By The Rabid Kookaburra
Merry Christmas!
[This was a mistake,] Captain Scarlet thought. [A terrible mistake.]
That thought ran over and over in his mind, while he started up at a
bright, sparkling piece of tinsel hanging several feet over his head.
Captain Scarlet, the indestructible man and Spectrum's greatest asset
against the Mysterons, lay spread-eagled on the floor, unable to move. His head thudded dully, and there was a
terrible pain in his middle. Any
attempt at moving his limbs brought only half-hearted twitches.
[I'll probably recover before the others, though,] he mused. [It's only natural.] He closed his eyes as another wave of pain,
tinged with nausea, radiated from his stomach.
Whether he recovered faster than the others or not, it seemed like it
would still be quite a while.
[Might as well try and get up,] Scarlet decided. Slowly, carefully, he began the laborous
process of dragging his arms to his sides, propped himself on his elbows, and
looked around. What he saw was not very
encouraging.
Spectrum officers were sprawled all over the room. A few were draped over chairs. All seemed to be in terrific pain, and an
occasional groan rose up from somewhere.
Scarlet marveled over the breadth of the devastation. He had expected something like this to
happen, but the mission had gone on anyway.
Now they were all suffering for it.
With considerable effort, Scarlet managed to push himself into a sitting
position. The pain in his middle
intensified for a moment, and he closed his eyes until it passed. He made his way slowly to his feet, and,
after a few tentative steps, started wandering around. God, the pain was terrible!
Scarlet found Captain Blue slumped over in a nearby chair, groaning
softly. When the British captain
approached, his American friend could only offer a glaze-eyed stare.
"You know," Blue moaned.
"This might have been a mistake."
"Perhaps, but we only have ourselves to blame," Scarlet told
him. "Especially since it was
your idea."
"Yeah, but you were in support of the whole thing," Blue shot
back. "So don't go blaming this
completely on me!" He looked
around the room. "So now
what?"
"What do you think? We
start cleaning it up!" Blue gave
Scarlet a pained look.
"You are aware that there are some other people whose job this is,
right?" the blonde-haired man chided.
"I repeat: this was your idea, Adam!" Scarlet insisted.
"*Our* idea," Blue corrected.
He stretched his arm out.
"Help me up?" Scarlet
sighed, then clasped the extended limb just below the elbow and pulled his
friend to his feet. By this time,
others had recovered enough to get up and walk around as well, staggering like
drunks. The urge to sleep was nearly
overwhelming.
"Boy, everyone's been nailed, haven't they?" Blue muttered as
he and Scarlet went about the task at hand.
"We're probably not even functional at this point."
"Indeed," Scarlet agreed.
"I'm especially amazed at Colonel White. I think he's the worst off of us all." He shot a glance
behind himself briefly, where their commanding officer was staggering to his
feet and starting towards them. Pain
flickered through the older Briton's icy blue eyes as he made his way toward
his subordinate officers.
"Well, I'd say that this has been quite successful," White
told them. "I trust that you two
have the situation in hand?"
"Yes sir," Scarlet assured him. "Blue and I can handle it."
"Carry on, then," White grunted, and left.
"It was pretty unusual of him, wasn't it?" Blue mused. "I had no idea that Colonel White of
all people could possibly...."
"Could you give me a hand here?" Scarlet interrupted him, and
the blond American obliged. The two
went to work on their next task.
Captain Magenta staggered past after few minutes, half-carrying a logy
Captain Ochre. Blue and Scarlet paused
to take this in.
"We're going to sick bay," Magenta explained. "Ochre says he needs to see Dr.
Fawn."
"Seems like he's overreacting to me," Blue scoffed.
"That's what I said, but...." Magenta shrugged as best he
could, then hauled Ochre and himself out of the room.
"Well, I think it went very well!" Symphony Angel told Captains Blue and Scarlet as she and Rhapsody
Angel approached. "I mean,
certainly there's quite a few casualties, but that couldn't have been
avoided."
"Would you like some help?" Rhapsody offered. "It'll get done much quicker that
way." The captains gratefully
accepted, and the four of them got the task done in no time at all.
After the last traces of their recent mission were tended to, Captain
Scarlet, Captain Blue, and Symphony and Rhapsody Angels made their way down the
corridors of Cloudbase to their respective quarters. The four of them leaned on
each other for support, and it was hard to say who was depending the most on
whom. The hallways around them echoed
with moans of agony.
[It'll be days before we recover from this,] Scarlet thought
grimly. At that moment, Cloudbase
wasn't even functional; nearly everyone had been overwhelmed by what had happened
earlier that afternoon. Everywhere the
small group looked, Spectrum personnel were either doubled over in pain or
lying in semi-daze.
"It was a mistake," Blue reminded Scarlet as they dropped the
Angels off at their quarters to recuperate.
"I thought we could handle it, but it was just...just too
much."
"On the contrary," Scarlet countered. "I don't think things could have gone
better. Sure we're all suffering for it
now, but I think this was a really great idea."
"Well, I guess," Blue conceded. His face contorted in pain for a brief moment, then relaxed. "At least we kept everything under
control. I can only imagine what it
would have been like if things hadn't gone as planned."
"It almost hadn't," Scarlet reminded him. "There was that fire, remember? Now that could have been a disaster!"
"Hey, yeah!" Blue
agreed. "Thank God for fire
extinguishers!"
By now the two of them had come to Captain Scarlet's quarters where they
would part company and sleep off the remaining effects of this afternoon. Even then Scarlet was sure he was already
starting to feel better. Maybe things
weren't so bad after all.
"At any rate," Blue concluded as he started to walk away, "I'd say the first annual Cloudbase Christmas feast was a success!"
"CHRISTMAS FAN FIC CHALLENGE" PAGE
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