#AI: Lopez the Heavy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

renaroo · 7 years

Text

The Things That Wait (2/4)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH, Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them – the Meta – whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs could spell the death for more than a few of them..

A/N: Long, long overdue, I know and greatly apologize, but this chapter kept getting longer than it was meant to be and suddenly we have what we have now, which is another patented Rena monstrosity haha.

Now, I want to warn everyone that CHARACTER DEATH and GORE are going to be pretty common from here on out, starting with this chapter. And, yeah, some of your favorite darlings are going to be murdered more than likely. So. Consider this your warning. And let’s get into it.

And a very special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @splendiforousblog, @doesthisfightcountforanything, Yin, Aryashi, and @primtheamazing! And, of course, my absolute WONDEROUS thanks to my partner in crime, @theeffar <3

Trust No One

“Goddammit, Church, not even a little heads up!?”

Tucker had worked for many years under the assumption that as far as teamwork went that Blue Team truly was utterly useless, but being smacked in the face with the evidence wasn’t exactly what he needed at the moment. Not when his toddler right at his side.

He as probably going to have his brains shot out right in front of Junior and Tucker highly doubted that his pension was going to cover the amount of therapy that sort of thing would amount to. Let alone college.

“I’m a ghost, not a babysitter, what the hell do you want from me?” Church responded without a moment’s hesitation.

“What the fuck!? He’s supposed to be dead!” a very familiar voice called out from behind them.

“It… can’t be… can it? Is that Church?” a second very very familiar voice said in response.

And if Tucker doubted himself, Donut’s response was all he really needed. His partner let out a huge sigh of relief covered in a small bit of laughter before lowering his arms to his sides and whirling around on his heels. Which was more than Tucker was willing to do with gun sights on him, but Donut was, strangely enough, exactly the sort of dumb bravery to pull it off.

“Guys! Oh, man! I was beginning to think that we weren’t going to see you!” Donut almost sang, opening his arms up for a hug.

“Donut! Get over here and get your gun up!” a voice that could only be Simmons’ ordered. There was a strained upward pitch to his words, just enough off to tip Tucker off to… something.

He needed more context, but he was certainly on edge, even with old… freinemies at the other end of a gun barrel.

Oh please. We’re all done with the Red and Blue thing, they just helped Caboose and me like. A few days ago, Church scoffed, his voice seemingly reverberating between Tucker’s ears. If Tucker thought too much about the source of the voice it added to the mounting headache he already felt.

“What the fuck were you doing with a Blue at a time like this!? Especially one with a goddamn alien connection!?” Grif’s voice spat at Donut, setting what little bit of Tucker’s spine that wasn’t edge back on the right path of anxiety and a touch of nausea.

“You were saying?” Tucker asked out loud.

“Fuck me if I know what’s going on,” Church answered over the speaker of their now collective suit.

“Okay, what the fuck? Where’s his voice coming from!?” Grif growled out, sounding angrier than Tucker had ever known the otherwise chill Red to be. It added to the unsettlement factor.

“I don’t… what the hell is going on?” Tucker demanded.

“And what’s wrong with Tucker?” Donut asked, finally coming to Tucker’s aid. Somewhat. “He’s cool. He’s not even all that Blue. He’s aquamarine … or maybe a touch of turquoise… Hey, Tucker, what color is your armor?”

“Fuck if I know! Is right now really the time to be asking about that?” Tucker demanded.

“Tucker… it’s never the wrong time to question one’s undertones,” Donut admonished him so sincerely it almost made Tucker think over the situation. Almost.

“The problem with him is that he’s-he’s-he’s,” Simmons sputtered, seemingly more unwound by the minute. “He’s a Dirty Blue, Donut! What more could you possibly want!?”

“Uh, answers for starters!” Tucker snapped.

At his calf, Junior clung tightly, letting out a series of distressed, rolling noises from his mouth and tensing up each time someone, especially Tucker, raised their voice. The fact that Tucker still wasn’t sure if it was safe or not to lean over and comfort his son was almost literally killing him.

“Okay, here’s an answer, fuck you and fuck Church, he was supposed to die ages ago and then he gets us here and suddenly you assholes thank us for pulling your team out of the fire by goddamn killing Sarge!” Grif was incredibly worked up, to the point that his little speech ended in what Tucker could only consider a crescendo.

But even with the showy declaration, the actual words hit him and hit him hard.

“Sarge is dead?” Donut said, all flavor and joy gone from his voice. There was a hint of disbelief in it, a note of despair.

“And what the fuck do I have to do with any of it?” Church asked, finally showing himself as a fully formed, transparent being glowing white and clutching a nonexistent sniper rifle right beside Tucker and Junior.

And, being on the other end of the display for the first time since it all started years and years ago in a different canyon between two different bases, Tucker could read out over his helmet’s HUD device that there was an amount of the armor’s power supply being utilized for extended projection.

He noted the phenomenon for later.

“Fuck you, dude,” Grif countered Church viciously. “After all that bullshit, after everything—“

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Tucker shouted them down, daring to move his head just enough to glance over his shoulder at the three Reds. “I really don’t, and that’s with Mr. Chicken and the Ghost giving me a full debriefing. But I do know that if you assholes don’t take your guns off me and off my goddamn kid, we’re going to have problems.”

After spending months together in the desert and beyond, hanging out with tyrannical alien species and even more slanderous and backstabbing upper echelons of the military, Tucker had come to expect Donut’s helpful and disarming charisma to follow suit.

When it didn’t, there was a bit of a sting Tucker felt that he couldn’t quite peg.

“We trusted you guys, we believed the whole Red and Blue thing was a farce. Sarge didn’t. And now he’s dead, fucking explain that,” Simmons argued. He sounded broken, betrayed. Tucker almost wondered if it stung him, too.

“Sorry, man, I am,” Church spoke up. “You … You helped us out. A lot. I hate to hear that. Even if Sarge was… honestly pretty homicidal and wanted nothing more in life than our helmets as trophies.”

“Dude,” Tucker hissed. “Not helping!”

“But we’ve been with Donut for as long as my haunted email got opened by Tucker, and Tucker and Donut have been away the whole time we were doing bullshit with the Freelancer fuck,” Church pointed out.

“We’re not saying you two killed Sarge!” Simmons snapped.

“It sure sounds like that’s what’s being said,” Tucker remarked pointedly.

“We’re saying Caboose killed Sarge, assholes!” Grif growled. “He killed Sarge during another one of his stupid fucking raids of our base and we’re done with playing nice with you guys!”

Immediately, everything was going sideways and Tucker just knew, he knew, that even if what Grif and Simmons were saying was true that it wasn’t right. And that was causing all sorts of chaos in his head. Not assisted by the fact that Church, true to form, was apparently ready to boil over with rage.

“Hey! You don’t know a goddamn thing! Why would Caboose kill Sarge?” Church crackled.

“Because he lost his mind!” Simmons all but screeched. “He’s been suspicious ever since the police released us and he’s been stealing stuff from us, being all secretive, and talking to himself all the time!”

“How do you know he’s talking to himself?” Tucker scrutinized. “Man, Caboose is so dumb that if he doesn’t say his thoughts out loud he doesn’t have them. I know it’s kind of annoying, but you get used to it after a while. Unless O’Malley’s around. Then maybe he’ll talk about wanting to kill you. That’s the only time to be worried. Y’know. Unless you’re me.”

There was a pause that indicated Tucker had said something miscalculated, but fortunately it was Church who spoke up rather than the highly upset Reds with guns.

“Uh. Yeah. Tucker? It kinda can’t be O’Malley. Omega and all the other AI—“

“What other AI?” Tucker demanded.

“I fucking told you the story already!” Church snapped.

“I don’t care if you told me thirty times — I wasn’t there and I didn’t pay attention for half of it,” Tucker bickered.

“Oh, well isn’t that just so fucking typical!” Church snarled.

“Yeah! Typically I don’t listen when you run your mouth!”

“Oh my fucking god, shut up,” Grif was groaning. He then stiffened and looked out of Tucker’s periphery. “Finally! Lopez is here. We called you forever ago, dude! We need your help pronto! We’ve got two—“

“There’s three of us,” Church corrected.

“And a half,” Grif gritted out between his teeth.

Church seemed genuinely aghast. “What the hell, Grif, we spent time in the pen together!”

“—of the Blues,” Grif continued just as the brown armored robot came closer.

“Lo sé,” Lopez grumbled. “Puedo ver eso.”

“Now you can help us take them to the brig!” Simmons added. He hesitated slightly before glancing Grif’s way. “We have one of those, right?”

“Uh,” Grif responded somewhat dumbfounded. “What the fuck makes you think I would know if you don’t know?”

“I-I don’t know! Brig seems like such a Sarge thing to take care of!” Simmons cried out, sounding genuinely choked up by his own words.

“Then what are we going to do with them!?” Simmons went into full hysterics.

Tucker and Church then took their turn to glance at each other before going back to being living statues for their somewhat-kind-of captors.

“Uh. Let us go see Caboose and sort things out?” Tucker offered.

“Oh, fuck off, Blue!” Grif snapped.

Lopez stepped closer to Grif and Simmons. “Quiero examinar el cuerpo yo mismo.”

Simmons lowered his gun enough to put a hand over his visor and sigh in aggravation. “Lopez, jesus, we don’t understand you.”

“Eso suena como un problema personal,” Lopez replied flatly.

There seemed to be a perplexing stare off between Grif and Simmons, Lopez, and the language barrier for a moment when, surprising all of them including Tucker, Donut spoke back up in a small voice.

“I want to see Sarge,” Donut said. “Maybe… maybe he’s not…”

As Donut trailed off, Tucker felt his chest tighten. Fuck, he shouldn’t have let himself get as attached to Donut as he had.

“You should let Donut see Sarge,” Tucker suggested. “We’ll come with you and stuff, whatever. But…”

There seemed to be an unease and shame that took over Grif and Simmons, but Donut seemed nothing but grateful.

“Thanks, Tucker,” Donut said just before Grif put an arm around him and began to lead him toward the base.

Simmons hesitated before nodding to Tucker, Church, and Junior. “Well… come on, I guess.”

Tucker eased up at last, his muscles still feeling taut and nervous with energy, but he focused on his priorities, scooping his son up first and following suit.

Church disappeared from Tucker’s side, but there was a hum in the Blue’s head that told him his former CO was still there.

Quick thinking, we should probably find evidence around Sarge, Church commented crudely.

“Or pay respects to someone who we knew for years and worked with,” Tucker growled under his breath.

Realizing that only half of the conversation was hearable, Tucker glanced around to see if anyone noticed.

Grif, Simmons, and Donut seemed far enough ahead leading the way it didn’t matter. They were talking amongst each other, but a short glance back told Tucker that Lopez was boring judgmental robot eyes into him. Which was not a great sensation.

Of course, there really wasn’t much that was all that good in the moment anyway…

For all the ways Tucker hadn’t known how the somewhat reunion of the crews from Blood Gulch was going to be, the one thing he could have never imagined, would never have wanted to imagine, was the way it was unfolding before him in that moment.

There was a part of him that just… never really believed any of them could actually be dead.

Inside of his head, Church was also carrying through with an uneasy quiet, taking in the moment. Of the way Simmons leaned into the nearest wall with a sag in his knees. Of the way Grif had eyes on them, angry, bitter, unlike anything Tucker had seen from the man before. Of the way Donut collapsed on his knees by a bright red suit, locked up in an unnatural fashion with glass and blood and a dented in helmet strewn across the base hall.

The Reds were between them and the body, but Tucker could still make out purpling exposed skin and a crew cut split by a tear through the flesh. Maybe that was the killing blow. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was all real after all.

There was just one thing certain on Tucker’s mind, and that was that this was not the work of Caboose.

Caboose, idiot that he sometimes made himself out to be, had a careless streak, a sort of oblivious casualness to the occasional carnage everyone from Blood Gulch had been guilty of at one point or another. An accidental firing of his gun, a bomb he befriended going off at the wrong time, pressing a mysterious button that incinerated an entire room — those were Caboose.

Sarge had gone down fighting, and he had been hit hard. Hard enough to split a skull under a helmet, hard enough to leave the indents of knuckles on armor. Vicious enough and intentional enough to leave a crime scene with bullet spray and blood splattered to the ceiling.

Junior was making uncomfortable squirms in Tucker’s arms, teeth clattering together in a babble that tried but failed to overcome the mewing of his upset.

It was enough to grab Tucker’s attention, but not enough to pull the Reds from their current tragedy.

“Jesus,” Church muttered in the back of Tucker’s mind. He wasn’t sure if anyone else could hear Church, it was getting to be a fuzzy line what was or was not in his head.

“I… I can’t believe…” Donut was uttering. “I mean… it’s Sarge… he… he never…”

An electricity ran up Tucker’s spine that felt stronger than any kind of chill he had known before. It made his stomach feel heavy, empty. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was at first — guilt? Confusion? They all seemed to fit one way or another, but when Church registered again as an annoying hum in his mind, Tucker shuttered and looked upward as if rolling his eyes back far enough in his head would make Church visible.

“Church, what the—“

Quiet. Jesus, Tucker, can’t you think quietly? And here you were saying Caboose was the one with a problem of thinking out loud, Church hissed behind his ears. You were getting onto me earlier about not giving you more of a heads up, so those are my heads ups from now on. Cool?

Fucking weird, not cool, Tucker processed, feeling disoriented with the conversation. Can’t you just possess Lopez, Danny Phantom? This is fucking weird. I don’t like it.

No way, that sucked last time and Lopez began resisting me, remember? It was, like, a whole thing in Blood Gulch, Church countered.

He wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t make Tucker less annoyed.

He was more than ready to leave things at that, but suddenly the electric spike rippled down his spine again. He stiffened up just before turning enough to realize that Lopez, standing right behind him with a trained gun, was looking incredibly intently at Tucker. It was the kind of look that, had he not been an emotionless looking automatron, Tucker could have sworn was giving him a death glare. Or a suspicious glare. Or… well, perhaps he was reading too much into it.

Without a single word, Lopez pushed past Tucker and Church, leaving them without any trained guns on them, and he came over to the other Reds’ side, standing over Sarge with a bowed head. At first, Tucker thought that perhaps Lopez was looking over evidence, but after a few seconds without any kind of motion, Tucker realized there were other reasons for him.

Guess robots can have feelings, weird, Church commented blissfully.

It took much restraint on Tucker’s part to bite his tongue to that and let Church’s delusions continue unabated.

There were more important things to be concerned with, after all.

“Guys,” Tucker spoke up again, practically giving the middle finger to the immediate screaming Church started to do in his head. He adjusted Junior in his arms as all four living Reds looked at him hollowly and with lots of suspicion. “I just… I’m really sorry. This feels… so wrong.”

There was a moment of awkwardness that continued before Grif himself eased up his shoulders, as if he was finally (finally) coming around to common sense. “Yeah… yeah it really does,” Grif agreed solemnly.

“Look,” Tucker continued with the thread, daring to step out of place and toward them without a weapon in hand. “Maybe there’s something I can do to help here. We owe you guys a lot from all the times before with… well, just everything. And I want to know what happened to Sarge, too. But I don’t think this looks like anything Caboose would ever—“

Almost immediately, sirens began blaring, and the somber peace that had been built up between them all evaporated right before Tucker’s very eyes.

“He’s fucking at it again!” Grif roared, gun up. “Simmons, you go left with Lopez, Donut you come with me. W’re ending this Red and Blue bullshit one way or another!”

“Wait!” Tucker called out just before all four Reds split across the hall, rushing past him and Junior as if they weren’t even existent. “What about…” Tucker trailed off, his eyes set instead on the body in the hallway with him.

His stomach shifted uncomfortably, but in a more natural way than Church’s failed alert system.

“What killed him?” Tucker asked, slowly stepping toward Sarge.

“If we knew that, then se could have just told the Reds and been done with this nonsense already,” Church grouched.

“No, asshole, not who,” Tucker snapped back. “What did it? Like how did he die. That kind of stuff.”

“Would you calm down? If you want a specific answer maybe ask a specific question!” Church bantered effortlessly.

“Church!” Tucker growled out in irritation.

“Fine! Hold on!” Church answered, he then projected once more — the small meter of used energy appearing across Tucker’s HUD once more. Church then knelt down beside Sarge, taking a moment to look over him. A flicker of… something — emotion, most likely — surged through Tucker like an injection. It wasn’t his own, that was all he knew. “Poor bastard.”

Nauseous either because of the gore or because of the confusing juxtaposition of emotions and pain conflicting inside him, Tucker turned back and squeezed his eyes shut. He let Junior down to stand on his own and used his hands to balance himself.

“Dude,” Tucker got out. “Maybe you could stop fucking around and get out of me already. It’s starting to hurt!”

“That’s what she said,” Church snarked back.

“Bow chicka honk—“

“No! No no no,” Tucker snapped. “I’m trying to be serious here, Church!”

“Fine, I am too,” Church answered, looking up at Tucker. “Asphyxiation.”

“No more sex jokes for like ten minutes,” Tucker said flatly.

“What? Oh, shut up, I was answering your question from earlier,” Church scoffed. “Asphyxiation — that’s what killed Sarge. He was strangled to death.”

“What? Like kinky?” Tucker asked, the wave of nausea subsiding for intrigue.

“You just said no sex jokes!”

“This isn’t a joke! It’s a question! Lots of people die that way,” Tucker yelled back, caught up in the heat of the moment, before remembering there was a toddler right next to him. He then pointed accusingly at his son. “Close your ears.”

Junior let out a frustrated, gargling sound.

“It’s not autoerotic asphyxiation, Tucker,” Church sneered. “Obviously. Someone else strangled him.”

“Okay, but there’s no way of telling that that wasn’t erotic,” Tucker pointed out.

Church gave Tucker a strained stare. “Tucker, his fucking head is caved in and he has bullet holes in him.”

“But you can’t say it isn’t—“

“Fine, it was a sexy death, Tucker, are you happy?” Church snapped.

“It’s what he would have wanted…” Tucker sighed, looking over the corpse.

“Literally no one would want an embarrassing kinky death but you, but sure,” Church answered before flickering out. “I say we stay quiet and play this close.”

Tucker got to his feet, reaching for his rifle with a roll of his eyes. “Quiet, yeah, Church. That really sounds like something we’re capable of.

There was a moment to breathe rather than hearing one of Church’s quick fire retorts, which seemed strange. At first. But as the moment came to a point, suddenly Tucker felt the increasingly familiar sensation of a sharp shock running up his spine, his muscle growing taut and strenuous on him.

Adjusting his hold on his gun, Tucker whirled around on his heels, certain that there was someone watching him. It had been the same intensity, the same strange sensation that he had felt under Lopez’s heavy, emotionless gaze.

But even as they turned for a second time, Tucker didn’t find anyone there.

“You have to not do that when there’s nothing happening,” Tucker snapped at Church.

He should have known better.

as soon as the words had left his mouth, there was an undeniable explosion sound as though it came from outside the base. It made Tucker immediately turn in the exit’s direction, heart pounding.

“You were saying?” Church jeered. “C’mon, if there’s an explosion then we know who’s involved.”

Tucker hated how often Church was right lately.

It doesn’t exactly require detective work to find Caboose once they crossed the valley. Much like any other base Tucker had been at since his enlistment brought him to Project Freelancer, where a Red Base existed there unstably coexisted a Blue Base on the opposite side of a boxed in space.

Except whatever teams had been stationed at this so-called Valhalla had really lucked out because their crass wasn’t flattened and yellowed by unending heat and there were trees and streams instead of canyon walls and an unruly desert surrounding them.

Which meant Blood Gulch had been even more useless than they had complained about the entire time they had been there.

“Okay, what the hell’s with this improvement of scenery?” Tucker asked the air as Junior came stumbling in behind him over the small hill.

“Focus, Tucker,” Church hissed at him.

“Oh, yeah, that really helps me, focus, hearing you in stereo inside my radio and inside my freakin’ head!” Tucker growled back.

“Dude what do you want from me? I’m haunting your armor. Suck it up.”

More banter was on the tip of Tucker’s tongue but a second explosion interrupted him and he could see a familiar blue armored figure running in circles with flames covering him. Behind him, four angry and revenge inspired Reds were chasing at a considerable distance now that there was a fire hazard.

Actually, Grif wasn’t pursuing so much as staying back and yelling at the others what to do. That seemed more comprehensible for the people Tucker had come to know.

At first, Tucker was just taking the scene in when a shock went through him. “Ouch! Okay, Church, that fucking stings! Could you maybe lay off? I already know that Caboose is over—“

The energy meter appeared before Tucker’s HUD again and Church appeared on the hill beside him, staring in the opposite direction of Caboose, the Reds, and the general calamity about to unfold. He gripped his sniper rifle like it meant anything. Which, of course, Tucker knew full well that it didn’t.

“That wasn’t about Caboose it was…” Church trailed off. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“Yeah. A ghost with a ghost sniper rifle doesn’t get much more range than just a ghost fucking ghosting it, huh?” Tucker scolded sardonically. “Don’t fucking do that unless it’s necessary. Actually, don’t do it at all! That’s preferable.”

“It is necessary,” Church argued, dropping his gun slightly. “Aren’t you worried about the murderer?”

“The murderer?” Tucker echoed dumbly.

“We weren’t here, Caboose wouldn’t have done it, no way it was one of the Reds,” Church listed off. “Someone killed Sarge recently. And it’s no one we know. But it’s someone who is almost definitely still here. So excuse me if I happen to feel a little more inclined to pay goddamn attention to our surroundings!”

Tucker squinted at Church a bit, but as much as he hated to admit it — and he did hate to admit almost more than he could express — Church was right. Even when Tucker hadn’t been thinking about the who killed Sarge, the who kind of mattered.

A lot.

Then the fucker ruined it by sending another chill through Tucker’s body. “Church! Goddammit! What now!?”

“I apparently have to kick your ass in gear to get you to go save Caboose, too! Jesus, I’m having to do everything,” Church groaned.

“You? It’s my body! Saving Caboose or not is my choice!” Tucker reminded his dead-but-not-so-much friend. “And you’re draining power or something. Cut the light show out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Church said, a flicker phasing through his image. After a moment, though, he disappeared all the same.

“Jackass,” Tucker seethed.

Fuck face, Church boomed inside his skull.

“YOWEE!!”

Looking to the distance, Tucker saw that Caboose had fallen and rolled into the running stream of water, which had taken care of the fire but left him surrounded by the Reds. And they had their guns drawn and were probably trigger happy because Caboose, even if not a killer, was still very much Caboose.

Putting away his rifle, Tucker unsheathed his sword and raced down the hill, only calling back to his son with a quick, “Junior! Stay back! Daddy’s kicking some ass!”

Of course, that was about the end of Tucker’s planning when it came to paying any recourse forward. So, as per usual, he winged it in true Blue Team fashion.

“Hey! Dickweeds! Back off of my idiot!” Tucker yelled as he bum rushed the four with an alien plasma sword in his hands.

Wow, stirring speech, Church deadpanned.

“That sounds like Tucker! Is it Tucker? I hope it is Tucker. I don’t like Tucker though. I miss Tucker? But I don’t want to see Tucker,” Caboose babbled without even bothering to roll over to his other side and actually see who was coming to his rescue. Typical.

“Tucker, back off, you saw what he did!” Simmons warned.

“Okay, I think you guys are a little too close to the situation to be dealing out vigilante justice. Because you don’t have to like Caboose to know that Caboose didn’t do that,” Tucker argued fiercely. “Caboose kicks landmines into people’s faces or accidentally causes boulders to fall over on people. Or he just has a misfire and team kills. Killing an enemy on purpose? Fucking cold cocking Sarge in a brawl and strangling him to death? That’s not Caboose. It’s too malicious.”

“Are you fucking kidding us?” Grif asked, breathless and putting his hands on his knees.

Tucker looked incredulously at the Red. “How the hell can you be breathless, you literally just moved for the first time while everyone else was chasing Caboose around.”

“Leadership is much harder than grunt work,” Grif snapped.

“Is it has six blockages from the excessive weight?” Tucker asked, earning a well deserved orange middle finger.

“Come on, guys,” Tucker near begged. “We spent all those years and all those crazy adventures together and you’re honestly going to tell me that you can’t see through all this bullshit at least enough to know something about this whole situation stinks. And it’s not Church and not Caboose’s feet. For once.”

There was a passing moment of silence where Simmons and Grif glanced toward one another as if it was the only communication needed.

Tucker wasn’t sure where the situation was going to land them all next. And he was quite a bit nervous to find out.

When no one else on Red Team was making any motions to contest, Lopez stepped up to the other three, his droning voice speaking clearly. Or at least, Tucker assumed it was clearly since he had no idea what the hell he was saying. “No deberíamos escuchar la meant fina. Terminemos con la amenaza Azul de una vez por todas.” He gave a pause that was either dramatic or heartbreaking. “Es lo qui el padre hubiera querido.”

Before any collective breaths could be taken, Donut nodded his head sagely. “You’re right, Lopez. We have been around Tucker long enough to know that he’s got a fairly good head on his shoulder.”

There was an aggravated noise from the robot but apparently even a computer sometimes lacked words for full expression.

“Really?” Simmons questioned skeptically. “I would say we’ve known Tucker long enough to guess the opposite.”

“Exactly my thoughts, Simmons,” Grif huffed.

“Aw, c’mon guys, you sound like you really need a stick up your butts,” Donut offered.

“No. Wrong. That’s… You have to be doing that on purpose!” Simmons argued angrily.

Tucker was ready to weigh in, having formed quite an opinion on Donut’s turns of phrase after spending months with him on missions, when he heard a familiar cooing and clattering behind him. Turning slightly from the Reds, Tucker faced Junior just as the little alien reached the end of the hill and all but crashed into Tucker’s leg. He made some noise and then clutched to Tucker’s armor meaningfully.

“What’s up, little man?” Tucker asked.

“I think I may have an idea,” Church spoke up at long last. Look, he echoed inside of Tucker’s helmet.

Somehow instinctively knowing what direction Church meant, Tucker glanced back to the running stream where Caboose had been marinating before. It hit Tucker all at once that Caboose had been strangely quiet during the arguments and, when Tucker looked, he could see why.

Caboose was nowhere to be seen. But Tucker had a good idea of where he went.

“Stay close to me, Junior,” Tucker ordered his son.

With Red Team bickering like there was no tomorrow, getting past them on heading on his way to the Blue Base was simple enough. And what’s more, like a freaking fantastic father, he reached the end of the path without losing sight on Junior even for a second.

Then that aching electric shutter went down Tucker’s spine, forcing him to stand ramrod straight and look over his shoulder with the hairs on the back of his neck sticking straight up under his armor. “Church, what the fuck?” he asked as he saw nothing.

“What, you can’t see it?” Church asked critically.

Alarmed, Tucker glanced behind him again, looking for anything Church might’ve meant. But as he looked what caught his attention most was the absence of space. Between them and the nearest cliff was a clearing of grass covered in shadow. There didn’t seem to be anything there, but in some way, as the wind blew, the tall grasses split and swayed out of place, out of step with what nature probably intended for them. It was a decent distance, so it very well could have been that Tucker was all just seeing things wrong, but the more he looked, the more he was certain that…

“Tucker!” Church snapped. “Didn’t you hear me? What’re you looking at! Pay attention, I said that the Reds noticed you’re gone so hurry up and get to Caboose.”

For a moment, Tucker looked toward the Reds and, sure enough, had four helmets looking right back as a result.

Still, that didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem like enough.

Looking back to the grass, Tucker no longer saw any such discrepancies and furrowed his brow as a result. “Are… Are you sure that’s what it was?” he began to question.

“Tucker! Get to Caboose already before they start treating themselves like a firing squad,” Church barked out. He then uncharacteristically paused and a wave of nauseating guilt came over Tucker that wasn’t his own. “Maybe that’s just a Sarge thing…”

As if on cue, a shot off from the Reds narrowly missed them, ricocheting off of the side of Blue Base.

“Nope!” Tucker answered before ducking inside with Junior.

Much like the location itself, the inside of the Blue Base was, by far, nicer and more equipped than any location that Tucker could have even dreamed of being in back when they were in Blood Gulch. The halls were long and wide, lit by a continuous set of blue overhead lights built into the ceiling. It would have been impressive if it didn’t give Tucker a strange, sickly feeling in memory of what those same walls and ceiling looked like at Red Base, Sarge down on the floor.

Of course, Red Base didn’t have the sound of tinkering and a big lug muttering nonsense to himself.

“Time to get to the bottom of this,” Tucker grunted, moving forward toward the noises.

Junior, very obediently, stayed in step with Tucker, clinging to him occasionally.

By the time they reached the end of the hall, the low muttering from Caboose had become an almost audible string of nonsense words and humming to himself. It was still unsettling, even if it wasn’t exactly new where Caboose was concerned.

The room itself didn’t seem to be anything definitive, maybe a small office once, but it was completely devoid of furniture now. In fact its only assets beyond the people standing within it apparently amounted to a pile of what Tucker could only leniently refer to as junk, and a few milk carts turned upside down and leaned against the wall where Caboose was concerning himself with work on… on something vaguely resembling a skeletal exosuit like the kind inside the armors of their robots. Well, Church and Tex’s robots.

But the strangest thing was the cocoon shaped device with a bright blue screen at its top and a softening then brightening then softening again glow that seemed to work in rhythm with Caboose’s mumblings.

Still not the strangest thing proximity to Caboose had forced Tucker to witness. But, of course, that was fairly stiff competition.

Tucker knew what Church was going to do before the ghostly apparition even appeared by his side, so he allowed Church to have the floor, as it were.

“Caboose! What the hell! Isn’t that the Epsilon unit? Agent Washington told you to turn that in!” Church’s voice was cracking on weird, out of place intervals. And the more it drew Tucker’s attention the more he realized, rather suddenly, that for some reason Church was sounding that way out of a certain amount of fear.

Glancing back at the device, Tucker wondered if it was, indeed, stranger than he had originally given it credit for.

“Church!?” Caboose piped up, standing straight and alert before he clumsily turned his charred armor in their direction. He nearly leaped at what he saw. “I thought I had heard Church! I knew I did! I didn’t believe you would be dead, Church! I knew you were my best friend and you would never leave me no matter what the angry police officers said! Oh, Church, I am so happy to see you again!”

As the rambling outburst continued, Caboose flung himself forward from his makeshift work bench and toward the illusionary visage Church was forming of himself. This, of course, led to little more than Caboose passing right through Church but Tucker supposed that at the end of the day it was kind of the thought that counted. Maybe?

Church gave an aggravated glance to Tucker, as if the situation could at all be relatable and then turned his attention to Caboose who was swatting his hands through Church. “Hey! Fucking stop it, dude! I’m a ghost, remember?”

“Agent Washington said you were a computer,” Caboose hummed in return, though he did stop.

“He was an idiot. And he tried to get me killed. Good thing for him, he was wrong and as a ghost, I can haunt emails and save myself from suicide missions. Dumb fuck. Told him I was a ghost,” Church waved his hand nonchalantly, but there was still an edge to his words. Some kind of emotion he wasn’t getting through entirely.

“Don’t computers send emails? Not ghosts?” Tucker prodded all the same.

“Quiet,” Church hissed.

“Yeah, Tucker! Shhhhhhhhhhh,” Caboose added, took a large gulping breath, then continued, “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Ignoring Caboose, Tucker turned and squared himself directly with Church. “Okay. So, we’ve found Caboose. He is the exact same as he always was. Shocking. But that also means the Reds were full of shit about him going rogue and killing Sarge. Now what?”

“We figure out why he was stealing shit to begin with,” Church answered. “Hey! Caboose! Why the fuck were you stealing things from Red Base? If you’re the only one here, what more shit could you possibly need and have to take from them?”

Caboose tsked at them both, head shaking. “Why, Church, we are not alone in Blue Base. I have had my friend here the whole time! And I have been telling him all about how I have such good friends, like you! And Agent Washington!”

“And me?” Tucker asked.

Staring back at Tucker, Caboose allowed the room to lapse into long, confused seconds of silence. “Okay. Maybe not about Tucker.”

“What the fuck, I just saved you from getting skewered by the Reds, too. I’m gonna go get them and tell them you did kill Sarge, how about that?” Tucker snapped in return, being supported by protective growls and honks from Junior at his side.

“What friend are you even talking about here, Caboose?” Church demanded.

“Him! My new friend,” Caboose nodded toward the strange device. “Epsilon.”

With the mention of the name, the device glowed brighter and longer than any of the times it had lit up before, a strange humming like the purrs of a cat coming from it as it did so. But the longer the phenomenon went, the more unsettled Tucker’s heart became. Something about the droning hum quickly turned sinister and corrupted. The noise might not have changed in pitch or tone, but the ringing it began to spawn in his ears and the fuzzy way the glow manipulated his vision became nigh unbearable in the moment.

“GAH!” Church cried out loudly, disappearing from Tucker’s side and retreating into an out of rhythm, counter hum into Tucker’s skull.

It was too much, that shocking pain sprung down Tucker’s spine and drove him to his hands and knees in pain.

“Church!” Tucker cried out. It didn’t make any sense, something had changed. Something about Church had changed so that he was so unlike any of the times before in Blood Gulch. He felt heavier and intrusive as he possessed Tucker’s body and mind. It was infuriating and frightening.

But more than anything, in the proximity of Epsilon, it was so damn painful.

“Oh no! Where did Church go?” Caboose asked as another wave of shocked pain hit Tucker, immobilizing him. “The scary man may be back!”

“S-scary? C-Caboose! Wait! I…” Tucker groaned, his teeth beginning to chatter as gave in and flattened on the floor. “Church… what’re you doing to…?”

Oh god. Oh god I’m so sorry. I didn’t remember. I didn’t want it to be like this. Fuck. FUCK. I can stop it hold. Hold on, Tucker. Tucker, just—

Caboose seemed utterly distracted, mumbling something that made no sense to Tucker. Junior was panicked, by Tucker’s side and shaking Tucker by the shoulder as much as possible. His clattering teeth and growing concern was as heartbreaking as they were pride inducing.

“Okay! I will keep him away until Church is safe!” Caboose declared nonsensically. “It is a thing that the best of friends do for friends! And Church — both you Churches — are my friends! Promise. Pinkies. Forever.”

“Wait, Caboose… What the fuck are you…” Tucker groaned, reaching up and grabbing the sides of his helmet as if to keep it and, in turn, his skull from splitting in two. “Caboose…”

Without further word, Caboose shoved the weird device into Junior’s hands and then took off down the hallway they had entered from. He was giving no indication of what was happening, or what he thought was happening outside of the room. He just left them, alone, and Tucker feeling like his own brains were threatening to leave his skull.

“Church,” Tucker managed to get out in a whine as his vision became spotted and more blurry.

Tucker, I’m sorry, Church repeated. I think I’m causing this.

“No… shit,” Tucker wheezed before falling unconscious entirely.

#writing #rvb fic #Lavernius Tucker #Alpha Church #Leonard L Church #Franklin Delano Donut #Tucker Junior #Dexter Grif #Dick Simmons #AI: Lopez the Heavy #RvB: The Things That Wait

7 notes · View notes

polar-stars · 3 years

Note

ok. i must know the music tastes of *preparation cough* [insert all of your ocs here] :}

Thank you for enabling me to talk about this 🙏

Kimiko Yukihira 🍳

Kimiko has her own little radio in her room and this radio is pretty much her main source of exposure to music. She therefore listens to a lot of Pop and is especially fond of the upbeat kind. Thanks to the men in her family she has been introduced to various Rock or more Alternative songs as well though.

Favorite Artists: I feel she’d like Owl City & possibly also Paramore

Hiroshi Aldini-Tadokoro ⚓️

Hiroshi listens to soft things that ease him down. His playlist is full of cute, soft-sounding pop songs and acoustic stuff.

Favorite Artists: Hm, Jason Mraz, Sleeping At Last & Ai Means Love, I think

Mika Aldini ☀️

As an avid dancer, Mika mainly listens to songs that you can also dance to. So her playlists mainly consist of very fast-paced, exciting songs. Her favorite Genre is Latin-Pop, but she listens to a lot of regular Pop as well (as long as it’s good for dancing). She also does enjoy some Reggae once in a while, especially if she does feels like relaxing.

Favorite Artists: Shakira & Jennifer Lopez

Kaori Hayama 💐

Kaori listens majorly to Soul, R&B & Blues. She considers it very relaxing and she does mainly listen to music in order to relax. Kaori does also have a little soft spot for a lot of older jazzy tunes from her mother’s favorite movies.

Favorite Artists: Aretha Franklin, Sade, Alicia Keys & Adele

Lola Nakiri 🦊

Lola is Daddy’s little girl when it comes to the matter of music. When Lola Nakiri puts on headphones, she’ll be blasting her ears off with Rock & Heavy Metal. She’s also known to have a rather impressive collection of band T-shirts. She can find some appreciation in the sassy Pop her mom listens to, but ultimately Rock & Metal is where her heart is.

Favorite Artists: Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin I guess. And probably another Metal Band. I sadly only know a few and only by name because I do not listen to Metal, ever.

Mona Nakiri 🐺

Techno. Mona walks around with her headphones a lot more than Lola does and what she listens to is all sorts of Techno sub-genres and House, with a good number of Remixes in-between.

Favorite Artists: Lea doesn’t know any tbh sfghgfhg

Takayuki Hojo 💥

Takayuki listens to Rock like the tough cookie he is. Should he ever listen to anything that isn’t Rock, his father or Suzume most likely made him listen to it. His two favorite songs of all time are “T.N.T” by AC/DC & “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor (Takayuki loves the Rocky movies)

Favorite Artists: As long as it’s Rock he doesn’t care who sings. Okay but he is pretty fond of AC/DC and Guns n’ Roses

Kazuo Mimasaka 💕

My boy Kazuo surely has one big playlist that is filled with nothing but the most sappiest and emotional love-ballads imaginable. And I don’t even want to think about how long it would be. Kazuo can listen to almost anything, the exception being Hardcore Gangster Rap, but what he listens to privately is...yeah, Ballads.

Favorite Artists: Lionel Richie & Celine Dion are the first names to come to my mind. “My Heart Will Go On” is at the very top of Kazuo’s playlist

Yasu Ibusaki 🌲

Shun passed his liking for Rock down to Yasu. When growing older, Yasu additionally also developed a love for all things Indie & Folkish. Has been called a Hipster for his music taste more than once by Hideyoshi.

Favorite Artists: Arctic Monkeys, Twenty One Pilots, Hozier

Chieko Marui 📚

Chieko does listen to a lot of LoFi or Movie/Video Game Soundtracks for studying and relaxation. Her favorite movie soundtrack is that of “The Theory of Everything”. However, when it comes to casual listening her mother got her into Pop. And also thanks to her father, Chieko kinda became accustomed to Pop from all decades. She majorly listens to all sorts off love songs.

Favorite Artists: TAYLOR SWIFT, Chieko is a confirmed Swiftie. Also really likes Britney Spears tho I feel.

Hideyoshi Kawashima 🎤

Hideyoshi listens mainly to things you can #party to. Out of all the characters he’s the one who keeps up with the charts the most. Likes Pop and also K-Pop! His dad did successfully get him into some HipHop as well though. Hideyoshi also has a secret soft spot for the boybands of the 90s.

Favorite Artists: Jason Derulo, Backstreet Boys & BTS

Daisuke Aoki 🎸

Daisuke is our Retro-Kid. His music libraries is mostly 80s and 70s, with some songs of the 50s and 60s that his father likes in-between. Is usually the last one in Polar Star to discover the newest hit in the charts, because he’s too busy bopping to the past. Lea can relate.

Favorite Artists: Queen, A-ha & Huey Lewis & The News

Hiraku Yukihira 🐙

Hiraku likes the modern Rock from the 2000s and 2010s. Occasionally he will stumble over something in the Indie and Alternative department and then be real proud over being the only one who knows a particular song.

Favorite Artists: Panic! at the Disco, Coldplay and Imagine Dragons

Akio Hayama 🌱

The same as Kaori. This is a thing they have in common, they both do enjoy the same music pretty much. Though I can picture Akio liking some Reggae once in a while in addition. Also just a few days ago, I established that he’s a secret theatre kid who also listens to a lot of Show Tunes.

Favorite Artists: Stevie Wonder & Marvin Gaye

Suzume Hojo 🔥

Out of all the characters in the cast, I’d say that Suzume probably has the broadest music taste. She is capable of enjoying a lot of stuff. Being the Meme-Lord that Suzume is, she does love to put on some Meme- and Guilty Pleasure songs. Though of course, there is irony playing into that enjoyment. When it comes to the songs she enjoy unironically, they’re mostly very fast-paced and energetic. I guess you could say her favorite genre is bouncy pop of all decades. Her favorite song of all time would be “Girls just want to have fun”.

Favorite Artists: Lizzo, Beyoncé and Cindy Lauper.

Shigeo Eizan 💎

Jazz is Love. Jazz is Life. Shigeo listens to Jazz ahdhd. A lot. He basically always has Jazz going on in the background when he’s working. When he finds the time to listen more attentively, he loves listening to Swing the most.

Favorite Artists: Frank Sinatra. Also likes Michael Bublé tho I feel.

Noboru Shinomiya 🍂

Noboru loves nothing more than his collection of classic French Chansons. It’s what he listens to on his long autumn walks through Paris and it makes him happy and content. He also does like the Enka-songs his mother enjoys though.

Favorite Artists: Joe Dassin and Édith Piaf

Kiyoko Saito 🌸

Kiyoko really loves Classical Japanese music a lot but she only really does listen to it on special occassions. She does also enjoy a lot of modern Pop and also K-Pop as well though and she really loves to put it on whenever she dresses up, paints her nails... etc. (Also I can see her being into Vocaloid tbh).

Favorite Artists: BLACKPINK. I can also see her liking Ariana Grande

Masashi Eizan 🍜

Okay this is our true Classic-Fanatic. All of Nene’s efforts to bring Masashi to operas, ballets and just plain classical concerts have paid off. Masashi listens majorly to Classical Japanese music or Western Classical music. He also does really like Enka.

Favorite Artist: His favorite Western composer is Beethoven, I haven’t figured out anything else yet.

Ran Mimasaka 🖋

Ran listens to a lot of operas actually ahdh because, well, she likes operas. Aside from that, she does also enjoy Rock and ChillHop though shdhf. To some this might be a weird combo, but it do be like that sometimes.

Favorite Artists: In the Rock-department it’s David Bowie.

I admittedly only did the most important high schoolers here, I will need a Part 2 I guess ahdhdf

But still thanks for asking ☺️

#Well #That took longer than I expected #But it was still fun ahdfhf #Gofer answering to stuffz #Shokugeki no Kimiko Stuffz

8 notes · View notes