There are 3 mines around this tile.

There are 2 mines around this tile.

You have marked a mine.

You have 254 mines left to go.

There is 1 mine around this tile.

Boom.

X_X

Juli stared over her partner's shoulder at the computer screen.  "Congratulations.  If this were an actual mission, you'd be dead by now."

"I don't understand."  The blond girl muttered.  "I used to be able to beat Shadowloo difficulty before in fifty-four seconds.  And why were the top ten times wiped?"

"Even I could only beat Shadowloo difficulty for minesweeper in over a minute."  The brunette remarked as Juni closed the program.  "Now come on.  We have to stand on guard for the arrival of Doctor Hawlson."

The two exitted the complex to wait outside.  Shadowloo Base Alpha 01. It was a top secret underground facility that wass hidden away from the world above.  Except for that big circular metal plate entrance door which was almost as large as a small city.  Really, was it so hard to put some camoflauge over it?  All it would take was some grass, twigs, and leaves for crying out loud.

Juni and Juli stared at the large metal plate, both thinking the same thing, as a truck appeared over the horizon.

Several soldiers stood around the entrance as Dr. Yamoto looked at his watch.  "She's late.  Professor Senoh and Doctor Janet sure took their time..."

The slim female truck driver simply chewed on some gum and began to blow a pink bubble as Janet, looking rather fatigued, stepped out of the truck.

"Doctor Janet, are you okay?"  Juni asked after she saluted.  "You look... er... beat."

Janet quickly dusted off her lab coat and redid the braid in her black hair, before giving the truck driver an angry glance.  "Had Agent Marzche actually performed her duties correctly, then things wouldn't be this way.  As it is, we have a large problem on our hands now thanks to her."

Marzche didn't pay any attention to Janet's remark as her bubble popped.  She slowly peeled off the gum and pulled some of it out of her... tye-dyed blue-red hair then threw it away before putting another piece of gum in her mouth and replying.  "Ah, shit happens.  Deal with it."

"Professor Senoh Hawlson is still back there, you stupid ditz!"  Janet yelled.  "Now are you going to go get him back or do we have to boot you back into the slums where you belong?"

"Hmm, I don't care."  Agent Marzche re-curled her hair and started to blow another bubble.

"Failures!!!  All of them!  I can't believe this."  Janet turned to glare at Juli.  "Agent Juli, I have a new assignment for you.  And you'd better not fail like that idiot did."

Juli nodded.  "Of course.  I'm surprised Agent Marzche hasn't been removed, yet."

Marzche calmly kneeled back in her chair.  "Whatever..."

Yamoto and Juni just stared while Juli figured that Janet was probably too pissed to notice the latest version of the DOLL project.

"I'm sorry, Brem."  Janet put her hand on Doctor Yamoto's shoulder.  "I'm just in a bad mood.   Tell Juli to report to Bison in an hour.  It's better for the leader to dictate the order."

After Janet left, Juni frowned.  "There I was in a coma for an entire month and I don't even recieve so much as a glance.  What does it take for a girl to be noticed around here?

Shadowloo special soldiers are specially trained and genetically enhanced for espionage, assassination, and sabotage.  Juli and Juni, two of these special force solders, recieve orders from high commander, Major Bison.

"Infiltrate Interpol ICPO occupied Shadowloo Lab Number Thirty-Two and retrieve Professor Senoh from the allied forces!"

"SI3 Sniper Rifle.  Check.  M02 Nikuja Missile Launcher.  Check.  Weapons systems are at one-hundred percent."

In the back of the transport vehicle driving through the night, Juli continued to inspect the weapons while her partner counted the supplies.

"Twenty v1.02 Psycho Drive Capsules, thirty M24 C-Bombs, ten Shadowloo C24 rations...."

Juli stopped inspecting the weapons.  "Psycho Drive Capsules?"

"You know, just in case I get too tired expending all of my psycho power, of course."  Juni blinked then stared at her partner.  "Er... is your memory okay?"

"........."  Juli had never heard of anyone besides M. Bison having psycho power before.  "So, fine, we have psycho drive capsules... whatever the hell those are.  Why M24 C-Bombs?  We want to be as quiet as possible, not create huge explosions that will attract every guard in the entire complex."

"Come on, Juli!  You haven't lived until you've strapped a M24 C-Bomb to a soldier's back when he isn't looking then run for cover."  Juni rolled her eyes.  Why was her partner being so stingy?  Besides, as long as there weren't any other enemy soldiers within three screens, it was perfectly safe to use M24 C-Bombs without attracting attention.

"Great..."  Juli picked up one of the ration packages and examined it.  "Why do we need these?  We're not going to be gone that long."

"What?  Leave without rations?  That's suicide!  What if we need the health boost?"

"Oooookay...."  Juli had a hard time figuring out how the hell food could have magical healing properties.  Obviously Yamoto screwed up somewhere along the line with her partner's logic.

"What's so funny?"  Juni snatched the ration back and put it in the pack.  "There's no such thing as continues so we can't risk being without any rations!"

"That's it!  Marzche, stop the car!"  Juli shoved Marzche out of the driver seat and threw her in the back then sat down and turned on the vid com link and angrily dialed a frequency.  Bremare Yamoto's lab appeared in the screen, and the good doctor was busy testing out the latest version of the inflatable Shadowloo soldier but was still having trouble making them completely needle proof.  Juli tapped on the screen.  "Hello?  Pick up the phone!"

Doctor Yamoto quickly turned around and ran up to the screen, then saluted.  "Oh, good day, Agent Juli.  Is there a problem?"

"Could you tell me who the hell was in charge of..."  Juli turned around and noticed that both Marzche and Juni were listening in on her conversation.  She frowned before pressing a button on the control panel, causing the back window to slowly close.  She then continued her sentence.  "The logic systems for you-know-what seems to be rather fubarred."

"Really?  I made sure that I included the most up-to-date information I could access."  Doctor Yamoto quickly booted up his laptop computer and looked at some of the files, then back at the screen again.  "Juni should have the full ability to successfully pass all two hundred VR missions as well as complete mine sweeper on Shadowloo difficulty in under a minute."

"Eh?  I don't recall Shadowloo having any VR missions..."  Juli muttered.

"Er... well, of course not."  The doctor looked around.  "Which was quite a problem, so I had to substitute a spy videogame's VR missions into the equation, instead."

BANG!

Juli opened the back window and glared behind her.  "What the hell are you doing?!?  We only have limited amunition and even I do not want to get into a situation where unarmed combat is inadequate!"

"Oops... just testing the weapons."  Juni replied.  "Don't worry!  We''ll pick up more ammunition at the base.  I'm sure we can find some lying around somewhere..."

The window slowly closed again.  Yamoto stared from within the screen.  "What's wrong?  It's not that hard to find ammunition, is it?  Just look around for any secret rooms and keep your eyes peeled for cartridges lying in dark corners."

"Juli!  I think we're running out of air back here!"  Juni yelled.

"Doctor Yamoto, which button releases the sleeping gas into the back of the truck?"

"Hmm.... maybe she's just not ready yet.  This can't be very good."  Yamoto had a worried look on his face.  "Juli, you'll make sure she'll won't get killed, right?"

"I'm more worried that she'll get ME killed."  Juli sighed.  "Nevermind.  We're at our destination now.  I'll call you back later if I'm still alive after this mission."

Juli got out of the truck, looked up at the stars, then shook her head before opening the back of the vehicle.  Her partner quickly came tumbling out gasping for breath thankful that she could finally breath, but strangely enough Marzche just continued to blow her bubble-gum bubbles as if nothing changed.  "Well, Juni, the lab is about half a mile from here. You recall what standard procedure is, right?"

"Of course!"  Juni saluted.  "But we have to walk half a mile? Won't that take an extremely long time?"

"This is not a video game where you can skip the introduction with the simple press of a start button!"  Juli angrily remarked as she shut slammed the back of the truck shut, locking Marzche in.

Later, right outside the laboratory complex...

"Wow, that was fast."  Juni commented.

Her partner quickly ducked behind a truck as a spotlight went by.  Unfortunately, Juni wasn't that quick.  She stared at the light for a split second before diving to Juli's position and crashing into her.

"Freeze!"  A soldier yelled before Juni blew his face off with a nikuja rocket.  The impact of the explosion sent both Juli and Juni tumbling back.

Juli glared at the nikuja rocket launcher armed girl.  "What the hell are you doing, you idiot!?"

"Don't worry, if we just stay out of sight for about a minute, they'll give up and move back to their positions."  Juni replied.

Fortunately, Shadowloo special agents were also trained to run fast.  The two managed to get into the complex while the Interpol forces still believed they were outside for the most part.

"Okay, so maybe they were alert for more than a minute.  We still got away from them, didn't w..."

Juli covered her partner's mouth knowing that with her luck, odds were that when Juni finished that sentence they'd get jumped by some more soldiers.  "Just be quiet and follow my lead. We can't have anything like that happen again!"

She apparently didn't appreciate the fact that the reason security was so lax within the complex was because most of the guards were running around outside, now.  There were still a couple left behind to patrol the halls, however.  One of these guards was about to turn around the hall and see the two intruders before Juli ran around behind him and snapped his neck.

"You can't hesitate nor can you make any noise."  Juli commented as they silently ran down the corridor.  They paused as they heard another guard from around the corner.

Juni saluted.  "I'll handle it!"

As the guard passed the intersection, she ran behind him and grabbed him but messed up her motions and ended up flipping him over and slamming him onto the floor. She stared at him for a while before Juli motioned to her.  "Run, you idiot!"

Juni and Juli quickly dashed down the hall and took the next turn out of sight as the man got up and quickly looked around, wondering what the hell just happened.

"Okay, so I'm a little rusty with my neck-snapping.  I just need to practice it a bit more to recap, that's all."  Juni shrugged.  "The main problem is that it's pretty hard to find willing practice partners for that type of thing."

"......."

After rounding another corner, the two took out a map of the complex and looked it over for a while, then found they were in an area with an electric security system.

"The captivity wards should be beyond here, although the main problem will be finding out which one has the professor.  The fuse box for the electric system should be past the electric floor to the right and past these three rooms."  Juli pointed to the map.  "We'll need to use the remote-controlled Nikuja rockets to reach it."

"I'm on it."  Juni readied the missile launcher and fired before her partner could protest.  Using the scope on the launcher which let her see things through the rocket's point of view, she skillfully maneuvered the missile past a few pieces of furniture and through some open doors until everything blacked out.  "Huh? What gives?"

Juli snatched the weapon and peered into the scope and moved the lens cap out of the way of the radar device, then gave it back.  "You forgot to seal the lens cap away from it!  Now fire another rocket and try again."

"Oh!  The first one's still going!"  Juni remarked as she looked back into the scope.

Juli looked at her.  "It is?  Where is it now?"

"Well, it appears to be about to blow up two unsuspecting soldiers who have their backs turned to it and don't know it's coming."

While the rocket got closer to those two people and gave her a better view, Juni suddenly realized who those two people were.  At the same time, Juli turned around to see a missile flying full speed towards them.

The yell came from both of them simultaneously.  "CRAP!"

The following explosion sent both of them screaming and careening against the wall among a pile of cardboard boxes.

Juni leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.  "Safety not included..."

"Life... failing..."  Juli looked around and attempted to keep her eyes open, then closed them, too.  "I... I think I'm dying..."

"Thanks for taking the brunt of the blast, by the way."  After some effort, Juni took out a small pack of rations and held them up.  "You see?  It's a good thing I remembered to pack the rations or we'd be screwed right now!"

Juli glared at the rations then frowned before closing her eyes again.  Several tears formed around them.  "Sir Bison... why did you see fit to have me die such a pathetic death with this moron?"

"You're not feeling better?  How do I use these things again?"  Juni stared at the ration pack as her hands began to glow.  She grabbed Juli by the arm.  "Well, they're not going to help if you just sit there and bleed to death like that!"

"Do I have a choice?!?"  Juli got up and slammed Juni against the wall.  "This is all your fault, by the way!"

"Well, all you have to do now is slip into a coma and then we're even!"  Juni snapped back.  She calmed down and glanced at her partner for a moment.  "At any rate, the ration appears to have worked since you seem better now."

Juli looked around then let go of her.  "That's.. that's ridiculous!  I just heal fast.  That's all."

"Now if I can only figure out how to use these things on myself."  Still somewhat hurt from the impact, Juni shook the ration pack but nothing happened.

"Well, that's okay."  Juli picked up the nikuja missile launcher then fired a rocket.  "I'll go on ahead and complete the mission while you stay back here and recover."

Juni stared in disbelief at her partner as there was an explosive noise in the distance and the electric floor shut down.  "You're not leaving me, are you?"

"You'd better find a hiding place, since I think the recent blasts have attracted some attention."  Juli remarked before running down the hall and turning into a dark niche.

A soldier walked past Juli wondering how the electric system shut off.  Juli breathed a sigh of relief that she was free of Juni, until she saw a cardboard box shuffling ominously down the hall.  The soldier quickly turned around but the box stopped moving.  He walked up to it and looked at it.  "Oh, it's just a box."

He continued to walk back until he noticed the box was blocking the hall.  "Out of the way!"

With a quick kick, the soldier knocked away the box and found Juni underneath it. The two stared at each other for two seconds before Juni's fist slammed into his face.  Juni then quickly ran to catch up with her partner.  "Is it that bad?  Maybe it'd be better for you if I just went and died!"

After sighing, Juli put her hand to her forehead.  "It makes me sick..."

She noticed that the man that Juni just punched in the face was gone.

"Okay, so maybe you did learn that you could work alone better while I was out of it.  If that's the case, why didn't you just tell me instead of allow me to go through this embarasment?!"  Juni angrily punched the wall then a sniper came falling down from the rafters above and crashed into the floor.  "You're mocking me, aren't you!?"

"It's not that..."

"Well then, what is it?!  You've been treating me badly ever since I woke up and heads up!"

Juli turned around to see several soldiers behind her, and Juni behind them.  She quickly dived away from their fire as Juni strapped a C-Bomb to the back of one of the unsuspecting soldiers, which ended up plastering them all over the area.

"Maybe it's just taking me a while to get used to this... again."  Juli said as her foot met the face of another soldier.  "Look, why don't you take up the leadership role if it upsets you that much?  Things can't get much worse than they are, already."

"Really?  You mean it?"  Juni kicked another soldier into the wall.  "Well... first thing we have to do now is get away from these guys, then."

"Obviously!"

Several more soldiers ran into the area, but all they found were their dead or unconscious allies.  Juni and Juli stared at them from the air ducts above.

"I still don't know how the hell we got up here..."  Juli muttered.

"I'm surprised that I was able to take you along with me when I used my mach slide teleport, myself."  Juni replied.

The two gave each other awkward glances.

"Er... anyway," Juni continued, "We should be able to find Doctor Hawlson from around these airducts.  I'll track him down."

"How are you going to..."  Before Juli could finish her sentence, her partner had kicked the vent below them and they were both sent tumbling down into a small laboratory room.  Tied up in a chair being forced to watch some sort of video screen was the old bald coot, Doctor Senoh Hawlson, himself.

Juni and Juli found to their horror that he was being forced to watch the Pokemon movie, Pikachu's Vacation, over and over again.  They both dashed to the video screen and frantically pummelled it into pieces before that damn pokemon mouse could say "Pika pika!" one more time.

"Oh my gosh!  That must have been horrible!"  Juni screamed.  "You don't think they got him to talk, do you?"

Juli glanced at the old man.  "Judging by the swirling in his eyes, I think he's been unconscious for the past twenty-four hours."

"Pika pika..."  Senoh muttered.

"He must have an astounding amount of willpower."  Juni commented.

"Or he passes out easily."  Juli added.

"Pika pika..."  Senoh muttered.

"Er... anyway, Juli, set the base to self-destruct mode while I get Senoh out of this chair and download the laboratory data into some tapes."

Juli paused.  "Self-destruct mode?"

"It's just not the same if there's no race against the clock at the end of the mission!"  Juni yelled back.  "Enter the self-destruct code!  It'll give the guards a big distraction so we can escape and it'll also prevent the lab from falling into enemy hands."

"Oh.  Well, yea, obviously.  I could have thought of that."  Juli pressed a couple of key-codes then set the clock on the computer.

Self-Destruct Mode activated.  Warning.  Base will self-destruct in thirty minutes.

"Perfect."  Juli smiled.  "I've calculated that this will allow us to escape with approximately five minutes margin of error just in case, yet give the soldiers a sense of urgency to get out quickly, thus distracting them as much as possible."

"Did you remember to include the fact that we'll be dragging an unconscious old man with us?"

Juni and Juli both paused, then they quickly did some mathematics in their heads and counted some numbers using their fingers.

They finished their calculations at the same time.  "Approximately twenty-nine minutes to evacuate."

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in twenty-nine minutes.

"CRAP!"

Juni quickly packed up all the tapes while Juli grabbed the professor then they made a mad dash out of the room.

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in twenty minutes.

"There!"  One of the soldiers yelled.  "That's the girl that picked me up and slammed me into the floor for no reason!"

"Yea!"  Another screamed.  "And she also punched me in the face!"

"And she strapped a C-Bomb to my back!" The corpse of a third soldier yelled.

Juli stared at the wall of soldiers in front of her.  "I think we need to find an alternate way out."

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in fifteen minutes.

"Well, judging from what I remember of this place..." Juni remarked as the two ran down the hall.  "We could escape through the backdoor vehicle hanger.  If we can get a car, we should be able to get out of here just in time!"

The two quickly jumped in one of the jeeps.  Juli threw the professor into the back then turned the car keys.  "I'll drive!  You hold off any suicidal pursuers."

"Why can't I drive?  I thought I was the leader, now!"

"Emergency switch of leadership!"

"No way! Give me those car keys!  Why can't you man the jeep's machine-gun and be bullet fodder?"

"You're the one that enjoys randomly shooting and punching things!  You do it!"

"Pika pika..."

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in five minutes.

A bunch of bullets flew by Juni and Juli, reminding them of reality.

"We don't have time for this!"  Juli slammed on the gas pedal.

"Fine, you drive!  You'd just better do a good job of getting through that traffic blockade in front of us."  Juni answered as the two noticed that a bunch of soldiers in cars ahead of them were also trying to escape.

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in two minutes.

Boom!

"You're supposed to DODGE the other cars, not run into them!"

"Well, it's not my fault that you're shooting all the other drivers leaving me with a bunch of car wrecks to avoid!"

"That's what I'm supposed to be doing!  Better they get their brains blown out than us."

"Well, you're doing TOO good of a job of it!"

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in one minute.

Juni ducked as more soldiers fired at her since she kept shooting at them.

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in thirty seconds.

"Dammit!  How long is this stupid tunnel?"

Warning.  Base will self-destruct in ten seconds.

"There it is!"  Juli pointed forward.  "We're almost out!"

Ten.  Nine.

Several huge explosions started up right behind the jeep.

Five.  Four.

Professor Senoh slowly opened his eyes.  "Huh?  Where am I?"

Three.  Two.

"SAVE THE PROFESSOR!!!"  In a last frantic attempt to get the professor to safety, Juni and Juli picked up Senoh and threw him as far ahead of the jeep and the explosions as they could.

"WAAAAAAAH!!!!"  The professor, who had just finally regained consciousness, found himself losing it again as his face slammed into the pavement and the entire laboratory spontaneously combusted.

Juni stumbled up to the truck while supporting her partner and dragging the unconscious old man.  Marzche stared at the three, then casually blew another bubble.  The vid screen in the truck turned on.

Janet stared from the video screen to the messy duo in front of it, then looked at the professor who had a nasty bruise on his forehead.  "I see you had the mission accomplished."

"Of course..." Juli slowly answered before passing out.

"We wouldn't have it any other way."  Juni chimed in.

"Oh, that's good."  Janet took some notes down.  "We won't tolerate any more failures.  You can expect a purge of the less-desirables to happen sometime soon.  Just continue your job at a competent level and you'll be all right."

The vid screen turned off.

Marzche simply snickered then blew another bubble as Juni helped her partner get into the car.

There are 3 mines around this tile.

There are 2 mines around this tile.

You have marked a mine.

You have 2 mines left to go.

There is 1 mine around this tile.

You have marked a mine.

There are 0 mines around this tile.

Congratulations.  Your time this session was 0 minutes, 54 seconds.

From behind her shoulder, Juli frowned.  "How the hell did you do that?"

Juni smiled at the screen.  "Ah, it's good to be back."