Attack of the purple platypus: a BoTP fanfiction with a chromatic twist
Timeline: mid-canon
Author’s note: written as part of a fic exchange organised on Gatchamania by ElectricWhite, in honour of the late Amethyst. The prompt was a picture of an amethyst-coloured crystal.
The briefing began like all other briefings where G-Force had been called to show up at six in the morning: with Anderson making sure that a box of painkillers was available and within reach on his desk. It was not that meeting with the team gave him headaches, he reasoned with himself. It was more that headaches seemed to appear out of nowhere when he even considered meeting with the team.
He was getting his cup of coffee from Sergeant Quandt when G-Force appeared at the end of the corridor, all slouching and shuffling their feet. Cerebonics or not, they had been through a gruelling training week, and had not had time to recover fully before they were summoned to the Chief’s office for an urgent briefing.
They barely managed to get a “morning, Chief”, out before slumping on their chairs. Even Jason gave up his usual stand by the door and let himself slump on an armchair, cradling a cup of coffee.
“Good morning, team, and if it’s hard for you to be here so early, imagine how hard it is for me,” he started.
“You didn’t through a week of drills with a drilling instructor from Riga,” mumbled Jason, but there was no fight in him.
Anderson switched on the wall-to-wall screen behind him. An image appeared, a precious stone, bright, twirling and twinkling. The team looked at it in surprise “ Keyop actually had his mouth open.
“You’ve never seen a precious stone before?” Anderson chided them.
“Granted, I know we don’t pay you enough to buy diamonds…”
“Why would we want to anyway?” muttered Tiny under his breath. “Blood and tears, that’s what they are.”
“…but I would have thought you would have at least seen something like this,” finished Anderson. “So don’t act as if you’ve been locked in Centre Neptune all your life.”
“Which we have, kind of,” replied Jason, slowly waking up.
Anderson pointed at the screen.
“This purple stone could be all that stands between us and victory in the war against Spectra. It is…”
“It’s not purple,” said Princess absent-mindedly, doodling in her notebook. To Jason, who was sitting next to her, it looked suspiciously like she was doodling an elaborate “M”. He leaned closer, but she shut her notebook and glared at him.
“I’m sorry, it’s not what?” asked Anderson, hoping he had misheard.
Princess shrugged.
“It’s not purple. It’s amethyst. Anyone can see that.”
The five men in the room most certainly could not see that, as they were looking at each other in bewilderment.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter “ this amethyst could be all that stands between us and victory in the war against Spectra,” continued Anderson, conceding Princess’ point. If she wanted it to be amethyst, amethyst it would be.
“How?” asked Mark, sitting up straighter.
“This stone was recently found in the Himalayas “ actually, not very far from where you once faced the charioteer robots,” said Anderson, and everyone’s face darkened.
“The important thing is that it was found by our scientists and is now kept at a secret base there.”
“How secret?” asked Jason, a note of suspicion in his voice.
Anderson had the good grace to look down.
“Not very secret, I’m afraid. We understand from our assets on Spectra that Zoltar is aware of its existence.”
The team knew very well that one of these assets, working under cover on Spectra, was Mark’s friend Cronus. Princess reached over and squeezed his hands.
“I’m sure he’s ok,” she whispered.
Anderson heard her but didn’t say anything “ he didn’t want to embarrass either of his two young ninjas. Mark had been good at hiding his concern about his friend, and Princess had been good at hiding her feeling for Mark. And Cronus, bless him, thought Anderson “ he had been good at hiding that he was Mark’s father.
“We are not sure yet whether Zoltar also knows about the existence of the purple “ the amethyst “ stone. If he does, and we must assume that if he found out about the base, he will at some point find out about the stone, then an attack is, I am afraid to say, imminent.”
He looked at them. Jason was the first one to get up.
“When do we leave, Chief?”
Anderson smiled.
“You will act as support to the Cobalt Fortress,” he started, but this Tiny interrupted him with a whoop, while Keyop was also out of his seat in excitement.
“The Cobalt Fortress? We are flying with the biggest airborne lab ever?” asked Tiny.
“The one where they keep all sorts of toot…root…animals?” added Keyop, punching his fist in the air.
“Calm down, everyone! Take your seats, please, there’s still a lot of briefing to get through. Jason, yes, you will leave soon. Tiny, yes, you will be flying in formation with the Cobalt Fortress. Keyop, no, it will not be carrying any animals this time, only equipment necessary for transporting the stone to Centre Neptune for safe keeping and further investigation.”
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Jason, sitting down again.
“What’s wrong with what?”
“The stone, Chief! There must be something wrong with it, if we need to send a whole airborne lab, plus the Phoenix, to bring it here.”
Anderson sighed.
“We don’t know. There might be nothing wrong with it. We know for sure that it is capable of producing energy, enough energy to power our defence installations and maintain them fully functional and ready to repel Spectra’s forces. It is stable, does not emit any dangerous radiation. We could literally carry it in a suitcase.”
He looked keenly at his young ninjas.
“But we don’t know what else it could do. This material has never been used before. Here at Centre Neptune we have the expertise, but also the tools, to examine it more thoroughly and assure ourselves that it will not cause any harm. But we need to bring it here safely “ if anything happens on the way, we don’t know what the effects will be on nearby towns and cities. The Cobalt Fortress, at least, is so well insulated that anything emitted by the stone could be reasonably expected to stay withing the lab.”
He didn’t have to add that this could have very negative effects on the lab’s personnel “ he assumed that the team understood this, as did the scientists that would go on this mission. He locked eyes with Mark.
“Commander, if something happens, you are to abandon the Cobalt Fortress and return to Centre Neptune.”
Mark looked up, startled.
“What? No!”
“They have orders to self-destruct!” said Anderson sternly. “You do not want to be near them when they do!”
“But Chief… maybe it will be something we can contain…” started Princess.
“The operative word here is ‘maybe’, Princess,” continued Anderson heavily. “We just don’t know. Your job is to make sure that the lab is not attacked by Spectra on the way there and back. Nothing more and nothing less!”
They were silent, all of them looking rather mutinous.
“Am I clear?” insisted Anderson. “If you understand your orders, you can prep the Phoenix and be ready to rendezvous with the Cobalt Fortress at the launch bay!”
Mark got up first.
“G-Force!” he saluted, and the others followed suit, making their way down to the Phoenix’s berth.
As soon as they had trooped out, Dr. Sarah Petrides, the Centre Neptune scientist that Anderson had discovered “ to everyone’s surprise “ he had a crush on, knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for a reply.
“You told them, Jack? They know what they have to do?”
Anderson nodded.
“They need to get this purple stone back here…”
“It’s not purple,” said Sarah at once.
Anderson groaned.
“Oh don’t you start too! Princess was telling us that it’s not purple, it’s amethyst. What does it matter?”
“Of course it’s amethyst! And what do you mean, what does it matter? Are your glasses black?” she asked.
Before Anderson could say ‘yes’, Sarah continued.
“Of course they’re not, they’re space grey. We need to be precise about these things.”
“Sarah,” sighed Anderson, “I don’t claim to understand women “ not even you,” he added tenderly. “What I do understand, though, is that the sooner you can get your hands on it, and study it so that we can use it in the war, the better it will be for all of us! And it is the only way to make sure that it will not fall into Zoltar’s grubby hands!”
Sarah had just put her arm around Anderson, and they were moving closer for a quick kiss, when Sergeant Quandt appeared at the door.
“Another coffee, sir?”
---
The crew and scientists of the Cobalt Fortress were excited to fly with G-Force and welcomed the team with cheers and salutes as Mark and his team-mates climbed out of the Phoenix for a quick debriefing at the launch pad before taking off. Tiny checked the route with the Fortress pilot, Mitch, an old Centre Neptune hand that had been Tiny’s instructor at the academy.
“No pressure, Tiny, but I’ll be checking to see if you remember what I taught you,” he said, before jumping on to his own ship.
“You taught me that he who goes away lives to fight another day,” smiled Tiny.
“Damn right,” nodded Mitch. “Don’t you forget that. There’s no need for heroics, son,” he added in a more serious voice. “Remember that “ your job is to keep the Earth safe.”
“And the beer cold, I know,” said Tiny, saluting his old teacher before hopping on to the Phoenix.
“Everyone strapped in?”, he asked, without really waiting for a reply. “Off we go!”
“What’s the matter, Princess?” asked Mark after they had taken off. “You look quite pensive.”
“I’m just wondering…”
She looked at her team-mates.
“Why would Zoltar want to steal the amethyst stone?”
“He’s colour coordinated?” shrugged Jason.
Keyop, who was drinking some water, nearly spit it out.
“Good one!” he spluttered.
“No, seriously,” insisted Princess. “We don’t know what the stone can do. What makes you think Zoltar knows what it can do?”
“Maybe he can’t let anyone else have something shiny?” suggested Tiny.
Mark looked at Princess, realising that his team-mate’s observation was not just idle thinking.
“What are you getting at, Princess?” he asked curiously.
“Well… what if this kind of stone already exists on Spectra, and Zoltar knows what it can do “ and what is the safest way to transport it?”
“Hey, you’re on to something, sister,” called Tiny from the front.
“And what if he knows exactly what kind of attack would render us incapacitated, but keep the Fortress flying and the stone safe and ripe for the picking?”
Mark, who had gotten up and was pacing around the Phoenix, strapped himself back in.
“Right, Princess, contact the Cobalt Fortress. Tell them what you just told us. That they should be prepared for such an attack and they are not to self-destruct if an attack takes place, as it’s likely that the stone will be safe.”
“Well it’s only a theory,” hesitated Princess.
“It’s good enough for me “ Anderson gave his orders but, in the field, I have operational command. Tell the Fortress to let themselves be captured, if needed.”
“But it will not be needed,” added Jason through gritted teeth, checking his arsenal.
---
They saw the mecha as they were approaching the ISO base where the stone was being kept. It was flying almost haphazardly towards them, taking what looked like evasive action even if it was not under attack.
“Battle stations everyone,” said Mark calmly, before switching to the frequency they shared with the Fortress.
“Cobalt Fortress, this is the Phoenix. We have a bogey on our screen.”
“I see it, Commander,” confirmed Mitch.
“Keep to your route towards the base. We will take care of it.”
“But Mark…”
“You have your orders. Mark out.”
He turned to his team-mates.
“Right, why is this purple thing flying like this?”
“It’s not purple…” started Princess, then stopped, as she could feel the gaze of her four male team-mates on her.
“…it’s more like plum-coloured,” she finished lamely.
“Plum or no plum, what is it?” wondered Tiny, taking in the mecha’s not very aerodynamic shape. “Whatever it is, it can definitely shoot”, he muttered, as the Phoenix was shaken by a missile strike that glanced off its side.
“It’s a platypus!” exclaimed Keyop.
“A what?”
“A platypus! A semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal…”
“Okay, okay, we get the gist,” said Mark hastily. “Well, not a very successful design for a spaceship, no? It can’t seem to fly straight!”
“Yeah, it actually does not fly straight,” came Jason’s reedy voice as he studied the data arriving at his screen. “Which is why we cannot get a fix on it. Its flight path is… unusual, to say the least.”
Mark walked up to Tiny.
“Right, so this is what we’re going to do. Tell Mitch to hold steady, and continue to the base, no matter what happens. Then turn the Phoenix round “ and fly straight towards the… the platypus.”
“We are closing in, Mark!” said Jason urgently. “I cannot shoot them at such close range!”
“We are not going to shoot them,” replied Mark in a grim voice. “We are going to ram them.”
Stunned, the others looked at him, Tiny twisting all the way round in his chair.
“Ermmm, Commander, I’m sure there are less drastic ways of getting rid of it,” he said hesitantly.
“Relax, Tiny,” smiled Mark. “We are not going to really ram it. But we are going to go up against its bill “ that’s it’s most sensitive part. Platypi can actually hunt using only their bills, with their eyes, ears and nose all closed.”
“So?”
“So assuming that Spectra, as usual, has added to the mecha the characteristics of the animal it represents, we should be able to render it useless, just by rendering its bill useless.”
“Well, glad you were paying attention in class,” muttered Jason, “but if we are up against its nose, we can’t really shoot it.”
“I told you, we’re not going to shoot it,” repeated Mark impatiently. “And it’s not a nose, it’s a bill. We are going to overload it. Tiny, fly around in circles, in front of the mecha. Let it track you with its bill.”
“Well that’s one sentence I didn’t think I would ever hear,” muttered Tiny, but he started going round in circles, approaching the plum-coloured mecha at the same time.
They could see its bill pulsing with energy as it tracked the pesky little Phoenix round and round. And just as G-Force were starting to feel the effects of their flying even through their cerebonic implants, the platypus’ bill went dark. The huge mecha just floated in the air, not shooting at anything, not even moving towards the base, just… hovering.
Cheers broke out in the Phoenix and, switching to the common frequency, Tiny could hear the Cobalt Fortress’s crew also cheering.
“Keep the beer cold, Tiny,” came Mitch’s voice over the intercom. “We pick up the purple stone and then we go for a drink at the base.”
“IT’S NOT PURPLE!”
THE END
Story Notes:
Part of a Gatchamania fic exchange in honour of the late Amethyst.