When the ocean meets fire

~~~~~~~~~~~~Shock~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the year that Taz had been away, Up’s condition- physically and mentally, had practically deteriorated. He felt like he hadn’t got a tough bone left in his body, and he’d lost all respect from the rangers bar the ensigns who were due to enter the base in a few days to be separated into various missions; they’d only heard of the Commander Up: the toughest, meanest, scariest war hero in the G.L.E.E with a cold, hard, ice heart, who was enough to kill a man with one look. Up didn’t know where the stories that they told about him came from, but he was kind of glad of them as it gave him at least some shield on his status. What he did know though, was that his heart wasn’t made of ice anymore, as it might have been seven years ago. His heart had been thawing out since he’d met Taz, and it had nearly melted when he’d realised he loved her, but since his injury he’d only had that melted heart to cling onto, and of course, his heart was with her now.

He limped down to corridor towards the mess-hall with his hands in his pockets and his head hanging low: a normal stance for him now. He was just about to turn a corner, when he saw an...eye-catching to say the least, shade of pink in the corner of his eye. His head turned just in time to catch Chloe slipping into the same office she’d taken him in around three months ago. Now knowing that it wasn’t in fact her office, curiosity overcame him and he went over to the door, which, luckily for him, was slightly ajar. When he heard Chloe talking to someone, he pressed his back against the wall next to the door and turned his head so he could hear what she, or rather, they were saying.

“Progress?” Came a booming yet rough voice that Up didn’t recognise.

“Well, no duh!” Up shuddered at Chloe’s sickeningly girly voice, “Rosie told me that Pippa told her that it was, like, so funny in the cafeteria the other day!”

“Yes, Miss Grant, you told me that in our meeting last month.” The voice was annoyed, “Any progress with his...condition?” His? Who are they talking about? Up thought as he edged closer to the door in anticipation.

“OMD-God yeah! He doesn’t even protest when I, like, totally full-on flirt with him! Which isn’t surprising, seeing as it’s me, but I you know him...” Oh great, they were talking about a boyfriend of Chloe’s. Up went to push himself off the wall when the voice thundered again, stopping both him and probably Chloe in their tracks.

“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS! JUST TELL ME IF HE’S GETTING WEAKER!” Okay, so maybe they weren’t talking about one of her boyfriends.

“Uh... well I was in the gym with him the other day, and even though he wasn’t talking to me, I could see the tears in his eyes and stuff when I talked about just, like, normal stuff!” Wait...the gym?

“Carry on...”

“And when I held up just, like, the teensiest little weight and I said to him, ‘let’s see if you can lift a bigger weight than me’, he just broke down and cried on the floor.” What? Up remembered the exact same incident. Chloe hadn’t known, but she should have done, about how Taz had trained him just more than a year ago, and yet again, he had let his weak side show instead of what he was really thinking. But more importantly, the person they were talking about was him.

“Excellent,” Up felt his stomach churn when the voice started to laugh, “I think that I’ve certainly weakened,” there was another mocking laugh, “Commander Up enough.” Dead God... had this all been a plan to make him weak? Peter, Chloe, Taz being threatened with an extended probation if she didn’t go on the mission? Who was Chloe talking to and why did he want Up to be like this?

Up’s questions were answered as if they’d heard his thoughts.

“But I don’t understand.” Understatement of the year for Chloe, “There’s plenty of other Commanders who are pretty close to what Up’s personality was like.”

“Don’t worry about them, Miss Grant,” the voice said slyly, “I’ve seen to it that those certain Commanders will also be...out of work...for a long while.” Again Up felt a wave of nausea when he heard sarcasm pepper the voice’s tone.

“Oh cool!” However, Chloe didn’t sense the voice’s hidden meaning, “But wait: what about Lieutenant Taz?” Up’s ears pricked up when he heard her name, “As much as I hate her and her sense of style, I don’t think she’ll take your plans just lying down.”

“For the last time, I have it all planned out!” Up was panicking now: what were they going to do to Taz? “We put her on the rescue mission to Bug World with no decent rangers, so when they’re attacked, she’ll have no chance! The others will die and she’ll be left to attempt to fight!” No way, Up thought, no freakin’ way is Taz gonna be put on that mission. I won’t let whoever this is take her away again.

“But wait-”

“WHAT IS IT CHLOE?” The voice had the tone Up wanted to have with Chloe whenever he spoke to her.

“Lieutenant Taz is a Lieutenant.” There was a pause.

“And?”

“The G.L.E.E rules say that only when the Commander dies is the Lieutenant allowed to be the highest-ranking ranger on a mission, and even then that can only be when the mission’s started. So who’s going to be the Commander?” The words didn’t sound dumb enough to come from Chloe’s mouth.

“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” This was the only fraction of respect that Up had for whosever the voice was: he spoke to Chloe like he wanted to,

“Commander Up is going too.”