This occurs right after Encounters, and continues the same plotline.
[Disclaimer: none of this is mine, except for Fred. shudder...]

RUNNING FOR THE HILLS

Lori McDonald
November 1997

Like a great blue bird of prey, or a massive avenging angel, the God Phoenix roared over the landscape, its metal sides glinting with power and danger as it clipped the top off of a windmill, flipped upside down and almost did a header into a kiddie’s rubber wade pool.

"Shit, Jinpei! Watch where you’re flying!"

"Sorry, Aniki," the boy apologized, gleefully flipping the God Phoenix back upright, then over into a half dozen mostly unintentional barrel rolls. Lucky for him, he was wearing his seatbelt.

Unlucky for everyone else, he was the only one.

"WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?!" Joe screamed.

"I said I was sorry!" he grinned and yanking back on the controls, drove the God Phoenix straight up into the sky. Joe, who had been lunging towards him with murder in his eyes, went crashing to the back of the cockpit in a tangle of arms and legs with the rest of the science ninjas.

Joe just lay there for a moment, trying to get his breath back after Ryu slammed into him, silently cursing himself for letting Jinpei fly the ship. But for some reason, the boy was the only one to recover from Fred’s drug regimen. The other ninjas were, to put it mildly, still stoned out of their minds. He had to get them into their seats and strapped down before ISO realized what he was doing, and that meant putting Jinpei at the controls.

"Jinpei," he called, trying to put as much sweetness as possible into his voice. Jinpei didn’t respond well to threats.

"Yeah?"

"Can you please level off the Phoenix and fly her more carefully?"

"Why? This is fun."

"BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T I’M GOING TO SHOVE THAT CONTROL STICK RIGHT UP YOUR ASS! IS THAT CLEAR OR DO YOU NEED A DEMONSTATION??!!"

Jinpei blanched. "Um, no, sir."

"Thank God for that," Joe muttered, climbing out from under his teammates. Ryu was snoring, while Ken was trying to crawl as far away from Jun as he could - a wise plan considering how she’d been acting lately. Jun herself looked up at him with a happy smile.

"Joe?" she asked dreamily.

"Yeah?"

She kicked him in the crotch. "Don’t yell at Jinpei," she told him just as dreamily.

Joe crumpled to the floor and decided to lie there for a while, even if Jinpei crashed them right through Katse’s front door.

"Joe! Nambu Hakase is trying to get through on the comm screen. What do I do?"

Slowly, Joe dragged himself up onto his elbows, silently cursing each and every moment of each and every day that had forced him into being where he was.

"Wait," he gasped.

"Gee, Joe, you sound like you’ve been sucking right out of a helium balloon."

Joe glared at him and forced himself upright, limping over to Ken’s command chair and stepping over the White Shadow in the process. Sitting back, he took a deep breath. "Put him through."

Nambu appeared on the screen, looking angrier than Joe had ever seen him, which was a neat trick. "Joe!" he demanded. "Why did you steal the God Phoenix?"

Joe frowned. "I didn’t steal it."

"Then how did you get it out of the docking bay?"

"I hot wired it."

Nambu pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don’t want to debate this with you. I order you to return the Phoenix immediately."

Joe crossed his arms. "No."

"Why not?!"

"Because we’re on strike."

Jinpei’s eyes widened. "We are?" he whispered.

"Yes," Joe whispered back. "Now shut up."

Nambu was very quickly turning purple. "You can’t go on strike! The world needs you!"

Joe snorted. "Don’t give me that world crap. That only works on Ken and right now he’s lying on the floor trying to figure out how many toes he’s got."

"Really?" Jinpei looked back. "Cool! He is!"

Nambu took a few deep breaths. "Joe, what you are doing is treason."

"Nah. Hanging out with Katse would be treason. Handing over ISO plans would be treason. I am protecting my teammates, taking a well earned vacation and renegotiating my contract all at once. And you said I couldn’t plan ahead."

Nambu’s eyes were now bugging right out of his head. "WHAT?!"

Joe held up one hand and began ticking points off on his fingers. "First, I want unconditional right to shoot the bird missles whenever the hell I want. Second, I want to get paid more. Three, I want to have a bigger gun in the Condor Machine..."

"I had a feeling that would be in there," Nambu muttered.

"Four, I want a trailer where the roof doesn’t leak, five - "

"Five-" Jinpei interrupted. "I want candy every day! Oh, and a pet seal too. For starters."

Joe glared at him. "Why the hell should you get anything?"

"Because I’m flying and we’re all out of air sick bags."

"Candy and a seal. Right." Joe crossed his arms. "I’ll add more as I think of it. Bye." He cut the connection.

Jinpei grinned at him. "Gee, Aniki, you’re gonna fry in the chair for this."

"So are you, Mr I-want-candy-and-a-seal."

Jinpei’s face fell. "Oh. Do you think I can take it back?"

"No."

The little boy shivered.

His face still red but otherwise under control, Nambu turned away from the comm screen to face his stunned staff. "Whatever happens," he cautioned. "We can’t let word of this get out."

UTOLAND NEWS: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
SCIENCE NINJAS ON STRIKE!!
Story to follow...

"That’s it!" Nambu yelled. "Somebody’s fired!"

"Gee," Katse said to hirself gleefully while s/he read the morning paper. "Isn’t this interesting... Pork bellies are up this month. Looks like Sosai’s tip was right."

Jimmy Baker, late night clerk for the local Quick-E-Mart - (we now rip you off 24 hours a day!) - looked up from his homework at the sound of a low rumble, which rapidly became a loud rumble. Looking out the window, he was surprised to see the God Phoenix slowing to a hover over the parking lot, gracefully lowering to a landing. Unfortunately, whoever was flying forgot the landing gear and he winced as his pinto was squished.

A few seconds later, the door opened and a little boy dressed in a brightly coloured bird suit ran in. Grabbing a cart, he ran through the store, piling it high with chips, soda, candy, ding-dongs, ho-hos, twinkies, cake, ice cream and slurpies.

"Bill it to ISO!" he yelled as he ran out again.

"Wait..." Jimmy whimpered, thinking of his car.

Outside, the God Phoenix started to lift off again, majestic in its beauty, then abruptly slammed to the ground again, devestating the final remains of the pinto. Five seconds later, the Condor slammed through the door.

"Goddamned kids and their goddamned junk food," he muttered to himself. "If you want a job done right..."

He looked at the clerk icily. Jimmy swallowed. "I need food for five people for at least a week." He frowned. "Wait, Ryu’s on board. Make that for ten people. Real food. Not that shit the Swallow grabbed. Do you have any?"

Jimmy nodded frantically.

"WELL, DON’T JUST STAND THERE! GET IT!"

Faster than any clerk in a convenience store had ever moved before, Jimmy grabbed anything that even remotely resembled food and hauled it all up to the front till. The Condor looked at it dubiously. "Is that it?"

"Yes, sir. Don’t kill me, sir!"

"K’so... fine. Bag it up. How much do I owe you?"

Shivering, Jimmy gave him a bill. Luckily, the Condor only shrugged when he saw it and handed him a credit card. He swept it through and the ninja signed it. Jimmy checked the name while he grabbed the bags.

"Thank you, Mr Nambu," he said.

"Don’t mention it."

UTOLAND INQUIRER: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
SCIENCE NINJAS REALLY ANDROIDS POWERED BY SUGAR!
HOLD-UP AT STORE FOR ENERGY SOURCE!
Story to follow...

"Ken.... oh Kennnn... where are youuuu?"

Now in the pilot’s seat, Joe looked down to see the white shadow that slips in unseen hiding where he put his feet.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

Blurry blue eyes looked up at him. "Jun. Sex. Bad." He shuddered.

"Oh, for God’s sake, Ken! Face it like a man!"

Tears filled the eyes. "I jus’ caaannn’tttt..."

"Why not?"

He leaned his head against the Condor’s leg. "Fred keeps saying I love you..."

"Jun!" Joe yelled. "He’s over here!"

"Ken! Babies!" A hundred and twenty pounds of Swan came barreling up from the back of the control room. Ken shrieked and ran.

Jinpei grinned at Joe from the commander’s chair, his lap filled with candy. He was already starting to twitch from the sugar reaction. "Not your type, Aniki?" he teased.

Joe shrugged. "I prefer blondes."

Jinpei laughed, then frowned. "Wait a minute..."

[KATSE, HAVE YOU READ THE NEWSPAPER TODAY?]

"Yup," Katse grinned. "Pork futures are looking great!"

[I MEANT THE FRONT PAGE, YOU MORON!]

"So," Nambu said evenly, his hands folded on top of his desk. "You were the last ones to see the Kagaku Ninja Tai. Why have they run off like this?"

Fred Woo - psychiatrist mediocre - gave Nambu a deeply concerned look that immediately made his skin crawl. "The Ninja Tai aren’t HEALTHY!" he told him. "They’re all terribly repressed, especially poor little Ken. He’s so repressed he’s denying his attraction to Joe."

To Joe?! Nambu wondered.

"They need HELP! They need UNDERSTANDING and CARE!"

Nambu took a deep breath. "What would you suggest, doctor?"

Fred sighed worridly. "Well, shock therapy is always good, and you can’t go wrong with a good old-fashioned lobotomy."

UTOLAND INQUIRER: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
SCIENCE NINJAS’ BRAINS REMOVED. REPLACED WITH CHIMPS!
"They’re more obediant this way," says Nambu Hakase.
Story and photos to follow...

"Kumbaya my lord, kumbaya!"

"SHUT UP!" Joe screamed.

"Kumbaya my lord, kumbaya..."

"I’M GETTING MY GUN!"

"Kumbaya my lord, kumbaya..."

"Oh, God, somebody shoot me..."

"Kumbaya my lord, kumbaya!"

"One more time!"

"STUFF IT, JINPEI!"

"Hurry!" Katse yelled. "This is our greatest chance to take down the Science Ninjas for good!" S/he laughed insanely. "There’s no way they can stand up to our newest mecha! Prepare for launch!"

"But, Katse-sama...!"

"SHUT UP!" The mecha took off.

Left behind, the engineer stared after the disappearing machine, then down at the left-over screw in his hand. "Oh, well," he muttered, tossing it over his shoulder. "It couldn’t have been that important."

Ken, Jun and Ryu were in hour three of their sing-along. Joe felt like strangling all of them, or using them in place of bird missles. However, he’d discovered that Jinpei’s jube-jubes made wonderful earplugs. Drumming his fingers on the control panel, he stared down at the ground passing lazily below, not noticing Jinpei yelling frantically at him until the boy pulled off his helmet and yanked out one of the candies.

"666,984 bottles of beer on the wall..." he heard immediately.

"What are you doing?!" he yelled at Jinpei.

"666,983 bottles of beer..."

"Look!" Jinpei screeched, pointing out the window.

"Take one down, pass it around..."

Joe looked. A surprisingly familiar mecha was rocketting through the sky towards them. "What the-? Oh - my - God..."

"666,983 bottles of beer on the wall!"

Joe turned to Jinpei. "Don’t tell the others, but we’re under attack by Fred."

"They’re under attack by what??" Nambu demanded incredulously.

The tech looked up and shrugged, looking as though she didn’t quite believe it either. "A hundred foot tall version of Fred Woo, the psychiatrist."

Nambu buried his head in his hands. "They’re doomed..."

UTOLAND INQUIRER: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
GIANT PSYCHIATRIST SEEKS VENGEANCE ON SCIENCE NINJAS!
Story to follow...

"All right," Joe grinned. "Now I’M in charge. Know what we’re going to do?"

"Blow the shit out of it?" Jinpei asked.

"Blow the shit- oh, you guessed already."

The boy shrugged. "It was kind of a given."

Katse grinned with an expression remarkably like that on the Condor’s face as she watched the God Phoenix move into position to make a strafing run. "I knew it," she crowed. "The Condor is in charge. The Eagle would never be this stupid. Prepare the secret weapon!"

The Fred mech opened its mouth.

"WONDERFUL!" it boomed. "LET’S GET HEALTHY!"

On the God Phoenix, Ken Washio’s bleary eyes snapped open. He’d been finding it increasingly difficult to think for the last few hours, but those words penetrated right through his few surviving brain cells. He looked towards the viewscreen to see his single greatest enemy.

"NO!" he shrieked. "ANYTHING BUT FRED!"

Joe’s finger hovered over the firing button. "Just a little closer, just a little closer..." The mech loomed on his screens, filling the horizon.

"Aniki! No! Look out, Joe!"

Suddenly, Joe was grabbed around the face from behind by a hysterical Eagle. "Run!" he gasped. "Run away! He’ll try to suck our brains out! I have proof! Look at mine!"

"Get him offa me!" Joe bellowed. "I can’t see!"

"Now!" Katse yelled. "Attack!"

The mecha swung at them. "SHOW ME HOW YOU FEEL!" it boomed as its fist struck the God Phoenix’ right pontoon, knocking the ship into a spin.

"Got ‘em!" Katse shrieked. It was great. At this rate, s/he’d own the world in time for hir date on Friday.

The God Phoenix spun wildly. Still screaming about Fred, Ken was knocked away from Joe and went skidding across the floor into the Swan’s arms, where he started screaming about Jun instead.

Joe tossed his hair out of his eyes, not sure where his helmet was. "Now I’ve got you!" He pushed down on the firing button.

Nothing happened.

"Aniki!" Jinpei yelled. "That hit damaged our controls! My buggy isn’t connected to the interlink for the missles anymore!"

"Well, go down there and fix it while I try and keep us from becoming a Freudian smear!"

The boy nodded and ran off.

Ryu looked up as he ran past. "Is it dinner yet?" he asked dizzily, then yawned and went back to sleep again, rolling back and forth across the floor.

"Babies," Jun sighed, hugging Ken’s body tightly to her bosom. Squished as he was, no one could hear what he said, but the content could probably be guessed.

UTOLAND NEWS: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
SCIENCE NINJAS IN BATTLE OVER CITY. MILLIONS SAY "WHAT, AGAIN?!"
Story to follow...

Desperately, Joe tried to keep the God Phoenix out of Fred’s grasp, cursing as the grasping arms of the giant mech came within metres of her hull. He was no pilot, and he knew it. He barely even knew which button did what and he had an appalling tendency to hit the wrong one at the wrong time.

"Oh, no you don’t," he growled as the arms reached for him again and slammed his fist down on the button which he thought would roll the ship to the right.

Instead, it opened the right pontoon.

"ANIKI!!" Jinpei screamed as he fell out after his buggy.

Joe blinked as his scanners showed him the little boy. "Oops."

Katse’s eyes bugged out of hir head, hir jaw dropping. "He didn’t... he DID! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!"

Happy beyond belief, Jun looked up from her asphixiating lover. "Jinpei, I’m so happy. I’m going to have babies..." Her gaze travelled over the control room. "Jinpei?"

"JINPEI!" Joe was bellowing into the comm. "GET YOUR BUTT BACK ON BOARD! I CAN’T FIRE THE MISSLES WITHOUT YOUR BUGGY!"

"It’s not my fault!" the boy wailed. "You’re the one who dropped me!"

"DON’T GIVE ME ANY EXCUSES!"

Jun forgot about love as her eyes narrowed.

"Sir!" one of the techs shouted. "Something’s wrong with the God Phoenix! It looks like it’s out of control!"

Katse stared at the wildly weaving ship. This was just too good to miss! "Hack me through!" s/he ordered.

"YOUMONSTERI’MGONNAKILLYOUPICKINGONAHELPLESSKIDYOUFREAK!"

Joe gasped, trying to breathe while Jun tried to haul him out of his chair by his neck, screaming at the top of her lungs. "Jun - ack!"

Suddenly, a familiar set of purple ears started to come into focus on the comm screen and Joe threw up his hands to cover his unhelmeted head before his face could be seen. "K- *gasp* - SO!"

"Well, HI!" Katse said, no doubt grinning. "How’s it hanging?"

Jun looked up at him, her lip trembling. "He dropped Jinpei!" she wailed.

"Aww..." Katse mourned. "That’s awful. Why don’t you break his neck? You’ll feel better."

"Okay!" she agreed.

Joe’s eyes were bugging out of his head. Drawing on the last of his strength, he twisted around and kicked at the comm screen, shattering it. Then he elbowed Jun in the stomach. She let go with a wuff and he leaped up, put one foot against her butt, and launched her towards the Owl. "Ryu! Donut!"

"All right!"

Jun started shrieking.

"Hey, we lost the picture!" one of the goons complained. "I was taping a copy for my mom, too!"

"Shut up," Katse hissed. "We still have sound. Are you picking up anything?"

"Uh, I think the Condor is saying something to the Eagle."

"Well, turn it up!"

Static sounded, then the Condor’s voice boomed throughout Fred’s control room.

"WAKE UP, YOU LIMP-WRISTED, PANSY-FACED MAMA’S BOY! DO SOMETHING!"

The God Phoenix survived the next two minutes solely because Fred’s command crew was laughing too hard to attack.

"Joe! I’m coming in to land! Pick me up!"

"All right, Jinpei!" Joe looked at the approaching buggy on the screen. "It’s about time! We’ll kick their butts now!" He started hunting for the right button.

"Sir!" one of the goons cried. "G-4 is about to hook up with the God Phoenix. Do we stop him?"

Katse just shook hir head. "Wait for it."

Joe finally found the right combination of buttons and keyed them in, then leaned back and relaxed as the right pontoon opened and the G-4 buggy was safely pulled on board.

And the front of the ship opened, dropping the Condor Machine.

"NOO!!" Joe screamed. "MY CAR!!!!!"

Katse held out hir hand, snapping hir fingers. Grumbling, one of hir captains put fifty bucks in it.

"Told ya," s/he sneered, counting.

UTOLAND INQUIRER: TODAY’S HEADLINE:
RACE CAR FALLS FROM SKY. FUNDAMENTALISTS AMAZED.
Story follows...

Jinpei ran onto the command deck. "I’m back, Aniki! I- urk!’

Grabbing Jinpei by the throat, Joe threw open the emergency hatch in the floor and hurled him out. "GET MY CAR!" he ordered.

Straightening up, he came face to face with Jun.

"Oh, shit..."

"Katse-sama! The God Phoenix is out of control again!"

Katse peered at the tiny, rapidly descending red and yellow form. "Gee, I can’t imagine why..."

"Look at me! I’m flying!"

Gleefully, Jun yanked on the controls, sending the God Phoenix into a lovely series of loop the loops. Behind her, Ken and Ryu clung to one another and the floor while Joe lay at her feet, his head securely wedged between her ankles, if not safely.

"Jun," he gasped. "I’m sorry."

"Loop de loop de loop de loop... Oh, look, is that Fred? Let’s go visit!" The ship turned.

"Look!" he gasped in desperation. "Ken doesn’t have a shirt on! Whoops, there go the pants!"

"WHERE??!"

Joe scrambled into the pilots’ seat as Jun went racing towards the startled Eagle, and barely got the ship clear of Fred’s arms before they were crushed.

"Christ, that was close!"

A shadow fell across him. "You lied to me," Jun growled darkly.

Blearily, Ken knew that something was wrong, and he needed to do something to make it right again. Looking up, he saw Jun throttling Joe and a giant Fred on the screen and shuddered, not sure which was worse. Finally, he decided to deal with the closer threat the only way he could. After all, he was a hero. Sacrifice was in his nature.

"Jun," he called hoarsely. "I want you."

Two seconds later, he decided he might have made the wrong choice.

"Joe! Here I come! And if you throw me off the ship again I’ll shoot you in your sleep!"

Carefully ignoring the sounds behind him, Joe sat crosslegged in the chair - Ryu presently hiding in embarrassment in the space where his feet should go - and watched Jinpei racing along the ground. In a matter of seconds, the boy took out a newstand, a hydrant, a plethora of little yappy poodles and at least three bus stalls. He shuddered.

"Oh, God. Okay, here I come." Swooping down below Fred, he came up behind Jinpei, praying desperately that nothing go wrong this time. Catching the Condor Machine in the grapplers, he drew it close and closed the nose over it, right before the God Phoenix crashed to a halt in the middle of the Utoland News building.

"SHIT!"

"We’ve got them now!" Katse squealed. "Destroy them!"

Jinpei ran into the control room. "What happened... oh... my... God... ONECHAN! IN PUBLIC??!!!"

"Get over here!" Joe screamed.

Beat red, Jinpei ran over to the Commander’s chair. "Help me break free," Joe ordered. "And whatever you do, don’t look in the back corner."

The boy nodded, swallowing.

"Full power!" Joe screamed, turning the engines to maximum. They screamed and the ship shuddered, but they didn’t move. Fred loomed up behind them, howling that it cared.

"No good, Aniki!" Jinpei shouted.

"Go to Firebird!"

"What about Aniki and Onechan?!"

"Like they’ll notice." Joe threw the lever forward. "Now!"

The God Phoenix shuddered and seemed to catch fire, metal replaced by interdimensional flame in the form of a shrieking bird. On board, five people screamed - two for reasons having nothing to do with the fire - and the bird leaped free of the building.

"DON’T LET THEM GET AWAY!" Katse shrieked. "CRUSH THEM!"

"But, Sir!!"

"Fred’s specially designed to wistand heat! Do it!"

The mech lunged forward, grabbing the Phoenix in its comforting, crushing arms. The Phoenix shrieked, trying to break free, but it couldn’t as Fred hugged it lovingly to its bosom. Within the flame, the ship began to break up.

"We’ve got them!" Katse cheered.

Deep in the bowels of Fred, a single Goon flushed the john, a john which was not connected as it should due to the lack of a single screw.

Fred shuddered.

Fred groaned.

With a final cry of "THIS ISN’T HEALTHY!", Fred exploded.

Safe on hir escape craft, Katse watched hir mecha crumble philosphically. "Oh well," s/he said. "At least it was good for a giggle."

Dazed, Joe raised his head. "We won?" He saw the ground rushing up. "SHIT!"

Yanking back on the controls, he levelled off and started looking for a place to land.

"Are we okay?" Jinpei whimpered.

Ryu groaned. "Oh, my head."

Startled, Joe looked down at him. "Ryu!? You’re okay! The firebird must have burned the drug out of your system." A wicked grin split his face. "I wonder if Ken and Jun-" A scream interrupted him. "Yup, I thought so."

Ryu shivered his way out of the alcove. "Where are we?"

"Coming in for a landing," Joe said confidently, just about to touch down as he said it.

"Great. Don’t forget the landing gear."

Joe’s eyes widened.

UTOLAND TRIBUNE: FIRST ISSUE!!!:
SCIENCE NINJAS STOP MECHA. TAKE OUT 16 BUILDINGS WHILE LANDING. LAW SUIT PENDING.
Story follows...

Quietly, Nambu Hakase walked down the quiet corridors, stopping before a single door. The guard on duty saluted him and he went in.

Inside, five ninjas looked at him from out of five beds, and Nambu let his gaze drift over them before he spoke. Ken had a broken arm and three broken ribs, Jun had a concussion and a fractured kneecap, Jinpei suffered a ruptured appendix and a broken nose, Ryu broke both arms and wrenched his back, and Joe broke a leg in three places. Bandaged, strung up and pathetic, they all stared at him, awaiting punishment.

"I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a pathetic display." He said.

Ken tried unsuccessfully to sit up. "It wasn’t our fault, Hakase."

Nambu raised his hand. "You were pathetic, you were disobedient, and you’ve all done more to ruin public opinion of the military than a platoon at a hooker convention. But in spite of it all, you still managed to pull it off and win the battle."

Audibly, the five sighed in relief.

Nambu started pacing along the room, his hands behind his back. "There are consequences to this whole mess, however. Katse is definately going to take advantage of your injuries to press his cause, and even when you do heal, you’ll only be four for a while."

He looked at Jun. "Apparently, you’re pregnant, Jun. Congratulations."

Jun turned white and glared at Ken. "This is all your fault!"

Ken hid under the covers.

"What about Fred?" Ryu asked, trying to free Jun from everyone’s attention.

Nambu frowned. "Fred as the team psychiatrist was a mistake. Not that you can’t use one, but Fred’s talents run more for dealing with patients who are already certifiably insane. You, Ken, Jun and Jinpei will start with a new psychiatrist next week. I think you’ll like her."

"What about me?" Joe asked suspiciously.

Nambu went and opened the door.

"Joe!" Fred exclaimed, charging in. "You poor BOY! We’re going to work day and night to make you HEALTHY! I promise!"

Nambu grinned viciously over the Sicilian’s screams. "That, Joe, is for blackmailing me."

Closing the door, he left.

THE END

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