"It was about a year before the war started. Quickie and I were cruising around in her brand new starship. Heh, she always called it a hunk of junk. She was so excited though. The two of us built it by hand, but I had the engine custom made for her. It was a one-of-a-kind hyperdrive that was fueled by the Speed Force. All she had to do was charge it full of Speed Force energy and it could run forever. As we were coming back into the system, we received a distress call from a small moon. Obviously we decided to investigate. Looking back on it...I wish we hadn't..."
"What happened, PB?!" Zeta asked him.
"When we arrived on the planet, the dimensional state of it seemed to be in flux somehow. The planet's population were shifting in and out of this dimension, and it was killing them. The buildings, the animals, everything seemed to be out of phase with this universe...except for the ship. The scanners on the ship tried to determine the problem, when suddenly I started shifting as well. Lemme tell you, it was painful. Quickie was unaffected though. After time, we determined that the Speed Force was keeping Quickie stabilized within the chaos. Same with the ship. Calculating every possible outcome, she determined that the only way to stabilize the planet was to create a containment field of Speed Force energy around the planet."
"But...how could you create a field of that magnitude?" Zeta asked.
"I couldn't...neither could the ship's engine. But Quickie could..." PB answered with a small tear running down his face. "Zeta, there's a reason I took charge of the Resistance when Wily made the first attack. It wasn't because of my ego or my ability to lead. It was because of that day with her...my last day with her..."
"...PB..." Zeta put her hand on his shoulder.
"My ego is my power, Zeta. It's what fuels me, what makes me believe that no matter the situation I can overcome it. One of my personal heroes from my world called it "Not believing in the no-win scenario" and it's a philosophy that I've tried to abide by. Somewhere along the line, I let my own power consume me. My healthy ego turned to pure arrogance. After the initial attacks from the Doc, I started to believe that Wily's forces were a joke. After the destruction of the Wily Star, I held a party. A [tornado fang]ing party in the middle of a war. Who does that? Who does that when they're tired and exhausting from the fighting? I should never have rushed out against Wily's Rabid Met army all on my own. But I...I..."
"You what?" Zeta leaned in closer.
"...I didn't want to lose anyone else. I wanted to save everyone all by myself...the way Quickie saved that planet...and me..." PB sighed. "After she came to her conclusion, I began trying to run my own calculations to find another way out of this. Before I could, I began shifting again, crying out in pain while I did. After I stopped phasing, she knocked me out. When I regained consciousness, the ship was just leaving the upper atmosphere of the planet. I contacted Quickie..."
"QUICKIE...YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH WITH IT! IT'LL TEAR YOU APART!!" PB yelled to her.
"No choice. These people will die if I don't. I fueled that hunk of junk with enough energy to get you back to RPM. The coordinates are locked." Quickie responded.
"Like hell they are. I'm coming back down to get you!" PB said as he dashed towards the navigational console.
"NO YOU'RE NOT!" Quickie yelled back at him. "You'd never survive the phase shifting again if you came back down. PB, listen to me. You have to leave me here. I can contain this. I can save them all. I'll be alright, don't worry. One day we'll be at the Cantina having a good laugh about this over a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster."
PB just sat there, his hands frozen over the controls until finally he just rested them on the armrests and leaned back in the chair. "...Heheheh...you've never been a good liar, Quickie. If you really believed that, the ship would be in orbit instead of heading back to RPM."
"You know I have to do this, PB!" Quickie stated.
"...remember that time we started playing Stayin' Alive at the Cantina, just to mess with people? Or the time we did it to the Chemical Plant Zone song? We had a lot of fun together!" PB smiled while a tear ran down his face.
"...We'll have more fun times together." Quickie said as a tear ran down her face. "I'm not done with you yet, Protoman Blues."
"...Lexi...I..."
"...Be seeing you, Greg." Quickie said as she closed communications.
"And that was the last thing I ever heard her say. She closed off communications as she began running around the planet. I could see it from orbit. The speed trail kept growing as she ran faster, faster than I've ever seen her run before. She was magnificent. Soon it was just a steady stream of light and energy flowing around the planet. The engines started to power up to send me back to RPM, but as they did a huge flash of energy emanated from the planet. The sudden surge of speed force energy knocked the power core for a loop and threw the systems out of whack. A trip that would've taken an hour or two took over a month. Communications were down and I had to reroute what little power I had left to life support and replicators. There was nothing I could do except float there in space, wondering whether or not I'd see her again. That was the longest trip of my life..."
"...PB..." Zeta just sat there, stunned.
"When I finally got back to the SexStation, I summoned Mighty Orbots to head back to the planet. When I got there, everything was gone. All the buildings, the animals, the people...everything had vanished. After scanning the area, I realized that the dimensional shift was occurring in the other dimension, not this one. When Quickie contained the rift with the Speed Force, it returned everything back to normal. I couldn't find Quickie though. I searched for weeks, but found nothing. Not even a body. My only guess was that she was pulled to this other dimension when she contained the rift. Eventually I had no choice but to come back here and move on."
"I'm so sorry" Zeta said, as all she could do was sit there and comfort him.
"But that doesn't make any sense!" PBPB suddenly chimed in from the comm system in PB's room. "How could you have not known she was back? About a month before the war started, I had lunch with her at the Sex Shack."
"What the fuc...have you been listening in this whole time?" PB asked somewhat upset.
"Well...yes and no...damn I'm getting good with this [parasitic bomb]. Listen, I have ADA monitoring you right now since you're on lockdown and well..when I heard you mention Quickie I think I inadvertently tapped my mind into the comm system. I'm...sorry. I'm still not use to this." PBPB responded.
"Never mind that for now. Go on about Quickie." PB stated.
"Yeah. We had dinner before the war started. She told me she had returned from that thing in space you just mentioned, and she was looking forward to seeing everyone again. Especially you...holy [parasitic bomb]!" PBPB said as she came to a realization. "She had some of your clothes with her...and one of your hairbrushes. I never paid it any mind because, well I've seen her with your clothes wrapped around her plenty of times before. But now that I think about it, I...I think she was there stealing your possessions. But why?"
"...Asch." PB concluded. "She must have been gathering my stuff for Wily so that he could make that robotic clone of me."
Zeta added in, "That means she's been back possibly longer than before she met you Peebs, and she's been working with Ol' Bathair since before the war even began."
"...remind me to punch Fxeni later...NOW HE HAS YOU AND VIXY CALLING ME THAT! GAH!" PBPB yelled.
"Chase, listen to me. You have to let me out of here. I have to go find Quickie...talk with her...something!" PB pleaded with her.
"No can do. You're still in no condition to be unsupervised right now. This is for your own good!" PBPB coldly responded.
"BUT..."
"BUT NOTHING! Rest. Get better. We still need you, but we need you at full [tornado fang]ing strength! For now, I'll turn off audio surveillance. I'm sorry about eavesdropping. Don't make me regret it! OVER AND OUT!" PBPB yelled as she closed the comm system.
"[tornado fang]!!" PB screamed out in anger.
"PB, calm down. She's right. You can't go off by yourself. Remember what you said before, about you going off to fight the Mets." Zeta pleaded with him.
"I know. But I can't lose her again. I have to save her this time...I have to.." PB sits back down on the bed next to Zeta.
"We will. I promise you, we will!" Zeta said, wrapping her arms around him.
(More to follow in a little bit
)