Project Trouble X Three

Dedicated to friends, oddball, PenumbraMINE, Jo Jo Sprout, and N.Y.O.B. Thank you for all your crazy comments that brighten up my day.

Recap

Mom and Sophia were making dinner, our mom watching her closely - which I was very thankful for. Sophia didn’t know how to cook, hell, she burnt the kitchen counter by making toast. Cruz wasn’t much better at cooking himself. The last time he boiled water he left the pan on the stove until the water was gone and the pan started stinking. He had burnt water and our mom never let him help in the kitchen again.

I heard the alarm go off again, but knew we were okay. “What the hell?” Madrid yelled out.

I quickly looked at the screen and then looked at Tesso. What the hell indeed. “Tesso, is there something you would like to share with the class?” I asked as I turned my head to him.

“Uh, I have a twin brother in the cartel. It was the reason I joined the military. I wanted to put an end to the cartels, thinking he would stop standing with them,” Tesso quickly said, a sad look in his eyes.

I heard, “What the fuck?” My head whipped around as Tesso’s brother was hitting the correct symbols, effectively stopping the security to the bunker.

“Tesso?”

Cats POV

“Shit! He visited a couple of weeks ago. I, uh, had the symbols on my desk to learn them in case we got separated or we needed something quickly. Every one of us had to learn them, or try to learn them. He must have broken into my office.” He took a huge breath in. “Damn it!”

“It’s okay, Tesso,” I cooed as I turned back to the screen, a huge smile on my face as I looked at the twins. “Let’s see what happens when they enter.” I had set up the bunker to look like the one we were in, but less furniture. I added a security screen and false walle everywhere. I also made sure there were weapons in the false walls.

I watched as the twins waited on Tesso’s brother to open the hatch into the bunker. They stood and looked down in the hole as I punched in a number on my screen. There were whispers, words of someone rushing to hide - words like ‘hurry up’, ‘hush’, and ‘let’s go’. I could feel the stares from everyone but I didn’t dare look away from my screen.

I saw when the cartel grunts showed up and were berated for taking their time. But, when the leader and enforcer ordered them into the hole I wanted to laugh. I could tell they were afraid but they listened to their leader and huffed down the hole. I let them get comfortable as they searched the bunker.

“It’s all clear, sir. I can still smell their scent though,” a grunt announced as he walked around.

We watched as Tesso’s brother came down the ladder and looked around. I knew he would notice the symbols in the places I wanted him to see. We watched as he opened the wall and saw the weapons. I could tell he was excited that he had some of our weapons. It wasn’t but a few moments later that the twins were in the bunker. They were checking out the weapons and looking around.

“Did you find where they left the bunker from?” I heard the leader ask Tesso’s brother.

“Not yet, but I will,” he answered as he walked around each wall. I set off a light scent of Sophia’s and sat back and watched. “Found it.”

I rolled my eyes at the idiot and slowly slid the bunker outside door closed, sealing everyone inside. I looked over at Tesso, wanting him to know what was coming for them. He nodded his head and I set up the surprise.

“What are you up to, Cat?” Madrid asked me as he saw Tesso’s brother enter the tunnel, the twins staying in the main cavern.

I smiled. “Cutting the head off the snakes,” was all I said.

Madrid nodded his head. “Go for it. Let’s see if we can take them out here instead in the field, okay?”

“My plan all along, but it’s as if they have more than nine lives,” I quietly said as I kept my eyes on the screen. I waited on the twins to notice they were walking to their deaths and I hit a button to light up the bunker. There was a huge fire bomb that took out the bunker. I had made sure to pressurize the whole bunker so it wouldn’t catch the rainforest on fire. The bunker imploded, dropping huge concrete blocks and fire from the things inside the bunker. It was magnificent, a beautiful mess. I could see body parts on the ground from the camera in the trees - not that I thought it wasn’t gross.

“Wow,” Dragon said as he watched the bunker for any sign of movement.

I got up and went to the kitchen. I needed a glass of water to keep my stomach from rebelling. I hated blowing people up and seeing body parts. For some reason my stomach would go into overdrive on me. I took a sip of water and turned back to the screen on the wall, my glass hitting the ground.

“How?” Was all I could say. I had to blink my eyes several times to let me know I wasn’t seeing things. I was pissed as hell at what I was seeing. “Was anyone missing a suit from before you got the new ones?” I had an idea that the contractor was up to something and hidden all my plans, all my toys, and all my suits in my locker.

“Um, uh, I was missing one, but I thought you took it to size me for our new ones,” Hollywood answered.

Fuckng hell

“I did have it, but I thought you took it back for a mission you went on, but I just remembered you didn’t get on the mission because you had appendicitis.” I huffed. “The contractor took it, I know he did. There isn’t any other way they would have survived - which means they have suits, too,” I said as I looked over the leader and the enforcer.

“I’m missing one, too,” Dragon confessed as Madrid huffed this time.

I smiled and smirked. “What are you smiling about, Cat? They will be harder to kill with those suits on!” Madrid bellowed as I smirked again.

“Nope. I made a fail safe in the suits. I wanted to be able to make the suits worthless in case they were ever stolen. I knew the contractor was up to no good, so I fixed his ass.”

“How?” My mom asked as she walked over to me.

“Get ready to pinch yourself. Hard.” I set up the code and typed in a password, scanning my eyes after I entered everything. I pulled up a backdoor into the suits program and typed in a code. “Pinch yourself now, Mom.” She pinched herself and her eyes widened.

I put the line of code back into the program and asked her to pinch herself again, resulting in the suit protecting her. Her eyes were wide with disbelief and her mouth was hanging open. I knew she would like the idea of terminating the design of the suits with one keystroke. I wanted to laugh at her reaction, but I held off when she screeched.

“Madrid, look what my daughter did with the suits the cartel are wearing!” She exclaimed loudly as she turned and looked at the Shadow Cats and my dad.

“What? What did our resident genius do this time?” Madrid asked as he walked over to my mom, the Shadow Cats and my dad following, Sophia followed soon after.

I pulled up the screen again, scanned my eye and put the code in my small screen. “Mom, pinch or hit Madrid hard,” I said in my mic. I watched my as she hit Madrid hard in the stomach, the air whooshing out of his mouth.

“What the hell, Selina? Wait! How did I feel it when you hit me?” Madrid asked as he narrowed his eyes on me.

I rolled my eyes and put the line of code back in, resulting in the suit to protect him again. I walked over to him and hit him in the stomach and watched as a smile graced his face. “You made a backdoor into our suits, didn’t you, Cat?”

I smiled and snickered. “I didn’t trust the contractor to start with. He had been eyeing our suits and I didn’t want the cartel to have a working suit, so yeah.”

Madrid shook his head and smiled. Sophia walked up and asked if there was any way she could get her colored band inked on her arm now. I nodded and called for Doc to ink her and if she was in too much pain to give her something to dull it. He nodded his head and he took her to her room.

“I want ink on my arm, too. I should get to go first since I’m the oldest,” Cruz commented with a sneer on his face. I knew my parents were waiting to see what I would do before they reamed him another asshole.

I shook my head at his stupidity. “It doesn’t matter who was born earlier. What happened to ladies first. You can’t act as if you are a brat. I thought you were taking everything seriously. What happened to giving your all to better yourself. I-”

“-I should be able to go first! I already know how to protect myself and fight!” He screamed, cutting off what I was going to say to him.

“You can’t hit the bullseye when you shoot and you want to protect yourself and us? What happens if you shoot one of us instead? And, we don’t know if you can fight or not, we haven’t seen you fight. Do you want to show us your fighting skills?” Madrid took the words right out of my mouth. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was a mindreader.

“I’ll fight Cat right now and show you how good I am,” Cruz stupidly said. He was stupid to think he could beat me, but I was all for him showing how he could fight.

Not

He’s going down