A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Echo was actually glad of the MUPPETZ attack. It saved her from having to explain herself to annoying Lieutentant Obofritz, who probably wouldn't believe whatever lame excuse she tried to come up with anyway. No matter how many times it happened, being caught in an act of mutiny on her own ship was exceedingly embarrassing.

Then again, nobody knew about the mutiny part. She could probably still wiggle her way out of this particular predicament if she tried.

But just as she was putting on her best "surprised, frightened, innocent little girl" face, she heard a voice...coming from the female ANTI agent's pocket.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Looking at the destruction he had just caused, he stood motionless, aghast. Agent Thorn and Doctor Weirdsworth are on there... who know who else is. I could have just killed them... I guess that kids are not the only ones susceptible to the brainwashing.

CyKo saw, on the captain's quarters window, the silhouette of what looked to be Dr. Weirdsworth, but he wasn't sure. He heard, using his super-sonic-hearing-listening-device 2000 (the SOUNDINATOR!) the sound of muffled punches and Muppetz falling to the floor. "Yup, the Doctor's in the house ."

Turning the submarine 30 degrees to the left, he continued closer towards the Muppetz ship.

From the sides of the ship came large depth charges. They varied from 5 to 100 feet in depth. Narrowly avoiding each charge, CyKo grew so close to the Muppetz ship that he could have touched it. He raised the submarine and opened the latch.

"Who's going with me? For Thorn, for the Doctor, for Summer!!!!" Right after he said this, he heard a Muppetz jump off the side of the ship (shouting 'WANAHALAHUGEEEEeeeeee....') followed by a *thud* of metal. The impression of the Muppetz was seen in the roof of the sub.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Upon hearing CyKo's call to arms, Agent Boe stood and saluted. "I'm with you, Agent CyKo! Just... let me change out of this ridiculous scuba suit first," he said, realizing he was still dressed as a frog. He left momentarily, and returned with a triumphant stride, now dressed in his usual grey suit with matching hat and tie, holding his briefcase in one hand and his SPELR strapped across his back. He dramatically placed his dark glasses over his eyes, and his face became stoic. "Let's move out."

Just then, another loud thud resounded above his head, and he looked up to see yet another MUPPETZ-shaped imprint in the submarine's roof, right next to the other one. "Ah, the old repeatedly-batter-the-submarine's-hull-with-falling-MUPPETZ trick! We shoulda seen this one coming. No fear, team, we're one step ahead of their menacing plot!" He looked to CyKo questioningly. "We are one step ahead, right? I mean, what's the plan? I say we storm the ship, rescue our people, confiscate all available forms of junk food on board, and then make a hasty escape before the whole thing sinks to the ocean floor! Ha ha!" He grinned, overcome with sheer excitement.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

"The plan is... well, I don't have a plan." CyKo said, truthfully. CyKo went out, and climbed up the side ladder that was on the boat. Once up, he was surrounded by tons of Muppetz.

"Stay BACK, Muppetz creeps!" He took out his Indiana Jones nerd Whip

Swinging his nerd rope as fast as he could, he saw many of the Muppetz backing away. One big on, however, remained steadfast. CyKo whipped him, but the MUPPETZ grabbed the whip as it flew past. The Muppetz was blue with googly eyes, its fur was overgrown and it was eating a cookie.

"ME EAT NERDS!! OM NOM NOM!" the Muppetz ate the nerd rope.

Taking out his sweet tarts pistol, he shot the Muppetz in the stomach. It bounced off the Muppetz'z blubber and back into CyKo's chest, knocking his breath away. Suddenly, it dawned on him.

CyKo grabbed his last chocolate Easter bunny and threw it off the side of the ship, and watched as the hungry Muppetz jumped off after it. Landing with a splash in the water, the Muppetz floated until he could swim no more, and sank to the bottom of the abyss; chewing on the chocolate Easter bunny the whole way.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

The last thing Agent Thorn felt was the sharp pain of something striking her back in the head, and was aware of a scuffle going on around her, but an all-encompassing blackness was slipping into her mind. Don't. . . black. . . out, she thought, but even the process of thinking seemed to be screeching to a halt. The last thing she knew was the sound of a voice coming from the pocket of her camo pants, an unfamiliar voice, which was odd because pants don't usually talk.

And then she was out of it completely.

Not. Again, she moaned in the dark, inescapable dreams.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

"Thorn, what's going on?!" Summer hollered as she heard the sound of punching and noises only MUPPETZ could make. She doubted Thorn would even realize she was on the phone with all the racket.

Winter, who was standing behind her, wondered if she noticed that he could hear all that was going on. A couple days earlier, the MUPPETZ speaker had annouced that two ANTI agents had been captured. But if he knew anything, it was that ANTI always watched out for ANTI. Just like he vowed at age 2 that nothing would harm his sister when he was around.

Oh, great, and Echo's there, too? He thought in annoyance. The two HumETZ had never gotten along, mostly because Winter disliked how Echo was always getting attention while he was made fun of and called "Furrystein." And while she had some wicked abilities, he, well, had only a few that the others weren't fond of.

"Look..." He strangly commented, trying to help her without giving it away, "Would you like me to take you to the MUPPETZ ship? We could do some family bonding on the way."

Summer couldn't get what the point of his question was, but finally, she replied, "I guess so, but no matter what you say, we're not related, and I'm not a HumETZ!" Anyhow, they headed off the Sub Garage, Summer still chatting into her Phoney phone.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

"Thorn, what's going on?!" said the agent's pants.

The person whom Echo assumed to be Agent Thorn slumped the the floor, a MUPPETZ perched on her back and brandishing a TV remote. Must be a pretty hardcore remote to knock someone unconscious, Echo observed.

Having defeated Agent Thorn, the MUPPETZ seemed satisfied with itself and leapt at the strange-teleporting-man with a bloodthirsty cry of "OOOOWAHYAHHH!!!" With the rest of the MUPPETZ momentarily distracted, nobody seemed to notice the strange voice still coming from Thorn's pants.

Echo glanced at Lieutenant Obofritz, but he was examining the unconscious Admiral. Quickly, Echo knelt down, reached into the agent's pocket, and withdrew a small, handheld device. The voice was still drifting through. She fumbled trying to figure out how to turn it off, but when Obofritz stood up, she smothered the speaker with her hand and backed away, trying once again to look innocent as the battle raged around her.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

"We couldn't do this BEFORE I took off my wetsuit?!"

realizing theres no time to get all in her wetsuit with the MUPPETZ attacking the sub and all. Just as preparations in the sub were being made somone shot the door and water was gushing though into the submarine and sinking it. Whit began to swim to the top of the water and her popped out as she gasped for air. For a quick moment she felt like that girl in that movie who went into that magical land with her brother and cousin.

But when she opened her eyes she came to something very different in the movie. People all around her were in the water hearing several gun shots- shes not sure from what side, Whit begins swimming for her life to try and get somewhere safe before someone...or something got her first.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

The thump-thu-thump of another attacking MUPPETZ sounded on the roof of the sub. Mal'ady looked up at the ceiling and shook her head, hands on hips. "Really," she sighed. "So unoriginal."

She turned to CyKo and Boe and was just opening her mouth to ask about the plan, when a massive explosion rocked the sub and the door shattered. Water, salty and freezing, poured in. Mal'ady heard the surprised cries of her fellow agents become muffled as the water filled the room. She sucked one last breath of air and swam for the door.

The icy temperature of the water made her nearly gasp and lose her air as Mal'ady tumbled out into the ocean. She forced her eyes open. It was dark and the salt stung her eyes, but she could just make out a chaotic tangle of ANTI agents and MUPPETZ in the water. She spotted Whit a few feet away and swam towards her.

But before she could reach Whit, a blinding yellow light flashed through the ocean, and the water shivered, turning hot and electric against Mal'ady's skin. The water churned, spinning in a powerful, frothy whirl that blocked her fellow agents from her view. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a massive swell of water captured her, pushing her down, into a confusion of darkness and swirling currents, away from the other agents.

She was about to pass out from lack of air when thud! her head banged hard against metal. Just above her fingers was the hull of the warship and an open hatch, light pouring out of it.

Half-frozen and coughing up water, Mal'ady pulled herself up through the hatch and into a corridor. She was too exhausted to stand at the moment, but instantly, she scooted into a shadowy corner to breathe and hide from any nearby MUPPETZ. For she had lost her friends, broken the STEAL protocol (Stick Together Energetically And Literally), and was now a solitary, very drenched agent, somewhere in the bowels of the M.U.P.P.E.T.Z. mothership.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

Agent Boe was just preparing to leave, mentally psyching himself up for the coming battle, when something completely unexpected happened - the submarine's door exploded, and frigid seawater began swirling around the interior of the vessel. Boe was standing near the door when it happened, and was quickly caught in the back flow which sucked him out of the submarine and into the sea before he could say "Silly Putty", or even "Silly", for that matter. It's likely he couldn't have said "Putty" either, but he didn't try, so we'll never know.

"Sil-" he yelled as his body was forcefully washed out of the submarine, and then he had to close his mouth to keep the seawater out. Not having time to take a breath before it happened, he found himself with near-empty lungs in a turmoil of water currents that made it impossible to determine which way was up. Thinking it over for about half a second, Boe decided that drowning would be an undesirable way to end the day, so his mind began working on a plan to survive.

He quickly removed his tie, and yanked the little tab at the bottom, causing it to suddenly bloat up with a limited supply of previously-condensed air. He placed one end to his mouth and gave his lungs a much desired gulp of air.

With that emergency taken care of, he began to look around for his briefcase. At first he saw only other ANTI agents and MUPPETZ floating around trying to survive: one particular Muppetz was very close, wearing a stripped shirt and playing with a rubber duckie. Boe decided to ignore this for the moment and focus on surviving.

Finally, he spotted the briefcase floating nearby. after gripping the handle and twisting it in a specific way, two rockets suddenly emerged from the sides. With a sudden burst of power, the briefcase shot upward, splashed through the surface of the ocean, and soared high into the air, leaving a trail of fuel vapor and Agent Boe's shoes behind.

"Too high, too high, stop, stop!" Boe yelled, repeatedly slamming his fist against the case to make it cooperate. Finally it did cooperate, and the rockets shut off and retracted. "Ah, that's more like it," Boe said cheerily as he began to free fall, several hundred yards above the MUPPETZ ship. He wasn't worried, because he knew, of course, that his briefcase would soon eject a parachute which would safely lower him to the ship. He'd done this routine many times, and so he had no doubt that it would work successfully again. In fact, he had just used the briefcase-parachute last monday during a rainstorm, and it worked perfectly, though it had gotten quite muddy and needed to be dry-cleaned afterward. But the dry-cleaner said it would be ready to be picked up by Friday, so, it all worked out well.

Except that it wasn't Friday yet.

This time, as Boe tumbled through the air with absolutely no parachute and no way to save himself from the impending splatter below, he had more than enough time to yell: "SILLY PUTTYYYYYYY!"

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

The two reached the Sub Garage with ease ("Likely 'cause the other MUPPETZ are on duty," Winter explained), but Summer quickly felt sick to her stomach as she realized all the driver's wheels were on the left side. "Um, Winter?" she sighed. "I can't drive any of these, because I'm British, and I fail at driving when I'm not on the right side."

"Luckily, I can though," Winter admitted. So, Winter took up the driver's seat, Summer was in the passenger's seat, and the two soon went off into the sea. It didn't take too long before the ship came into view. Although she couldn't see the ANTI sub, she could tell there was underwater fighting going on nearby.

"If you are my brother, why don't you have a british accent?" Summer skeptically mumbled, while anxiously waiting for some more noise from her phone. It all sounded muffled now.

"I've been here for most of my life, so I guess I just lost it," Winter shrugged as he steered through the water. And just as Summer opened her mouth again, he added, "And yes, I can turn into a MUPPETZ. See this bracelet?" He lifted up his arm and showed her an opal covered bracelet, which was identical to her necklace. "Whenever I take it off, I become one." He took off his bracelet, and to Summer's shock, his arm started changing into a white mass of furriness. Before the rest of him changed, he put the bracelet back on, and the fur disappeared. "See?"

Summer then felt uneasy, because she didn't remember ever taking her necklace off. Would she start morphing into a MUPPETZ if she dared to take it off?

Winter was bothered by how slow it was taking her to believe him. Calm down, he mentally reasoned, this is all new to her, and if you let your temper get ahead of you, you'll really lose her trust and literally scare her off! Feeling a little bit more relaxed, he looked up through the sub window. The ship was now very close to them. He clicked a button, and the bottom of the ship opened. "We're going in," he cautioned, and the sub went into to the ship.

((To break up this ANTI party and keep a promise.... ))

Return of the Fountain Fellowship

He gave her a nod at her thanks, and listened to her question when she put it to him. He sighed and his eyes went distant for a few moments, then he looked at her, though he didn't stop walking.

He looked around to make sure they weren't being heard, and reached into his helmet to turn off the com, "Whatever you hear from the people around here, what I'm about to tell you is the absolute truth." he paused, "When young boys are taken by the MESS, they are taken to a facility for modification of their DNA. There they are modified to have one of many different modified attributes. The MESS never take adults though." he sighed and pulled her slightly off to one side, "I was taken when I was 20. Normally the MESS would simply have killed me or sent me somewhere where I couldn't be any more trouble... thanks to Doctor Nix, they ran a set of new experiments on me, and drafted me as well... I'm only here because of him." He shook his head, "It's up to you if you want to believe me or not, but it's the truth."

Grace opened and shut her mouth like a fish. It was all she could do for a little while. It would explain much, yes....but then, why did people support the MESS? This was an attrocity, if it was true! Then and again, they received the experiments by choice, right? Right?

She put her hand to her temple, the information swirling around in her head planting doubts and sowing confusion. "I...I..." Then something that seemed certain emerged out of the muck. "You were put through the experimentation against your will? By Doctor Nix?" She began to shake her head, slowly, and then with conviction. "He would never do that. Ever. He's not like that."

She slowly began stepping away from him. "Why are you telling me all this? What's your motive?" Confusion swept through her mind again, but she was sure. Excelsor couldn't have done that. It was unethical. It was...she couldn't stay here any longer. She turned on her heel and ran away.

Return of the Fountain Fellowship

Ace waited and watched her reaction. She asked him questions, but didn't pause to let him answer. He had opened his mouth when She turned and ran. His brow furrowed in concern. Maybe he had said too much.

He ran a hand through his hair and then angrily turned his com on and slammed the helmet back on his head. He strode off, not really going anywhere, trying to think. He had to talk with David when he got off that evening. He was angry... angry with himself, angry with MESS, angry with Doctor Nix... he had to get out of here.

Return of the Fountain Fellowship

Later...

David was in the barracks after a long day of guarding the Chairman. No assassination attempts today, which made him glad, because he was prepared to take a bullet for his leader and was happy that he hadn't had to and could see Grace again.

See Grace again. He rolled the idea around in his mind, testing it out. He had never thought he would see her again while he was in the MESS. It had been a horrible time when he had first joined, especially just after basic training. He didn't want to think about why she was here, if she was a scientist, because that brought back old memories. His imagination would go crazy. Better to wait until he could ask her in person. He just contented himself with the fact that she was near and knew that he was safe. He had missed her, more than he had known until today.

He was wearing a white tee and his fatigue pants, as he was off-duty, and enjoying the relaxation while thinking all this. Then he wondered how exactly he could find Grace. Maybe Ace would know.

A.N.T.I. (American Nitwits Think Intelligently): The Rebellion

This is what happened while Agent Thorn was knocked out.

While Doctor Weirdsworth was giving the M.U.P.P.E.T.Z. a run for their money, the dweeby lieutenant, quite unwilling to lose their original captive again (he was very certain he would lose the last of his cheese fry points if he allowed that to happen), screamed for two sailors to take the unconscious Agent Thorn to the brig, and to send reinforcements.

So, two of the wimpier M.U.P.P.E.T.Z. hoisted the agent up, made some remarks about her weight that they were very lucky she did not hear, and quietly carried her out while Doctor Weirdsworth was preoccupied with hitting every M.U.P.P.E.T.Z. within range upside the head with a not-so-inflatable mallet.

Grumbling about the evils of A.N.T.I. agents and their mutant trees, the sailors were making their way towards the brig when some other M.U.P.P.E.T.Z. shouted something about more A.N.T.I. agents being on board. The surly sailors dropped Agent Thorn unceremoniously onto a heap of rubbish and ran off, but most importantly leaving her reclining on a plank that was lying across a cannon like a large seesaw.

When someone screamed "SILLY PUTTYYYYYYY!" from somewhere high over her head, Agent Thorn didn't hear, and was still too out of it to know what hit her.