epilogues:operation_last_stand [Reference II]

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== The Last Stand? ======

<...> And so the magnificent Captain Unstoppable has now been taken prisoner aboard the Alien Mothership. After liberating her fellow soldiers, she prepares the squad for their most important operation: their last stand. Now surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of Greenazoids, they fight valiantly to make their way deep into the core of the Mothership and destroy the reactor. While the Captain is running a distraction, the privates prepare a potent mixture of turboglycerine and greenpowder. With explosives in place, they rush to the shuttles, and with a flick of a detonator switch, disintegrate the Mothership's main power source.

Little do the Humans know that this is an AMBUSH!! In the shuttle bay, they are surrounded by Lieutenant Dexter Wright, an infamous Human traitor, who murders Private Sirnaym. Time has come for our heroes to make their last stand. Thankfully, Captain Unstoppable's genius run-by distraction lets the humans take the initiative and pulverise the Lieutenant. They take off in a shuttle, but Greenacious the Magnificent, the leader of Greenazoids, was expecting this. They activate the tractor beam and capture our heroes, beginning their final last stand. Greenacious themself appears before the captives, and use their wicked lies to make Elena defect.

Greenacious waves their hand, and hundreds, maybe thousands of Greenazoids rush at our heroes. Captain Unstoppable shouts, "It's time we stop you once and for all" and gestures the privates to hold off the Greenazoids. She rushes at Greenacious and sends them into the air with an uppercut. Just as Elena takes aim, the Captain catches Greenacious and deflects Elena's plasma round with Greenacious's bullet-proof cloak. But Greenacious snatches this opportunity and sneaks in a greenin' nasty punch, throwing the Captain to the ground. With a barely-concealed smirk and an even less-concealed supercapacitor plasma hand cannon, Greenacious slowly approaches. "As you humans say, ooh-rah... And goodbye, Captain," they say, cocking their gun and pointing it at the Captain's face. The Captain chuckles. "This is your final mistake, kid. //Never// underestimate the toughness of human will." She grabs the barrel of the gun and crumples it with her bare hands. Instinctively, Greenacious presses the trigger, and plasma erupts backwards from the gun, evaporating them. Mario shoots the last greenazoid, and the room is finally silent.

Mario gleefully shouts, "We've finally--". The Captain talks over him, "Well, now that I've saved the world, we've now got time to get drinks in my mansion space station. Who's with me?" Mimi sees Elena raising a gun behind the Captain's back. She points behind the Captain's back, "Elena is--", but is interrupted by her. "Of course, private, Elena's also invited. She'll come to her senses shortly." 

A sound of a gunshot rings throughout the room, and this moment hangs still in the air for what feels like an eternity. The Captain falls to the ground. With an enormous effort, she turns her head and locks her eyes with Elena. Her feeble voice mutters, "You... You have been fighting to save humanity your whole life... But why has that changed?" Elena is slowly walking towards the Captain, holding Greenacious's spare gun just out of Captain's reach. "...It took Greenacious years to get Dexter to betray us, so why did--" A second shot punctuates an early end to the Captain's last sentence.

There's a moment of tense silence. Then Mimi's voice, shrill with betrayal and frustration, cuts through. "Why would you kill her? Why, Elena? She was a //person//! A //hero//! You killed her like she was cattle. How could you? How //dare// you?"

Elena scoffs, more annoyed than teasing. Her foot nudges the vast span of the Captain's shoulders. "She's not a person, Mimi. She's an action figurine. Pulled straight out of some military propaganda flick. You think anyone here cares about her? They'll have a new 'hero' within the week."

Mimi's face blazes with indignant rage. She splutters, stalled by Elena's sheer indifference. "I care! She wasn't an 'action figure', she was a noble warri-"

"Yeah, well, you're just as fake as her." Elena cuts her off with such apathetic confidence that it knocks the fight from Mimi. She gasps slightly, frozen, as she processes the insult. Besides her, Mario leans over to place a hand on her shoulder in comfort, mouthing, "//What does that even mean?//"

Before either of the loyalists can respond, Elena turns to the doors leading into the throne room. Behind them, a mass of Greenazoids wait, peering inwards cautiously. "Well? What are you waiting for? Kill us, already."

Wretched grins break out upon their faces. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Greenazoids rush towards Mimi and Mario, flooding out of the corridors and tunnels that empty into the room. So eager are they that they pack themselves into a dense mass, and the brave survivors spot their opportunity. Leaping from the disassembled wreck of the shuttle, they land atop the Greenazoid horde, crushing squishy heads underneath as they run towards an exit. After a mad sprint towards the nearest shuttle bay, the pair soar out into open space.

Mario turns back to Mimi and jokes, "Well, at least now we know the secret of Greenazoid ice cream!". But Mimi isn't listening. Her hands are clenched into trembling fists as she stares back at the crippled Mothership. 

To the unfeeling void of space she whispers a promise. "Elena may have started this war. But I //will// finish it."

Elena, of course, cannot hear her. But not because she is dead. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Greenazoids have surrounded her, but not in aggression. They are bowed, reverently, at a safe distance around her. A red Greenazoid approaches through the parting horde, Greenacious's cloak cradled softly in its hands. It bows to her as it approaches, and then reaches up to wrap the royal garment around her.

Elena rises, newly coronated, and struts towards the throne. The role, the outfit, the room, all suit her well. As she takes her place as the Commander of the Greenazoids, she makes a promise to her loyal troops. "Greenacious may have started this war. But //I// will finish it."

In the weeks that follow, the Greenazoid invasion redoubles. Mimi and Mario throw themselves into the defence of humanity, guarding battle stations and lunar outposts until the very end. Always Elena's tide of soldiers forces them back. Eventually, despite their best efforts, the war reaches the Earth itself.

It's time for the rest of humanity to make their last stand, too.