Cold Ramen: S01E11

Bane At Large is the eleventh episode of Cold Ramen. The plot revolves around Chan, Hoji, Zack and Julius going on the run after Bane and Cloud begin a relationship.

Zack, Julius, Chan, and Hoji team up when Bane and Cloud become a couple.

## The Episode

Hoji ran into his room, his mind moving at a thousand miles an hour. The room was sparsely decorated, housing a bed, a metal desk, and a metal folding chair. He opened his closet and stated shoving clothes in. He then stepped out and felt under the desk, taking out a hidden knife and putting it in the bag. Zipping the bag, Hoji departed the room and strided down the hall. He banged on the door at the end, but recieved only silence. The muscular henchman took a step back and kicked the door open, revealing a suddenly awake Chan. The younger brother looked around wildy, startled.

"Huh, wha?!" Chan groggily utter. Once he composed himself, he glared at Hoji. "Hoji, what are you doing here?"

Hoji grabbed a shirt neatly folded on a chair and tossed it at his brother. "Get dressed. We're leaving."

Chan stares at Hoji, confused. "Hoji, did you get hit in the head too hard?"

Hoji opened Chan's closet and unceremoniously began grabbing clothes and throwing them into the room. Chan cursed under his breath and got up from bed. "Okay, okay! I'm up!"

As he quickly dressed up, Hoji left the room and kept on moving through the space shuttle. Eventually, he arrived in front of a double door. Taking a black card out of his pocket, he swiped it and the doors slowly opened, revealing a massive arsenal of weapons, armor, and explosives. A suit of armor hung on the wall at the end of the armory. Hoji wasted no time stuffing as much as he could into the dufflebag. Two assault rifles, an UZI, a sniper rifle, ammo for all four, and grenades were stuffed in. Finally, he took the armor off the wall and suited up, donning the black gear. Chan's labored breathing could be heard from the hall, and shortly after he trudged into the room, exhausted.

"Could you explain what's happening? You're concerning me a lot more than usual."

Once he got what he needed, he zipped up his back and briskly walked out of the room, past Chan. "Check the surveillance cameras. Timelog 21:09:13."

Chan turned around and quickly moved to keep up with Hoji. He raised his forearm to his face and a holographic screen appeared. After typing a bunch of commands, the screen expanded and began playing footage from a camera. Bane was talking to someone. As the footage went on, Chan's eyes widened.

"No...he wouldn't...would he?" He anxiously mumbled to himself.

Hoji made a turn down another hall."You think he cares for us like that? At the end of the day, we're just henchmen. Expendable at the first opportunity."

"Let's be logical here, Hoji. We didn't just suddenly become useless."

"But is he gonna need us in that new life of his?"

Finally, the duo arrived at the hangar. There were three spaceships docked. Hoji turned his walk to a jog as he approached the smallest spacecraft. Chan sighed and tried to catch up again.

"What are you two doing?"

Chan froze and turned around to see Bane standing at the entrance to the hangar. Hoji instinctively pulled out a sidearm and aimed it at Bane, who raised his own hand and charged a shadow ball.

"I...we were..."

"Leaving," Hoji finished. "I was thinking we would do you two a favor and take ourselves out of the picture."

Bane looked at Hoji like he had just said something incredibly stupid. "What are you talking about?"

"We heard your conversation," Hoji spat out. "All that talk about turning a new leaf? Leaving your past behind you? We're not stupid."

Bane rubbed his temple. "For the love of...you know what? If you two march straight back to your rooms, I will mercifully pretend this never happened."

Hoji shook his head. "Not a chance. Come on, Chan."

The younger brother uneasily looked between the two men in his life. His master, the man who had taken them under his wing in their fight for revenge and conquest, and his brother, his flesh and blood. Bane noticed the conflict.

"Chan, you know what must be done. Detain your brother."

Hoji also sensed something wrong. "Chan, come on. We need to go."

Chan looked at Bane and Hoji. *Why would Bane hurt us? We're his henchmen, we've been with him since the beginning!*

"Chan. Detain Hoji. Now," Bane repeated calmly. When that didn't work, he raised his voice. "*That's an order!*"

Chan flinched at his voice and looked back at Hoji, who had his hand out. "Come on, brother, let's get out of here."

Chan kept on thinking for a few more seconds. He then raised up his arm and brought up the holographic screen. With the speed of a computer whiz, he typed in a command. Five ghostbots that were stationed in the room twisted their heads in Bane's direction and marched towards the three, standing in between the brothers and Bane. Without a clear shot, Bane knew that if he tried to attack, the ghostbots would take the hit and Hoji could fire his revolver off before he could summon another shadow ball. Slowly, he lowered his arm. Chan backed away from Bane for a few steps before running past Hoji and into the ship via docking ramp.

Bane stared daggers at Hoji. "You two are marked for death. You're going to regret this decision for the rest of your *very* short lives*."*

Hoji walked backwards onto the docking ramp, keeping his gun on Bane. Once he knew he was safe, he ran inside the ship and the ramp began to withdraw. The ship hummed to life and the massive hangar exit opened up, exposing the dark outer space. The spacecraft flew forward, leaving the hangar and Bane's ship. Bane remained in the hangar, his mind racing with thoughts of bloody murder. Nobody holds him at gunpoint, especially his underlings. In a fit of rage, he fired a shadow ball at the stationary ghostbots, causing them to explode.

"What's going on?" A voice said from behind him. Immediately, his temper cooled. Hearing that voice soothed him. Letting the tension out of his body, Bane turned around and was greeted with the love of his life, Cloud. He had on a set of white pajamas with yellow stripes. walked into his lover's arms and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Things just got a bit more complicated, unfortunately," He answered. "We'll need to pay Earth a visit a bit sooner than expected."

Inside the spacecraft, Hoji entered the cockpit, where Chan was piloting the ship. The younger brother was hyperventilating, scared out of his mind. Hoji slowly moved his hand toward Chan's shoulder as if to comfort him. At the last second, he pulled away and sat in the co-pilot seat next to him. "Made the right choice," He chose to say instead. Chan's breathing slowly went back to normal.

"Hope we live long enough to realize it," He responded. "What was the next part of this gambit of yours?"

"We need to get to Earth," Hoji began, taking a deep breath before continuing. "If we wanna survive to see tomorrow, we're gonna need some help. From *them*."

...

"It's been a rough couple of weeks, for sure! I mean, how do you deal with a situation like this?"

Julius Vladmire was lying down on a couch, staring up at the ceiling.

"In the span of a day, I lost a friend and a brother! And get this, he ran off to be with the guy we hate the most! Literally sleeping with the enemy!" Julius sighed and shook his head. How do you deal with that?"

"..May I suggest a large meat lover's pizza?"

"Julius!" Zack called from upstairs. "Are you unloading on fast food workers again?"

Upon hearing Zack's voice, Julius rolled on his side and reached for his phone on the coffee table. "Yeah, I'll take one of those," He spoke quickly. "It's Julius, you know my address!"

As Zack walked into the living room, Julius hung up and rose to his feet. The friends looked at each other. Zack looked gloomy, bags visible under his eyes. He hadn't gotten much sleep since Cloud left. Julius, on the other hand, was dealing with the opposite. He had put on some weight, enough to be noticable.

"I think we should talk," Zack said after looking his friend over. "About Cloud. We never really processed it together."

Julius gave Zack his usual grin, walking past him. "We should have. Maybe then you'd get some meat on your bones!"

"I'm getting enough food. It's you I'm worried about," Zack commented, following Julius. They went to the kitchen, where Julius was opening the fridge, looking for something else to eat. "Ever since Cloud left last month, you've been a one man snack hole."

Julius came back up with a rope of sausage links and a can of cola. "I needed to find something to do! When Cloud left, so did Bane!"

Zack looked at the food, then Julius. "You're trying to fill the hole Cloud left in our lives with food. Let's just talk, man."

Julius groaned and walked out of the kitchen to the living room and plopped on the couch. "What's there to talk about? Cloud made his choice, and we gotta take it, warts and all. He chose his alternative lifestyle, and I'm choosing mine. Obviously, you can see who made the better choice!"

Julius punctuated his sentence by taking a bite out of a sausage. "How about you? How have you been dealing with things?"

Zack shrugged. "The usual. Just taking it on the chin."

Julius tore two links off his rope and offered them to Zack. He shook his head. "We gotta find a better way to deal with this..."

As Zack watched Julius eat, concern filled his mind. This clearly wasn't a healthy way to cope, but what else could he suggest? He was never good with words or giving morale boosts. All that was...Cloud's department. As a pang of sadness filled him, he heard the doorbell ring. Zack quickly excused himself to answer it, relishing the opportunity to do something other than sit around.

"Wow, that was quick! This is what pizzeria loyalty gets you, Zack!"

Zack reached for the doorknob and opened it. "Maybe so, Julius. Maybe s--" As he turned back to the door, the identity of his visitors froze his blood. Standing at the door were Chan and Hoji. Zack's crystals instantaneously appeared in front of him. "Julius, we got a problem!"

He heard Julius burp. "On my way!"

Chan, meek as ever, threw his hands up. "We didn't come here to fight! We're here in peace!"

Hoji calmly raised his palms, pointed his head at Chan. "What he said."

Julius ran to the door. When he saw Chan and Hoji, he pointed a glowing blue hand at them.

"We came to talk about our mutual problem," Hoji added.

Zack was unmoved. "And what might that be?"

"Bane and Cloud," The henchman said. "Look, if we wanted a fight, we wouldn't be talking right now."

The heroes continued to brandish their abilities, until Zack dismissed his crystals. Julius followed his lead and put his hand down. Zack looked at Chan and Hoji. "Alright, what's the deal?"

Chan breathed a sigh of relief. "We'll explain why when we're on the road."

Julius drank from his cola and raised an eyebrow. "You want us to take a ride with you? How do we know this isn't some scheme?"

"Look, dipshits, we're trying to help here," Hoji gruffly explained. "Bane and your friend want to knock us all off. That's why we're here, we had to escape Bane's ship."

On the heroes' front lawn, a purple beam of light dropped from the sky. Before their eyes, ghostbot after ghostbot stepped out, red eyes glowing viciously. Eventually, the stars of the show, Bane and Cloud stepped onto the lawn. Everyone turned around and looked as they arrived.

"Well, this place takes me back," He remarked, looking around. When he locked eyes with his friends, there was silence. "Zack...Julius...it's been a while."

"Yeah, it's been a while since you decided that sex with Bane is more valuable than our friendship!" Julius swallowed a sausage.

Cloud took Bane's hand. "For your information, what Bane and I have goes beyond physical attraction. Although it doesn't hurt that he has a--"

Zack stopped Cloud. "What are you two doing here?"

Bane stepped forward. "My henchmen decided to run off when I needed them, so I came to retrieve them."

Hoji rolled his eyes. "He's lying! Chan, show the footage.

Chan activated the holographic screen and began playing the same video Hoji watched. Cloud and Bane were talking at a dinner table in Bane's ship.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we had a fresh start?" Bane brought up. "No former friends, no henchmen, no problem?

Cloud nodded his head in agreement. "I'd like that, but what're you saying? That you wanna get rid of Zack and Julius?"

"Of course! Nothing would please me more than to be rid of those two..." Bane slowed down on his zeal upon seeing Cloud's face. "...Unless you object, my love."

"I do," Cloud admitted. "But Chan and Hoji? They're just some hired help. Not like we'll be needing them on our honeymoon."

Bane smiled knowingly and leaned in to kiss Cloud. "It's settled then. I'll have Chan and Hoji dealt with, then we can start our new lives together!"

The video ended after that. Bane and Cloud looked on, unabashed. Bane nodded. "Yes, so I want them dead. So what? They're my property to do with as I wish!"

Julius shook his head. "You can't just own people, Bane! Not anymore, anyway..."

"Zack, Julius," Cloud addressed his friends. "This should be an easy choice. Just give us Chan and Hoji and we're gone."

Hoji took his revolver out and took aim, shifting it between Bane and Cloud. "Not their choice to make. We're not going back without a fight."

Cloud reached his right hand to the sky and in a flash of black lightning, summoned his sword. The blade was black with a red crack pattern on it. The ghostbots also set their aim on Hoji. "Bane wanted something more humane, but I'm more than happy to cut you down right here."

Chan reached for his forearm and attempted to reprogram the ghostbots, but they didn't budge. Bane laughed as he watched.

"After that little stunt you pulled, I disabled your access. Now, last chance for a quick and painless death."

As Chan began to freak out and Hoji stood his ground, Zack and Julius conversed with each other. Zack looked at the brothers. "They're going to kill them if we don't do something, Julius."

"Well if you ask me, they have it coming. Do you know how many times those two have tried to whack us?"

"I know, but we're heroes, and heroes help people," Zack reasoned.

Julius groaned. "...I hate it when you have a point..." Both his hands began to glow cyan and he stepped forward, pushing Chan and Hoji to the side. Pointing his palms towards the evil couple and ghostbots, he let loose two ice beams. Cloud instinctively grabbed Bane and pulled him towards him.

"Get down!"

The beams struck the ground infront of the evil forces, an ice pillar forming. As Julius moves his arms to the side, more pillars were created, creating a wall of ice.

"Break down this wall, now!" Bane could be heard yelling at his ghostbots. The sound of ice being picked and lasers going off were audible. Hoji sprung to action, jumping from the steps to the ground and sprinting to the right.

"We need to get out of here ASAP!" He barked.

Chan and Zack ran after him, while Julius was slower on the draw. "What, no thank you?!" He commented as he struggled to get moving. Hoji led the four to the end of the street, where a large black pick-up truck was parked. He opened the door and got in.

"Everyone in! Big boy, get in the truck bed!" Hoji commanded.

Chan got in the passenger's side and Zack took the back. Julius tried to get into the bed, but his weight was giving him trouble.

"Hurry up, fatass!" Hoji yelled again. He could see that Bane and his forces had bored a hole into the wall and were close to shattering it.

"I'm not fat! Just big-boned!" Julius pointed out. "Y'know, being big is a sign of weal--"

Hoji slammed the accelerator and the truck began driving. Julius was halfway into trying to roll into the bed, but only by freezing his hand to the side of the truck did he prevent himself from falling off. "Not cool, Hoji!"

Finally, Bane had managed to break free from the wall. Cloud had sliced through it with his sword.

"This is why I've wanted to kill them all these years. They think every thought that enters their minds is a good one. That right there? Bad idea."

"Yeah, they're always trying to do what they think is best. Not today, though. What're you going to do next?"

Bane pulled a phone from his pocket. "I figured something like this would happen, so I had someone I keep on call prepare himself." He dialed a number and spoke in. "It's me. They got away, time for plan B..."

...

Hoji barrelled down the road in his pick-up truck. There was silence inside, Chan anxiously looked out the window and behind him and Zack stared out into nothing, deep in thought.

Chan turned around to face Zack. He had something on his mind. "Good...looking out back there. Hoji and I might have been done for."

"Done for?" His older brother snorted. "We were in zero danger. I was ready to blow out another one of Bane's holes. Ghostbot shots wouldn't have done a thing."

"Right," Zack said. Hoji had always been the arrogant powerhouse brother. Even if he did take Bane out and could take that many laser shots, Chan would be in the immediate crossfire. "Now that we're safe, I need to know something. Bane could easily let you two walk away from this. Is that fresh start story the only reason he'd want you dead?"

Hoji paused before answering, which Zack took note of. "You've fought Bane long enough, you know how much of a psycho fuck he is."

Zack went back into his own head as the truck slowed down at a light. He heard something drop from the pick-up bed to the ground, then the door across from him opened, a sweating Julius climbing in.

"Hoji...you've been going high speed for the past five minutes...I was still trying to get in the bed..." The hero wheezed.

Hoji turned around and pointed his chin at Julius. "What happened to this one? I thought he was supposed to be the durable one. Now he's fat."

"This fat guy saved your ass back there! I'm a valuable member of this team!"

"Not a team," Hoji corrected. "Just four people going in the same direction. We have a safehouse here on Earth. The plan is to head there, grab the supplies we need, and get the hell out of dodge."

"Where do we fit in all this?" Zack inquired.

"Bane won't let us go without a fight. It comes down to it, you guys get to break a bunch of ghostbots. Really let him know that his world takeover days are over."

Julius slouched in his seat. "Great, so we're just here with our sworn enemies for our bodies? This what Cloud must feel like!"

As he reached into his pocket and pulled out the remainder of his sausage link, the light turned green. Before he could advance, Hoji noticed something outside. A homeless man in a hoodie and an oversized jacket was walking across the street and paused when he was in front of the pick-up truck. Hoji sounded the horn, but he still stood there.

"I know you two goodie two shoes are here, but if this old cook doesn't move in the next five seconds, I'm gonna tear him apart."

To everyone's suprise, the man then bent down and leapt onto the hood with one jump. As he did, Hoji noticed that under the pancho was black tactical armor with red stripes on it. He reached his hands out, and two swords made entirely out of red hard light.

"Everyone out, now!" Hoji exclaimed. They all got out in time to see the man stab his sword through the window, piercing through the chairs as well. He turned around to face the ragtag group.

"You two goobers must have really pissed off Bane if he called me here," He remarked, hopping back to the ground.

"Friend of yours?" Zack asked, turning to Chan and Hoji.

Hoji scoffed at the question. "Bane's Soldier is *not* a friend. He's a hired gun Bane gave weapons and armor to."

"I was in Argentina when I got the call of a lifetime. A million apiece for you two goobers!"

"Yeah, that's not happening," Julius said, cracking his knuckles. "I don't know if Bane told you about us, but we foil his plans on the daily. You don't have a chance!"

Bane's Soldier summoned another sword made out of light. This one floated next to him. "I know about you two. You're not on the contract, chubby, but if you get in my way I'll make some room."

Julius aimed his palm at the mercenary. "I'm not fat!" An ice beam shot from his hand and Bane's Soldier somersaulted out of the way. Hoji withdrew his revolver and fired at him. A red wall of light appeared from thin air to block them.

"Four on one, are you sure about this?" Zack tried to reason.

Chan raised a finger. "Three on one, actually. I don't have my usual arsenal on me..."

The mercenary was all business now. Three additional swords appeared and a hole in the wall opened up, the swords flying through the air towards the team. Everyone scrambled to get out of the way as the swords sunk into the ground where they were. With everyone scattered, Bane's Soldier went on the offense, running at Julius first. The cryokinetic hero created ice around his fist to punch the soldier, but he jumped up, created a platform under his feet, and leapt off it to hit Julius with a flying knee attack. Zack summoned his crystals and fired them at the enemy, who created two large open hands to send at Zack. The crystals bounced off the hands and they grabbed Zack, squeezing him tightly. As he hissed in pain, Hoji charged at Bane's Soldier and threw a right punch, which caught him in the side and cut his concentration, causing the hands holding Zack to dissipate. Hoji then threw a left hook, which the mercenary caught with his right hand. Red energy surrounded his arm and Hoji began to struggle. However, Hoji started coming back, raising his right arm and punching him in the face. He struck him again, grabbed his shoulders, and brought him in to knee him in the stomach.

"So this was the call of a lifetime, huh?" Hoji taunted, rearing his leg back to kick him in the stomach.

"Hoji, look out!" Chan called out.

"I got this!" After the kick, he raised his foot up to stomp on Bane's Soldier. But suddenly, a searing pain in his abdomen caused him to freeze. Then another one made him stagger back. Looking down, he saw that there were two light swords protruding from his body. Bane's Soldier got up and turned his palm into a fist, the swords digging deeper. Julius finally got up from the ground and started firing ice shards from his hand like a machine gun. They hit the soldier, but didn't cut his concentration. He turned around and raised his hands up, creating a tire covered in spikes. He threw it at Julius, then created cuffs that he also fired at him. Julius failed to react in time and fell when the cuffs got his arms and legs.

"Urgh! Can't move!" He said, the tire reaching its destination and rolling over him. He bellowed in pain, the spikes stabbing into him as they rolled.

"Julius!" Zack cried out as he saw his teammate take the hit. Bringing his crystals back to his side, he ran towards a nearby car, jumped on the hood, then leapt towards Bane's Soldier, sending a barrage of crystals at him. Bane's Soldier created a shield to bat away the crystals, then pushed it to bash Zack. Zack landed on the shield and used it as a springboard to backflip in the other direction.

As the fight went on, Chan watched Bane's Soldier intently. Whenever he used his ability, the henchman couldn't help but notice that some device on his back glowed red. He then put together a hypothesis.

"It's his back! The power comes from his back!" Chan exclaimed. Hoji was pulling one of the swords out of his gut, loudly cursing when he heard the news. He turned to Chan.

"Get my duffel bag from the truck!" He commanded. His younger brother quickly ran to the truck.

Bane's Soldier generated two buzzsaws and sent them spinning at Zack. The hero acrobatically leapt over the first one and ran to the right to avoid the other. He split his crystals into two groups and directed them to attack the mercenary's sides. Two smaller shields appeared to block the attacks and Zack ran in to jam the mercenary in the head with his elbow. The attack landed and as he stumbled back, Zack went in with a right leg kick. As the kick was about to land, four arms made of light grabbed his leg, holding it in place. Bane's Solider raised his palm up and the arms shot up, flipping Zack in mid-air. A large light boot hit the hero, knocking him away. Meanwhile, Chan sprinted to Hoji's side with the duffelbag and Hoji wasted no time rooting through it. He brought out a grenade and pulled the pin on it, letting it cook.

"Eat this!" He yelled after a few seconds, throwing the grenade at Bane's Soldier. The mercenary created a wall in anticipation, but to his surprise, the grenade exploded in mid-air. The explosion was loud and obscurred his vision. When enough smoke faded that he could see, Hoji was nowhere to be found. He wildly looked around the area, but didn't see him. Bane's Soldier froze and turned around just in time to see Hoji about to lunge at him, knife in hand. A red wall was created as he jumped, causing the henchman to slam into it. He fell to the ground, exhausted. Bane's Soldier generated a hammer about Hoji's head, raising it up.

"That's one million down," He simply stated before sending the hammer down to crush his skull. But just as it was going to make impact, it suddenly disappeared. Bane's soldier looked at his hands, confused. "Huh?"

He turned around and saw Zack, hand outstretched. On a hunch, he reached for his back and felt a hard and smooth object stuck in it. His power pack had been pierced. Bane's soldier watched as the red stripes on his armor faded away, signaling that there was no longer power coursing through it. All he did was chuckle.

"You think this is over, huh? That you've won this round?" He backed away from the four. "You haven't. Look at yourselves, it's gonna be really, really easy to finish the job. Believe that." And with that, he made his retreat, running around a corner and out of sight.

Hoji barely got to his knees and looked around. Zack was getting to his feet and slowly walking towards Julius, whose shirt was covered in holes and large red splotches. Chan ran to his side to help him up.

"Hoji, we need to get out of here! Bane could show up at any time to finish the job!"

"Then..." He winced in pain. "...Go start the truck, I'll be fine," Hoji replied. As soon as Chan let go, Hoji stumbled back onto his knees. After he got Julius onto his feet, Zack turned to see him on the ground. *Oh no.* He rushed over and offered a hand up.

"I'm...fine," Hoji uttered. Slapping Zack's hand away, he put everything he had into standing on his two feet and putting one after the other. He trudged towards the truck and reached for the door. But something was wrong. He began to feel very lightheaded. He tried to reach for the door again, but the only thing that reached for him was the pavement. The last thing he heard before fading out was Chan's frantic yelling.

"*Hoji?! Hoji!!!*"

To Be Continued...