Fools in love
"According to my contact in London, the sword is actually that of Ares, the God of War. In order to make it, it takes four scrolls to do it and… we only have two."
"Well where do we find the others?"
"I'm working on that; while I figure it out, you guys go have fun. See a movie or something."
An hour and half later, after coming out of the movie theater, Max and Willis were on their way on when they hear two women scream for help.
"Did you hear that, Willis?"
"Yeh, sounded like it came from that direction."
They rush to the rescue as a monster with a head shaped like an indoor fan attacks too damsels in distress; a blonde Caucasian girl in a pink-camo shirt and blue jeans and a Latino girl in a light blue shirt and gray jeans. The two were seen crawling away from the beast as it creeps closer and closer.
With their backs now up against a wall, it was time for Max and Willis to act, "How about picking on someone a lil more at your level?" Willis said as he jumped down to him.
The beast towered over him about a couple feet, "You were saying?"
Max leaps down and gets him with a drop kick.
Willis ducks as the monster is launched over him. Willis rushes up at super speed and monster blows him back with a strong gust of wind from its fan-like head.
Max uses his super strength to push Willis forward; Willis strikes with a punch to the chest and then Max leaps over Willis' back, and fires his laser gun. As several shots hit the monster's chest, it flinches before hitting the ground.
"I'll be back… and I'll be deadly serious next time…"
"That was really incredible."
"Yeh, who are you guys?"
"I'm Max and this is my brother, Willis."
"Hey."
"Hardly seen siblings that get along so well like you do. You worked like a team; I could never get along with my sister that well..."
"I'm Elizabeth, but you can call me Liz; that's Carmen."
"There must be some way we can repay you for your heroics…"
"That's not necessary, we were happy to help."
"If you want, maybe we can take you out on a date sometime?"
"Would today be okay for you?"
"Well, uhm…."
"Yes… yes it would. Do you ladies like Chinese food?"
"I was thinking maybe Italian…"
"We know of this great Italian Bistro in Berkeley with the most amazing rolls."
"Great. We'll meet you guys in half an hour."
"Sounds great."
A half hour later at the restaurant…
"One Rigatoni con la Pajata and Risotto with saffron," the waiter explains, handing the plates to Liz and Willis.
"Thank you," Liz answers.
He moves the tray over to Max and Carmen, "and for this lovely couple, Filetti di baccalà" he hands the dish to Max, "Carne Pizzaiola," he hands the dish to Carmen. "Bon appetit," he says before parting.
"So how long have you two been here?"
"About a week and half; we moved here from up north."
"Way… up north," Liz finished.
"What about?"
"About the same; we've been here in California at least 3 weeks."
"And what made you move out here, if you don't me asking?"
"Just thought we'd make a fresh start someplace else; you tend to get bored staying in one place for too long."
"I know how you feel; Max, our dad, and I used to live on the east coast before we moved here; only downside was we left all our friends behind in the move."
"Speaking of moves, where'd you learn those fancy moves you fought that monster with?"
"Kung Fu films mostly."
"We learned it so fast it was almost like the moves were 'programmed'."
Max elbows Willis in the side from under the table.
"Ow." He whispered as he looked over at his brother.
"What's the matter?" Liz asked Willis.
"Stubbed my toe on something…"
After finishing their meal, Max's pager went off and a number registered to Samuel Grant displays on the screen.
"We got something we need to take care of."
Willis calls the waiter over and asks for the check. After paying it, Max and Willis step outside and answer the call unknown to a couple of mysterious shadowy figures listening in.
"Got some news for you; I've found the other two scrolls we need. They used to be in international museum of antiquities about two years ago until someone by the name Phoebe Dallas purchased them."
"Phoebe Dallas, the famous rodeo champion?"
"Yes, the very same. How do you know so much about her?"
"Researched her on the net; she's been undefeated for quite some time. She retired undefeated and untied and decided to settle down and own her own livestock."
"So you want us to go to Texas and ask her them?"
"You don't have to go travel very far for once, boys. She's rented a summer home not too far from where you're currently positioned. I'll send you the coordinates."
The mysterious figures lurking in the shadows nod to each other as Max and Willis ride off on their motorcycles.
After arriving at Phoebe's summer home somewhere in southern California, they approach her front door and ring the bell. After 2 rings, it was apparent that no one was home. They went around and took a look around.
"You guys looking for someone…?"
"OMG, it's you. You're Phoebe Dallas."
"That's right, I am. And you guys are…"
"You're biggest fans…"
"You'll have to excuse my brother Max, he's never met a true celebrity before; I'm Willis, by the way."
"Nice to meet you, Max and Willis."
"Pleasure is all mine, Ms. Dallas," Max answered.
"I was just fixin' to go and make myself some iced tea, you guys want some?"
"Sure, that'd be most excellent."
A couple of minutes after going inside, Phoebe serves the iced tea while Max and Willis get to the point of why they're there in her home.
"I thought you lot looked familiar. You're the fellers from Operation WASP."
"That's right."
"And you need my help?"
"That's correct. We have reason to believe that you possess a certain artifact we're looking for."
"They're two scrolls, which merged with the two we already have in our possession should create the sword of Ares, the God of war."
"It's imperative we obtain these scrolls to ensure the safety of our planet."
"Would they be any safer with you than with me?"
"Ma'am, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into. By keeping them, you're putting yourself in harm's way."
"I don't know if you've noticed, but… danger is my middle name," she directs their attention to her many first place trophies on the shelves. "I've won over 30 championship trophies before retiring undefeated and untied. So that means I'm not afraid to look danger in the eye."
"I know, I've read your internet Bio, Ms. Dallas."
"Please, call me Phoebe. Most of my fans do…"
"Another thing I feel I need to ask… how did you go about purchasing the scrolls and why?"
"It's not something I go around telling random strangers, but… I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to rare artifacts and antiquities; I bought them at an auction as well as a bunch of other stuff and I've had them ever since."
"Oh."
"I'll tell ya what; I'll give you these scrolls if you promise me one thing: I get to tag along with you on your adventures…"
"What?!"
"You cannot be serious."
"You just wanna leave everything you know behind so you can help us save the world? That's very brave of you, but…"
"Look, I've been all about fame, I see this as a sign to try new things. plus, I'm giving you these for free."
"We can give you money for them…"
"Money? I already have all the money I'll ever need tucked away in a savings account; I own my own ranch and it's doing quite well I might add. Does it look like I need more cash?"
"Ms. Dallas… Phoebe…"
"If you want what I got, boys, you're gonna have make a decision…" she leaves the room and returns a few minutes later with a wooden box about 11 in. long, 7 in. wide and 5 in. tall. She sets it on the glass-top table and opens it. "So what's it gonna be?"
Several seconds after making their decision, Phoebe followed Max and Willis out the front door and they immediately get attacked. They slowly get on their feet.
"So I'm gonna take a stab it and guess that's of the dangers you were referring to…"
"Well, the ninja girl… she's fairly new…"
"Hand over the scrolls!"
"Fat chance, windbag."
"Let's blow this guy away… and his lil friend, too."
Celsior, who was listening and, decides to send down some of his men to join the fight.
"Who on earth are these guys?"
"I dunno, but we can always the extra help, ATTACK!!"
Max, Willis, and Phoebe tear through the army of Glacieroid like a bulldozer; Max rapidly approaches the ninja girl, who strikes him down with a front flip kick to the stomach. As Max fell to the ground and Willis rushed up, the ninja leaps up and hits Willis with a spinning back kick.
Max rolls out from under her before she lands and throws a side kick.
The ninja girl sidesteps, spirals and knocks him to the ground with a palm strike to the chest.
Willis summoned his Elelphant axe and swings.
The ninja girl bends backwards and allows the blade to glide over her before she back flips onto her feet and throws a karate chop to the neck.
Willis blocks, grabs her by the wrist, gives it a twist and pushes her back with a kick to the chest.
The fan monster takes a swing at Max, who ducks and initiates a sweep of both legs. While the monster was down, Max fires at him with his laser gun.
The monster lifts Max into the air with a strong gust of wind from its fan before getting up.
Phoebe handles the few Glacieroids that were left; she quickly takes a garden rake, unscrews the rake itself from the handle and uses it as a Bo staff to destroy them all one by one. She hits one of them in the crotch area as she lifts it high into the air, spins and hits another in the side, spins again and holds the handle upright to block. Soon after the Glacieroid attacked, her makeshift staff broke. She looks at her opponent nervously, it attacks and she ducks, causing it to get its weapon stuck in the wall beside her.
She leans on the enemy's weapon as he mocks him, but soon turns her attention to the Glacieroid behind her before she ducked and caused him to destroy one of its own. She quickly races off and grabs the whip. As the rest of them came at her, she cracks the whip and knocks their weapons out of their hands and then cracks the whip once again, and shatters them into the pieces.
Willis and the ninja girl go back and forth exchanging hits; Willis comes back with an overhead strike from his axe with the ninja girl on her back in front of him; she moves back just in time and Willis' axe gets stuck in the ground a couple inches away from her crotch. She back flips onto her feet and says, "Enough of these games!" she races off and returns with Carmen as her hostage. "If you don't want her getting hurt, I suggest you hand me the scrolls."
Max and Phoebe stop their fighting and look in the ninja girl's direction.
"Carmen?" Max asked looking surprised.
"I'm sorry, Max. She got me by surprise."
"Give me the scrolls and I'll spare her life."
"We don't have any choice; give them to her…"
"But…"
"Willis, just do it! Wouldn't you do the same thing if it were Liz's life in danger?"
"Oh alright…" Willis pulls the scrolls from his belt and hands to the ninja girl.
"Glorious…" she said, marveling in their beauty. She then tosses Carmen to the ground like she were a piece of trash and Willis caught her before she hit the ground.
"I can't believe this…"
"Yeh, all your hard work… ruined all because of love," Phoebe commented.
"No matter what the outcome is, a deal's a deal, Phoebe." Max explained, offering to shake her hand.
She had no idea what he was talking about until thinking about it a few seconds later, "Oh yeh…"
After losing the scrolls their new enemy, Phoebe, Max, and Willis return to the mansion; Max lays Carmen on the couch in the living room.
"You did the right thing in the name of love…" Phoebe said.
"I came as soon as I could; what happened?"
"She said that ninja girl took her by surprise."
"What I'm wondering is… where were you when this happened?"
"Well I… after it attacked us, I tried going for help."
"Why not come find your dates, who were with you before this happened?"
"We never bothered asking where they lived yet…"
"Well, after you tried to find someone, what happened next?"
"I... after I went to the police, they told me they'll do everything they can to find her, so I went home to rest."
"Well, seeing as she's okay, you wanna stay over? Maybe make some popcorn, watch a movie?"
"What about Carmen?"
"How about we let her rest, she's been through a lot today."
"Sounds good to me; mind if I freshen up first?"
"Sure. The restroom's just down the hall, 5th door on the left."
As she went to go find the restroom, Max and Phoebe went into the kitchen to prepare some snacks before looking for a movie to watch.
"What's on your mind, Max?"
"I dunno, Phoebe, something just doesn't add up about her story. She was able to get away from the monster, but Carmen wasn't; and the fact that I've seen that ninja girl's eyes somewhere else before."
Around the same time, Liz wanders the hallway, looking for the bathroom; she approaches the door labeled command center, not even reading what the door say.
Just seconds before she gripped the knob, Willis comes out, "Can I help you find something?"
"Yeh, I was just looking for the bathroom."
"5th door on your left…" Willis literally put emphasis on '5th' just before heading down the path Liz came from.
Realizing she couldn't gain access without the proper key to do so, she continues to the bathroom to her business, after she was done, she washes her hands and heads back into the living room.
Moments later when they started the film…
Max calls out to Willis, "Willis, the movie's starting!"
"Where could he be?"
"I'm not sure, but he did say something about him going down to the command center to check something; I'm sure he'll probably come watch the movie when he's done…"
As if on cue, Willis shows up from out of nowhere and plops down on the couch beside Liz.
Several minutes into the film, after finishing most of the snacks, Phoebe, Max, Willis, and Carmen fell asleep; Liz, however, slowly removes Willis' arm from around her and quietly gets up from the couch and down the hall to the command center. Forgetting that she needs a keycard to get it, she heads back to Willis, and quietly pulls it from his pocket.
Later down in the command center, as Liz opens the drawer with the scrolls in them, she holds them in her hands just as Willis finally said something to alert her of his presence.
"Wanna tell me who you really are, Liz…?"
"Oh, Willis… you surprised me."
"You ninjas really oughta think about wearing something over your eyes in combat, because that's what gave you away. I just had to get a closer look before putting two and two together…"
"So you found me out, it doesn't matter. By the way, my name's Christi, no Liz… what kind of Earth human would name their children Liz? Sounds like a reptile name."
"So it's you and Carmen, who were after the scrolls from the beginning, isn't it?"
"My my… you're really on top of things aren't you…"
Max stands in his fighting pose, ready to throw down.
"But that's not gonna be enough to stop us…" she teleports up to the living room in a puff of smoke and wakes up her friend, Carmen, whose name was actually… "Cameron… Cameron, wake up."
Max wakes up as Cameron gets up, "Hey, Carmen, what's the matter…" he rubs his eyes and gets a better look at the new Carmen, "Who are you…? And where do you think you're going with those?"
"Max!!! Max!!! Wake up, it's her…" he pauses as he notices that Max already got a chance to meet them.
Cameron and Christi hold out their hands and shoot an electrical beam from their palms, which wakes up Pheobe as well as Knock Willis and Max on their backs.
"Later, losers…" Cameron and Christi vanish in a puff of smoke.
"Who were those guys," she asked as Max and Willis get up and brush themselves off. "Where's Liz and Carmen?"
"Those were Liz and Carmen…"
"Or as they're now known, Cameron and Christi."
"The ninja girl from earlier; Carmen is working with her."
"Well, what do we do now?"
"We, as in Max and I, are gonna go after them; you, on the other hand, I have another job I want you to do…" Willis brings Phoebe in closer and whispers his plan in her ear.
"I don't get it…"
"You will when you see it; c'mon, Max."
"Willis, what's this all about?"
Max and Willis track Cameron and Christi's location to somewhere south of them. Once they got to them, they had already let their monster absorb the energy of the first two scrolls.
"You took something that doesn't belong to you and we want it back…"
"Well, you can't have it back… destroy them!" Cameron commanded of her and Christi's monster.
Max and Willis run side-by-side as they attack the monster head on. Willis jumps as Max holds his hands out. Willis plants his right foot in Max's hands as he lifts off. As Willis flew over the monster, Max slide under him, firing his weapon at the same time Willis does.
The beast swings at Willis, who ducks while Max attacks with a side kick to the stomach.
The monster teleports from between them and attacks off in a distance with a gust of wind.
Meanwhile, Phoebe heads into Samuel Grant's office back at home; she pulls the box from under his desk and opens it, not able to believe what she saw, she then closes it just as Bradshaw enters the room.
"May I help you with anything?"
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Bradshaw. I am considered the servant of the household; I get Mr. Grant and his guests everything they need."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Phoebe Dallas."
"Well, is there anything I can help you with, Ms. Dallas?"
"Well…" she pauses as she looks back at the chest she pulled from under the desk, "I was kinda hoping you could give me a lift into town; Max and Willis need my help…"
"How do you know that?"
"Because Willis sent me in here to grab these…"
Back to max and Willis as they found their new enemies' monster to be even more difficult to contend with, "I don't get it; this guy was easy before…"
"He's already absorbed the first two scrolls, rangers…"
"And now he's about to get a major power boost…"
"As we give him these two scrolls we so easily stole from you."
Cameron and Christi realized right away something was wrong when nothing happened; Christi holds the scrolls out once more and still nothing happened.
"Something the matter? Why not try opening the scrolls first…?"
"Willis, what's going on?"
"You'll see, brother…"
Christi opens the scrolls, "They're fakes…"
"Fakes? That cannot be…"
"Like I mentioned to you earlier, Christi, about wearing something to hide your eyes; I realized it was you once I had MEGAN run a facial recognition and found it out. Ever since then, I created duplicate scrolls.
Just then, Bradshaw rolls up in a jeep and Phoebe gets out of the passenger side with the real scrolls in hand.
Willis and Max summon the W.A.S.P. stinger and with the power of the two scrolls Phoebe brought, it was enough to bring Cameron and Christi's monster to its knees. As it went down, the two scrolls it had absorbed flew into their hands like magic.
"This isn't over, rangers, we'll be back…" she calls Christi's name out as she begins to leave; Christi stood where stood and stared at Willis with puppy dog eyes.
Cameron calls her name once again and she complies as she turns and makes her exit.
"Nice going, guys…"
"And it's all thanks to you, Phoebe. Thanks."
"What do you say we get these back home where they belong, huh?"
"Sounds like a great idea; Bradshaw… not a word of this to dad."
"My lips are sealed, Mr. Max."
Back at home, they set the four scrolls on the table in the living room in a straight line; the scrolls glow a bright yellow before combining together into a bigger scroll. As the light dimmed, they find to their disappointment that the scrolls had formed a secret map instead of the sword of Ares.
Samuel Grant Community Member 
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