space in her mind so she just settled with a disgruntled "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Of course Elsa wasn't alright. Even though the physical pain was subsiding there was still an ache washing over her caused by...something else. And she knew what that ache was and why it was happening. This was a feeling that she had been well accustomed to very recently. She could have been practically riddled with bullets and the pain would hurt less than what she was feeling right now.

It was guilt. She felt absolutely guilty. She had blindly hated her best friend for three years, completely shutting Sloth out and making her feel like the absolute worst piece of shit. And then when she had finally apologized for everything she had been shot by that bastard, watching as Sloth was taken away. And all she could do was lie there helpless, unable to do anything. This was all her fault, all of this, and it was her responsibility to make things right.

Elsa groaned and brought her good arm up over her eyes, partially in exasperation but mostly to hide the tears stinging the back of her eyes, "How long was I out?"

Harmy pondered that for a moment, "Oh gee I honestly have no idea the sun never sets here. I wanna say about...ten hours?"

"Ten hours?!" Elsa replied and almost shot back up from the bed. Of course she remembered the bullet wound and sat back onto the bed once more, the pain almost coming back in folds.

"Yeah I think it's been about ten hours. The rest of the soldiers are still outside talking about...something I'm not entirely sure. I stayed here to make sure you would be alright when I woke up. I'm Harmy by the way."

Elsa stared at the medic quizically, not knowing what to make of the guy. He seemed like such a babbling fool, then again this babbling fool did save her life. Although part of her wished he hadn't. She stretched her good hand out towards him and spoke with a straight face, "Elsa."

"Oh yeah I know who you are." Harmy replied as he stretched out his own hand to shake Elsa's. "Yeah the other soldiers have been saying that for awhile now and so I just assumed that was you and-hey what the hell are you doing?!"

As soon as Harmy had grabbed a hold of Elsa's she launched herself out of bed with his unwilling support, crying out in pain as she did so. He couldn't just drop Elsa back onto the bed and put her in more pain than she was in right now. As soon as she was up Elsa hunched over, gripping her stomach that was punishing her for exerting that much force. She let out a long, seething breath through gritted teeth. The pain was unbearable but she had to tough it out. The hard part, getting up from the bed, was over. Now all she needed to do was walk out of here. That wouldn't be too hard right?

Elsa hooked her left leg onto the edge of the bed followed by her right as Harmy, who still did not agree with Elsa tricking him into helping her, stepped back to give her some her space. Her stomach was practically screaming at her to just stop moving but Elsa wouldn't listen. There was no point in wallowing in self pity and guilt. That wouldn't solve anything. She needed to make things right and not run away from her problems. Sloth was stuck in that damn base against her will and all Elsa wanted to do was say fuck it and die? No, that wasn't going to happen. She was not gonna take the easy way out. Not this time. So with the strength of someone who had just gotten a new lease on life she lifted herself off of the bed. Or at least tried to. Try as she might she just could not get off of the bed. Not without causing more pain to shoot through her as if she had been wearing some sort of shock belt that went off every time she even attempted to move off of the bed.

"Son of a bitch." she muttered in defeat. Seeing as she had no other options she looked up at Harmy in defeat, "Help me up?"

Of course Harmy's first instinct was to tell her to lie back down and get some rest but the way she was looking at her right now, face losing its look of adrenaline-fueled confidence every passing second, told him that she truly needed his help and there was no way she would accept any answer that wasn't a set of helping hands. Sighing in defeat, Harmy ducked down and hitched Elsa's injured arm over his shoulder and placed a hand at her midsection, lifting her up off the bed with slight resistance on her part. Grunting through the pain and also through the overexertion, Elsa finally got up and almost tackled the medic to the ground with the force in which she leaned on him. Steadying the both of them, Harmy walked out towards the entrance of the base.

"I think..." Elsa started, "I think I can walk on my own."

Harmy scoffed, "Oh please, you couldn't even get out of bed by yourself you are in no shape to walk unsupported."

"I'm serious, I can probably walk by myself." Elsa was being very stubborn about this but she couldn't help herself. She needed to get better and fast. Sloth needed her and that was all that mattered. This pain was nothing. But it was also obvious that she couldn't just barge into the base and demand for Sloth to be set free, at least not alone. But as it stood the four soldiers under her command wouldn't be enough. As much as it pained her to admit, maybe...maybe the Reds could help her. Maybe. But there was a big difference between could and would.

The medic shook his head, "At least let me help you out of the base." Of course he wasn't gonna take no for an answer. For one thing it didn't seem right to just let her go right now, who knew just how weak she was really feeling. Maybe the only thing keeping her going was the adrenaline. And another thing...the entrance was like a few feet in front of them anyway.

Even though it had been approximately ten hours (if Elsa was to trust the medic with his estimate) the outside of the base was still buzzing with activity. Except instead of the jumbled mess of conversations that were taking place hours beforehand there seemed to be a coherent flow of words coming from everyone. Now what kind of topic would bring them all together like this?

"Then it's settled! I expect all of you to be out of my base first thing tomorrow morning."

Of course.

It seemed that the topic of surrender was still being pushed by the red leader and she sounded much more headstrong about this than she did a few hours ago.

"That's not what we agreed to at all!" a voice protested, "And besides we don't want your base, it sucks and it's probably messy and worn-down."

Anna giggled, "Who said anything about you guys staying at our base?"

At the entrance of the base stood Elsa and Anna's soldiers, strictly divided and standing in front of each other as if they were preparing for a fight. Obviously they weren't about to fight and you could barely call this verbal dispute a fight. And even if you did it was pretty clear that Anna was winning just through sheer stubbornness alone.

"Then we are we supposed to stay?" Hal Jordan pointed out, gesturing towards his comrades who were just as angry as he was for more than the reason at hand.

She shrugged, "That's not my problem. Maybe you can stay in the cave!"

Elsa had enough of this. "Hey!" she called out.

That exclamation was aimed at Anna but obviously everyone else turned around to see the injured sergeant leaning on a medic who didn't really want to be dragged into...whatever it was that was about to happen. She pushed herself off of Harmy and took a few cautious steps forward.

Elsa still had her injured arm wrapped around her stomach and her face was constantly switching from a look of exasperation and pain, "You can have my base base...if you can do me one favor."

"Elsa!" her soldiers cried out as they ran towards her, utterly relieved that she looked fine, minus the bandages and the slow way she was walking with that slight limp.

"Elsa, are you okay?" Hikari Oni asked for the rest of her comrades.

She sighed and flashed a smile to her soldiers that they all really needed to see, "I'm fine." There were a couple of "new" faces that she hadn't seen in awhile, "Kinofpumps. Hal Jordan. What took you so long?"

They both laughed nervously. "It's, uh...it's a long story." Kinofpumps said.

Elsa squinted at Hal Jordan's armor, "When did you change the color?"

He pointed towards Kinofpumps, "Like he said, it's a long story."

Elsa giggled, "Well I'm sure I'll get to hear it soon." That smile on her face faded away as she got lost in her thoughts once more. What was she doing? A few hours ago she was saying how much she had hated these people in front of her and now she was laughing with them. Her feelings were still unchanged, she still thought of them as good-for-nothing slackers that didn't give a damn about her. But with each passing second Elsa was finding out just how wrong she actually was.

"Hey! What was that about a favor?"

Elsa looked away from her soldiers and back towards a pouting sergeant with a hand on her hip and a shotgun dangling from her side.

"Oh yes, the favor." Elsa let out a big sigh, she was seriously hoping Anna wouldn't be difficult about this, "I need your help breaking Sloth out of the HQ."

The silence that followed that statement stretched on for an awkwardly long time as the commanding officers just stared at each other, one looking for an answer and another looking, practically begging, for any sign that that heinous favor was just some sort of terrible joke. A certain orange soldier responded as if it was.

"Hahahaha! Are you fucking serious?" Morino cried out, "You want us to stick our necks out for your specialist buddy and probably die in the process?! Yeah...no."

Elsa frowned. She expected that response, though the laughing was a bit uncalled for. Even so she needed their help, even if she had to beg for it. "Look I know this sounds like a terrible idea but I need your help. She might die!"

"Woah there, I think you're being a bit over-dramatic." Spacecati said. "She was taken back to HQ against her will but I don't think she's gonna die."

"She's my best friend! She doesn't deserve this fate. She told me she doesn't even want to be a specialist anymore. Please..." Elsa was practically begging by now, "I need your help."

Bubbles shrugged, "Sorry ma'am but I'm with these guys. This isn't our problem and-"

"I'll do it."

To say this declaration by Sergeant Anna was surprising would be an understatement. She had been shooting at these blue soldiers hours ago demanding that they give her their base and now she wanted to help them? This didn't make any sense. I mean it wasn't like she wasn't as lazy as her subordinates were but the whole time they were in this canyon Anna never really had the drive to do much other than boss her soldiers around. And now she wanted to do what was basically a suicide mission?

"Sarge...what?" Morino honestly couldn't say anything else, words were escaping him.

"I said I'm helping them." Sergeant Anna.

"Well I'm not going and you can't make me." Morino added stubbornly.

"I'm not telling you to go." Anna added, "I'm not even asking."

"You're...not?" Morino was surprised, usually Sergeant Anna wouldn't take this kind of insubordination and would have dragged him by the collar to do what she asked.

"Nope, I'm going. That's it. You want to come, then come on. But I don't expect you to. Statistically speaking some of us will probably die."

"Alla av oss." (All of us.)

"But that's not what's important." Anna stared at her soldiers intently now with that look of a born leader, willing his troops into battle. "Let me ask you guys a question: You ever wonder why we're here?"

Morino and Spacecati looked at each other. That question seemed all too familiar to them. "Umm...it does seem to be one of life's great mysteries." Morino answered.

Her gaze was now on Morino specifically, "No I mean why are you here, Private Morino? You're a condescending smartass who hates taking orders and doing just about anything. And yet you were the one who wanted to charge in headfirst without a plan to take revenge on Bubbles being kidnapped."

"Aww, you did?" Bubbles asked.

"And why are you here, Private Bubbles? You're completely apathetic about this entire situation and it doesn't seem like you even wanna be here. You could have left at any time and yet you didn't. Why is that?"

Bubbles looked at his feet and away from Anna, embarrassed at just how correct she was.

Her gaze now turned towards the maroon soldier, "And Private Spacecati, why are you here? You want to be like me so bad for some reason, trying to follow in my footsteps and get in my good graces...what for? Is it cause you want to be a sergeant just like me? You could have been given your own squad at any time so why are you still here?"

Before Spacecati could answer that she had already averted gaze towards Cupcakes, "Private Cupcakes! Why are you here? You got shot in the goddamn foot by your own comrade you have every right to just up and leave this place on the grounds that we are all just terrible shots. Why are you still here?"

Cupcakes looked at his injured foot, not knowing how to properly answer that.

She now looked at her squad as a whole, smiling, "Maybe you're here cause this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here cause you don't have anywhere else to go. Maybe you're all here cause deep down you want to be here."

And now she looked out at the rest of the soldiers situated outside the blue base, "The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here. For all we now, Sloth is probably dead."

Elsa frowned at that, "Look I know I said that she might be dead but I have to admit I was being a bit over-dramatic-"

"The way I figure it..." Anna interrupted as she began to walk towards the blue commanding officer, "they don't expect us to do anything about this situation. They just expect us to go back to doing nothing just like we've been doing this whole time. Those bastards don't think we're real soldiers capable of putting up such a big fight."

She was now right next to Elsa and roughly placed a hand on her injured shoulder. Elsa winced slightly but Anna didn't even notice and looked at her excitedly, "Well...guess I'm interested in showing them exactly what a big fight is all about!"

She looked back at her soldiers once more, "So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even asking. You all do what you gotta do."

For a moment, no one spoke up. They were all still busy registering those amazing motivational words they didn't expect Anna to say at all.

Spacecati took a step forward and beamed at his commanding officer, "I'm in."

Bubbles hesitated for a moment but moved forward as well, "Let's show these bastards who's boss."

Cupcakes followed eagerly and planted his feet forward eagerly, "Hell yeah! Let's do this shi-ow my foot!"

Miguel stepped forward as well, "Jo du lämnade mig ur ert tal, men jag antar att jag är i för." (Well you left me out of your speech but I guess I'm in too.)

Suddenly all eyes were on Morino, the last holdout. Seeing all these faces staring at him, waiting for his answer, left him no choice. He sighed, "Well I mean I'd look like a complete asshole anyway if I wasn't the only one going. So I guess I'm in too."

"Excellent!" Sergeant Anna exclaimed. She looked back at Elsa, "Well I guess there's your answer. We'll be heading back to our base to get ready."

Elsa smiled gratefully, she was very surprised that the red leader would be so on board with this idea but it wasn't her place to question why. She gave Anna a warm, incredibly thankful smile.

"Thank you."