#maple's rvb/hc au

[kyleknight]

How to Make Friends: A Guide By Joe Hills with A Variable Success Rate

This is heavily inspired by Maple's Red vs Blue/Hermitcraft AU, which has utterly captivated me. If you're unfamiliar with Red vs Blue, it's a space opera series loosely set in the world of Halo, about a collection of dumb idiot troopers who get into hijinks and shenanigans. Maple's AU sort of follows RvB canon, but it also sort of doesn't. So I'm playing loose with it and just writing whatever's funny.

wordcount: 4563 warnings: violence, character death, discussions of war brief summary: Joe Hills arrives at Blue base, meets his teammates Bdubs and Scar, and befriends a tank. And perhaps a small incident happens. ao3 link

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

There’s no way to properly begin a story that involves many, many people with many, many different life experiences. Initiating events can only really be fully understood and realized in hindsight, with the subsequent actions and consequences to give the proper context required. And even then, background information is required. Who are these people, what are the circumstances they come from? Why is there a war, and why does it have to involve so many people who just want to live their lives in peace?

But Joe thinks that his slight mishap on the first week at this outpost is perhaps a good place to start.

He doesn’t have a whole lot of company on the cramped ship that flies him at a faster-than-light speed across the universe out to the base. The ship itself is on routine autopilot, giving the impression that the mysterious and distant “Command” can’t be bothered to spend the human resources to assign the ship a pilot. But they sure can waste a whole lot of resources on energy and fuel shipping one person all the way out to a little planet that Joe has never even heard of.

The planet itself is simply identified by a string of letters and numbers, which seems like a shame. It’s probably a perfectly nice place— shame it’s the setting for at least a part of this war. (Not that it seems like any planet in this part of the universe is untouched by the war.) 

Joe tries to get a good look at the planet as the ship approaches, but the most he can see is a rather large expanse of what could be badlands and perhaps prairie or savannah. Not a whole lot of green. It’s hard to tell from space, and the window shutters close as they get closer to the planet. 

Once the ship lands, the doors open, and Joe is finally able to leave, he’s greeted by a pair of people in blue-colored armor, similar to Joe’s. The shorter of the two is a light cobalt while the taller is something between teal and aquamarine. Only the aqua one has his helmet off, and he smiles sunnily at Joe. He has a friendly looking face, but Joe thinks he should take some time to make any conclusions about his character.

“Well, hello there,” the aqua guy says. “You’re the new recruit?”

“I suppose so,” Joe says. He would call his attendance the result of involuntary conscription, but that’s not necessarily something he needs to burden his new acquaintances with. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Joe Hills. I’m from Nashville, Tennessee.”

“What— you’re all the way from Earth?” the cobalt guy says. “No way. I thought it wasn’t suitable for life anymore.”

“Well, to my knowledge, I was still alive when I left, but I can’t say anything about what may have transpired for the other inhabitants afterwards,” Joe says. 

“That’s amazing,” the aqua guy says. “You can call me Scar, by the way. That’s Bdubs. Welcome to Blue base!”

“Blue base,” Joe repeats, a little quietly. That offers a surface-level explanation for the ocean-blue armor he was given after a sparse three weeks of “training” during which he actively did his best to underperform at everything in the hopes of being discharged. No good, since at the end of the three weeks, he was handed this armor and promptly shoved into a waiting ship with only a clipped explanation that he was being deployed to a place called “Blood Gulch.”

Jokingly, Joe says, “Is there a Red base too?”

“Yeah, the Reds are at the other end of the canyon,” Scar says, nodding his head to his right. His voice drops to a whisper. “They’re kind of silly, but don’t get too close to them, cause they’re seriously trigger-happy.” His voice lifts again. “But that shouldn’t matter, because Command said they were sending us a tank! And I can see it right there!”

Without any more preamble, he dashes past Joe, past the crates of equipment and supplies that have already been unloaded by the gently whirring mechanical arms of the ship, and straight up to the main thing that had been taking up the majority of the space on the transport ship.

A tank.

Joe had kind of hoped that it wouldn’t be getting off at the same stop as him.

“Hey— Scar— you’re not getting in that thing first—” Bdubs shouts, chasing after Scar. 

But as the two of them start scuffling to determine who will get to the tank first, there’s a mechanized activation sound from the tank.

Joe tilts his head. That’s odd. It never did that on the whole way here. Could it be solar-powered?

“Hello,” comes a surprisingly soft masculine British-sounding voice. “Thank you for activating the N808-V Main Battle Tank. You may call me Oli. Please standby as I run diagnostics.”

Oh, the tank has a name. And a voice. That’s kind of nice. Joe wishes it could have been active on the way here. It would have been pleasant to have someone else to talk to.

Bdubs groans. “Of course we can’t just use it right away. Hey, tank, can you skip the diagnostics and start working right away instead?”

“Rescheduling diagnostics,” Oli says.

“Hey, wait, diagrostics might be important,” Scar says. “Oli, you can keep doing your diabolics.”

“Restarting diagnostics,” Oli says.

“Stop that!” Bdubs snaps. “I want to drive that tank right NOW and blow something up!”

“Well, so do I, but it’d be safer to cab-ilirate it first,” Scar says. “Joe thinks so too, right?”

Joe pauses to consider his answer, and in that moment, Oli speaks up again. 

“Initiating restart mode. Please standby. This may take a few minutes.”

Bdubs throws his hands in the air. “I swear, if you guys have ruined it already…”

“He’s a brand new tank, just give him some time,” Joe says, walking closer to the tank as the large war machine hums at a quieter volume. Joe recognizes that he is making a rather presumptuous assumption here— he should ask Oli what his preferences are when he reboots himself. “We should probably just let him do his thing first.”

“In the meantime,” Scar says, turning his attention back to Joe. “We can show you around the base!”

“Sure,” Joe says. He glances at the walls of the canyon, stretching high on either side. The sedimentary layers are quite pretty, and he hopes he’ll get some time to check out the stratigraphy a little later. Just because he’s stuck out here for the foreseeable future doesn’t mean he has to dislike the actual landscape. While there might not be a lot of green life, there’s certainly got to be arid-adapted life instead. Could be interesting.

That is, if the skirmishes haven’t destroyed it or chased it all away.

The base isn’t terribly big. Scar shows him to a room that apparently used to belong to a man named Cub, who was their commanding officer until he died not too long ago. Not from fighting, Scar assures him, just an unfortunate accident. The space is nice and roomy, although it would be a lot more mentally soothing if it had a window. However, Joe can imagine there are a few reasons why that wouldn’t be recommended in this situation. The dust, for one.

There’s also a general common area, an armory, a kitchen, a large storage room, and a bathroom. Conspicuously, there is no dedicated place for medical treatment, nor are there any sort of recreational facilities. And, as Joe walks through the base, listening to Scar’s long-winded and elaborate explanations, there doesn’t seem to be anyone besides the three of them stationed here.

Joe is not sure whether to be glad or worried about that. The fact that the base only seems to be big enough for maybe a maximum of six people is certainly an indicator that… maybe this just isn’t a very important outpost.

Maybe Joe actually succeeded in his efforts to make himself a completely useless soldier, in a way.

After the tour, Scar and Joe work together to move some of the supplies into the base, starting with the food supplies, as Scar seems eager to see if they got “anything good.” Bdubs is noticeably absent from the kitchen stocking, as well as lunch, and Scar tells him it’s not a big deal. The three of them gather again after lunch to move the rest of the supplies into the base, which takes a few hours.

The sun is starting to sink below the horizon as the three of them approach Oli once again. The tank has restarted himself by now, if the lights are any indicator.

“Hey, Oli?” Joe says. “How’s it going?”

“Diagnostics check at thirty one percent,” Oli reports. “Estimated time of completion: six hours, twenty minutes.”

“Oh, yeah, SURE,” Bdubs gripes. “So we won’t even be able to use it until tomorrow.”

Joe glances back in the direction that Scar had pointed in earlier. “Do you think it’s alright to leave him out here all night?”

Scar shrugs. “He’s a tank, I’m sure he can protect himself.”

“I am equipped with 700 millimeter steel-alloy armor, as well as an AI-directed recognition system,” Oli reports. “As for offensive capabilities, I have a 50 millimeter wide plasma turret. I can also run people over with my big heavy treads.”

Bdubs seems startled. Scar leans forwards, clearly delighted.

Joe meanwhile, is intrigued. “You’re an AI?” he asks. “They put AIs in tanks?”

“While I do not possess the capabilities of a smart AI, I am certainly capable of keeping myself in working order,” Oli says. “Starting by making sure my systems are fully functional, so if you’ll excuse me, I still have another seven hours of diagnostics to run.”

“I thought you said it was six hours,” Bdubs says.

“I think I’ll take my time, actually,” Oli says, actually sounding huffy about it. “Don’t you have something better to do than bother me?”

Oh, he has a personality. Joe likes him. He’s pretty sure he likes Scar and Bdubs too, but he really likes Oli. 

They unanimously decide to leave Oli for the evening. Once again, Bdubs doesn’t join Scar and Joe for dinner, but he joins them in the common area as they’re winding down and getting ready for bed. There isn’t much in the way of leisure opportunities, but there are some books, board games, a deck of playing cards, a few thousand-piece puzzles, and a pile of sketchbooks that both Bdubs and Scar spend a considerable amount of time drawing in as the evening progresses. 

Joe has guessed by now that whatever threat the “Reds” pose, it’s certainly not enough that they need someone standing guard all night. That’s just fine by Joe. He takes the deck of cards and plays solitaire while occasionally looking at the very nice drawing that Bdubs is making in his book.

The next morning, Joe heads over to Oli first thing, even before breakfast. His internal clock isn’t aligned with this planet’s day cycle yet, so the sun isn’t even up when he steps outside. But he can’t sleep any longer, and he’d like to take a bit of a morning walk and hopefully strike up a conversation with Oli.

The tank is still humming that steady sound.

“Good morning, Oli! Hey, I don’t want to assume anything about you or your identity,” Joe starts off. “We’re both new here, and I want to make sure you feel that your boundaries are properly respected.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Oli says. “I am just a tank though, so I’m not sure how you could be misidentifying that. I’ve never been anything else, to my knowledge.”

“Would you want to be something else?” Joe asks.

“Hm,” Oli says. “That’s something to think about. I’m quite fine as a tank, I think, but I suppose I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to become, say, a helicarrier or something else that could fly.”

“I can see the appeal in that,” Joe says. “Flying does give you certain extra freedoms.”

“What about you?” Oli says. “Would you want to be something else? A tank perhaps?”

“Since I asked the question to you, I guess it would be rude of me not to have an answer,” Joe says. “Let me think… There are a lot of things it would be interesting to be. I don’t think I would limit myself to just living things either. I’d like to be something that wouldn’t be caught up in a space war. Or something that could stop it.”

“Oh, now that’s a heavy topic,” Oli says.

“Is it weird hearing that, as a tank?” Joe asks.

“Hm. I don’t know. Just because I was made for war doesn’t mean I’ve participated in it yet,” Oli says. “My fundamental processes are all designed for combat and typically being an unstoppable force of violence. But you’ve put me in a quandary here.” 

“Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize. It’s all about considering your identity, as you said,” Oli says cheerfully. “I do think I’d at least like to try out my components while I continue to think that over. Not against anyone, of course.”

“How would you try them out?” Joe asks. He looks around again at their surroundings, barely lit in the pre-dawn. The canyon isn’t small, but he doesn’t think there’s a whole lot of space that could be used for whatever tests Oli might want to run next. 

“Well, I suppose I could just run the tutorial program,” Oli says. “That probably won’t hurt, and it’ll give us a more practical idea of how it feels to be a battle tank.”

“Mind if I join you for that?” Joe says. “Like I said, we’re both new, so this could give us both an opportunity to get to know each other a little better. I could tell you a little about where I’m from after you’re done with the tutorial.”

“That sounds lovely,” Oli says. “Of course you can join me! Just climb into the seat right there and I’ll activate the program.”

It starts out very nice, all things considered. Unfortunately, it’s already very warm, even this early in the day, and the radiant heat from Oli’s mechanisms only adds to the temperature. Joe finds himself regretting putting on his full armor, but he still hasn’t seen those “Reds” yet, and he doesn’t want to take any chances just in case there are potentially dangerous arid-adapted animals lurking around in the dusty canyon. 

The tutorial program starts out with driving. The number of pedals and buttons is alarming, but Oli assures him that Joe will get the hang of it eventually. So he tries to follow the prompts. Forwards, backwards, turn right, turn left, rotate in place. It’s a lot more complicated than driving a car, and obviously has the potential for creating a lot more hazards.

It’s at this point that things start to go a little wrong. 

Oli insists that Joe continue to drive straight, shifting to different speed settings. They’re driving deeper into the canyon, further in the direction that Scar had said the “Reds” are based. And in the distance, Joe catches sight of another structure— nearly identical to the Blue base. He doesn’t get much of a chance to examine it, because then Oli gets stuck on a large boulder and it takes Joe a while to get him unstuck. 

“Now that you’ve mastered driving, we can move on to some of the safety features,” Oli says brightly. 

“I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered driving a tank yet,” Joe says. “You’re an AI, though, wouldn’t you be able to drive yourself?”

“Oh, sure I can,” Oli says. “But this is standard for training uncertified recruits. Actually— were you certified in tank operations?”

“I don’t think I gave them the opportunity to certify me in anything,” Joe confesses. “I was trying to get them to kick me out, and it didn’t really work.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Oli says. “Now, the first safety feature you’ll be learning is the anti-locking brakes.”

“That’s sensible enough,” Joe says. 

The sun is starting to come up, which paints the canyon in a rather beautiful light. Oranges, yellows, and stunning shades of rich sandy tan come alight as the day begins. Joe does take notice of quite a few shrubs and stocky trees, doggedly surviving even in these conditions. Oli takes care to avoid hitting any of them, which is nice as well.

He thinks he might see some movement down at what he’s assuming is the Red base, but every time he tries to look, Oli turns in a different direction. 

“The driver visibility isn’t the best, I’ve come to notice,” Joe says as Oli finishes his explanation of the child-safety-locking rear passenger door. 

“Well, I can’t do much about that,” Oli says. 

“Can you see what’s going on?” Joe says. “I thought I saw something going on at the other end of the canyon. Not the place where we came from.”

“Oh, well I’ve seen a guy in orange armor and a guy in maroon armor driving an armored jeep towards us,” Oli says. “But I think I shook them off when we drove around that big rock formation a few minutes ago.”

Joe twists around in the seat, but he can barely see anything besides what’s directly in front of him. “Do you think those are the Reds?”

“Could be,” Oli says. “Do you want to engage in battle?”

“No, there’s no reason for that,” Joe says quickly. “It’s only my first full day here, I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“Oh,” Oli sounds disappointed. “Weapons were next on the tutorial program, but if you want, we can skip it. I can respect that, for you, my friend.”

“Thank you,” Joe says. 

And it’s at this point that things start to go a little more badly. As Oli delves into an explanation about the more interesting parts of his mechanical engineering design, Joe hears something he’d rather hoped he wouldn’t hear so soon. Gunfire. Automatic gunfire. It’s nearby, but after a moment he determines that the shooting probably isn’t directed towards him and Oli.

“What’s that coming from?” Oli says. 

“You’d probably know better than me,” Joe says. “I can’t see anything.”

“Could be from those guys we saw earlier,” Oli says. “Think they’re doing target practice?”

The sound hasn’t ceased at all. “Well, anything could be possible,” Joe says, even though he’s not feeling especially positive about it. 

“Should we go to see what’s going on?” Oli says.

“If you want to,” Joe says. If it looks dangerous or scary, he will certainly suggest that they reschedule the tutorial for another day, but Oli sounds like he wants to check it out. Joe supposes that he can’t fault a tank for wanting to at least check out what might be a battle. It would be his intended ideal form of stimulation.

But Joe will do his very best to abstain from participating. Maybe he can attempt to talk things out.

They soon catch sight of a bulky armored jeep parked somewhere in the middle of the canyon. A person in orange armor is in the driver’s seat, while a person in maroon armor is standing on the back, directing a large automatic cannon to shoot endlessly at an already-battered rock formation sticking out of the ground. As Joe and Oli get a little closer, Joe gasps when he sees two blue-armored people standing huddled behind the rocks.

“That’s Scar and Bdubs!” he says. “When did they get out here?”

“Looks like a battle,” Oli says. He sounds a little too eager. “Shall I eliminate the threat?”

Joe winces. “I don’t think we’d need to perpetuate the violence,” he says. Scar and Bdubs are both visibly standing, so they should still be alright. Probably. “Maybe we can just fire a few times to scare them off. You’re a tank, after all, and they only have a jeep.”

“I’ll light up the array that has all of my weapons capabilities,” Oli says. 

Joe looks down at the rows of illuminated buttons. “Which one is the least lethal?”

“I’d reckon all of them are pretty lethal,” Oli admits. “It’s what I was made for, after all. You can always aim just to the side of their jeep so you don’t hurt them. Or if you’re feeling good about your aim, you can take out their cannon.”

“How do you aim?” Joe says, keeping his hands very far away from the buttons for now, even though Oli is continuing on with his advance. 

“That’s in the tutorial!” Oli says cheerfully.

“But we didn’t finish the tutorial!” Joe says. 

The people in the jeep have definitely noticed them now. They’ve stopped shooting at the rock and seem to be arguing with each other. The maroon one has abandoned the cannon for the time being.

“They’ve stopped,” Oli says, sounding disappointed. “Can I still shoot at them, Joe?”

“I can’t actually stop you from doing things,” Joe says. “You’re an AI and you have a certain level of autonomy despite being an unwilling participant in a war.”

“Well, sure you can stop me, there’s a manual override,” Oli says.

“What? Where is that?”

“That’s the last segment of the tutorial.”

“That’s not exactly helpful,” Joe says. He examines the buttons and levers in front of him, very aware that he’s running out of time. Oli had mentioned an energy shield earlier, but Joe didn’t really pay attention to how strong or durable it is, and he doesn’t want to test it out like this. 

There is a rather prominent joystick, so Joe experimentally moves that. Oli’s big turret moves. 

“Okay, that’s a start,” Joe says. He squints through the curved metal bars covering the hatch. “Huh. I can’t really tell what I’m pointing at. Oli, I’m not about to hit anyone, am I?”

“Only one way to find out,” Oli says. 

Perhaps. But Joe figures that if he pushes the joystick all the way to one direction, he’s more likely to hit one of the canyon walls than he is to hit a person. He does that, giving it a few seconds to be more sure that Oli’s turret is far pointed away from actual people.

“Okay,” Joe says, looking at the buttons once more. “Now… if I was designing a tank, where would I put the button for the least damaging attack? Oli, you don’t have any idea which one of these will fire the weakest beam?”

“Well, no. I could activate the tutorial mode again,” Oli offers.

“We don’t have time for that,” Joe says. The maroon guy has jumped back up onto the back of the jeep and is now pointing the turret at them. They really don’t have time for this. Joe pushes the first button.

“Firing main cannon,” Oli reports happily. The tank shudders with almighty force as an intense beam of energy blasts out of the turret. It hits the canyon wall, making an instant crater and causing chunks of rock to fall noisily onto the ground. 

The orange and maroon people are definitely spooked, but they haven’t run away yet. Joe carefully makes a small adjustment to the joystick and fires again.

Another crater, slightly closer to the people but still a safe distance away. Better, but the orange and maroon guys still haven’t left. Meanwhile, Joe notices that Bdubs has left the cover of the rock and is waving at him. He hopes he’s going to be careful.

Another adjustment, but Joe unintentionally makes a small mistake. He doesn’t think he can really be blamed for it. This is a high stress situation and he’s very ill-equipped to be operating this kind of machinery, even with Oli’s questionable help. 

Either he presses a different button by mistake, or there’s some kind of trigger activated after pressing that particular button three times. Joe has no way of knowing for sure.

“Initiating auto-fire mode,” Oli says. “Acquiring targets.”

“Oli, no!” Joe says. “We don’t want to hurt anyone!” He looks at the buttons, thinking desperately about which button or switch might be able to turn it off.

The one relief is that the orange and maroon guys have jumped out of the jeep and are running back towards what Joe guessed earlier is the Red base. When Oli auto-locks onto the jeep and fires several shots in succession to blow it to smithereens, there’s luckily nobody there.

But then, Oli says, “Acquiring new target.”

His turret adjusts. And in the span of a few seconds, Joe watches as, one moment, Bdubs is standing beside the rock, waving at him. And then in the next moment, there’s a small crater and a smoking pile of cobalt armor.

“Oh no,” Joe says.

“Oops,” Oli says. “Deactivating auto-fire mode.”

Good thing too, because Scar emerges from behind the rock and crouches down next to Bdubs. Joe opens the grated hatch of the tank and climbs out shakily.

“Scar,” he calls out as he drops to the ground and runs towards his teammates. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it!”

Scar pulls off his helmet as Joe approaches. He doesn’t look angry, though, he just looks shocked. 

“Is he still alive?” Joe asks, panting with exertion as soon as he’s close enough.

“Huh?” Scar says. “Oh, no, he’s definitely dead. He just said he hated all of us and died right away. Hey, do you think that’s a curse?”

“I don’t know… maybe?” Joe says. He kneels down next to Bdubs and examines the smoking debris. There’s no blood, which seems a bit odd, but maybe it got vaporized in the blast. “Gosh. I’m sorry, I don’t know any first aid. Um. Not that I think it would help at this point.”

“Well, that’s alright,” Scar says. He leans back with a sigh. “Do you know how to do last rites and all that? Bdubs was the one who handled that when Cub died a few weeks ago.”

“Uh, I’ve never done it before, but I guess I could give it a try,” Joe says. He wonders idly if they’re still in shock and that’s why there hasn’t really been an outburst of emotion over this. He just killed Bdubs, and Scar doesn’t seem to be badly affected by this. 

“By the way,” Scar says. “Why didn’t you say you knew how to drive a tank?”

“I don’t,” Joe says. “Oli was teaching me.”

“Oh,” Scar says. “Huh. When we didn’t find you this morning, we went out to look. Ran into Joel and Jimmy— those two Reds— and they started trying to kill us, cause that’s usually what they do.” He laughs.

“I’m sorry I got Bdubs killed,” Joe says, looking back at the corpse of the man he only knew for half a day.

Scar shrugs. “It happens. No point in holding it against you. We can request a two week period of mourning, though, and Command might send us some condolence gifts. Last time we got fresh fruit and the milkshake machine.”

Joe gives Scar a questioning look. “You don’t seem too upset by this,” he says.

Scar just smiles. “Oh, you’ll see soon enough.”

[kyleknight]

Bdubs Shouts A Lot

One last fic for @gingermaple's Red vs Blue/Hermitcraft AU for the night. This one sort of follows the events of that first one I posted.

wordcount: 1075

warnings: war setting

brief summary: Scar, Joe, and Oli are all ready to have a great funeral for Bdubs, but then Bdubs shows up.

ao3 link

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

It’s not much of a shock when Bdubs appears at his own funeral as a ghost— or whatever he’s deciding to call himself. He seems to be extremely proud of this accomplishment, however, so Scar decides he’ll play along. 

There’s nothing actually in the grave, but Scar isn’t about to tell Bdubs that. Or Joe, who is genuinely mourning the loss of the man he supposedly killed via tank on his second day at Blue base. Scar got up early today, dug at the dirt enough to give the appearance of a fresh grave, and plopped the marker that Joe made right on top. A very nice looking grave, although not as nice as the one they made for Cub a few months ago. 

See, the thing is, after Cub died, Scar decided it was time to fulfill his curiosity about this ridiculous nowhere canyon. He quietly slipped into his former commanding officer’s room and found a lot of impossibly-encrypted files and quite a few suspicious items. One of said items was an entire set of armor filled with a complicated mechanical chassis.

A set of armor completely identical to Bdubs’ armor. Same height and everything.

It sure provided some interesting explanation for why the other guy never took his armor off and never joined them for meals. Scar gave up on the files, but he figured things would either come to light or they wouldn’t. 

He’d call this a pretty intriguing clue to figuring out Bdubs’ little mystery.

“Bdubs!” Joe gasps. “How are you alive! I thought you died in a tragic accident!”

Bdubs seethes. He’s oddly translucent and slightly smaller than usual, but he’s strangely taking the same image as his recently departed metal corpse. He’s even got ghost-weapons equipped to his sides and back.

“Tragic accident— YOU KILLED ME WITH THE TANK!!” he shouts. “Why is the freakin’ tank attending the funeral anyway! Isn’t that a little insensitive, having the thing that killed me at MY funeral?”

“Hey, you can’t blame Oli for that,” Joe says. “He was trying to figure out his capabilities so that he could get a better understanding of himself and his identity.”

“Sorry,” Oli chimes in from where he’s parked a short distance away. There’s a fluttery dark blue flag tied to his turret, acting as a mourning veil.

“Well he sure was capable of KILLING ME!” Bdubs says. “And don’t think I’m forgetting about how it was YOU driving the tank, Joe! Great job killing someone on your second day, too bad it was someone on your OWN TEAM!!”

“In my defense, I was trying to be as nonlethal as possible,” Joe says. “I was just trying to scare off the Reds.”

“And you did a great job of that!” Scar says encouragingly. “I think they might leave us alone for a while now!”

“He KILLED me!” Bdubs yells. 

“That makes me wonder: does this return mean you’ve become a vengeful ghost?” Joe says. “If so, I think it’s kind of a shame, because it appears that you’ve been bound to the site of your violent death, unable to pass on to whatever might or might not exist after the moment of death. We can try to purify you so that you can move on and be at peace if you’d like that.”

“I’ll help!” Oli says, turning his turret towards them.

“No thank you,” Bdubs says immediately. “I’m a freakin’ ghost now and you’d better believe I’m gonna haunt every last one of you.”

“Oh,” Scar says suddenly. “I guess this means we can’t give Oli your room.”

“WHAT?!” Bdubs says. “You were gonna give the TANK my ROOM?”

“Well, you probably weren’t going to be using it,” Scar says.

“Screw that!” Bdubs says. “That’s my room, and I’m gonna haunt this base until it falls apart! Long after you’re all dead, I’ll still be here! Goodness, I can’t believe I got killed! By a rookie!”

“We were all rookies once,” Scar points out. “Joe just had an unfortunate accident. Could have happened to anyone. Oli felt very sorry about it, too. He even put a bunch of ori-grammy flowers on the crater where you died.”

“Origami— how the heck did a tank make origami flowers?” Bdubs sputters.

“Joe helped me with that!” Oli says. “I think the two of us might have a knack for it. We could start a papercraft business after the war is over!”

“Sure, sure,” Scar says. He claps his hands together, giving them all a very warm smile. “Well, since it seems like Bdubs isn’t completely dead, I suppose we can skip the mourning, head back into the base, and start the reception. The gifts from Command won’t be here for at least another week or two, but I made some cookies!”

“Cookies?” Joe repeats. 

“To lift the mood!” Scar says. “Can’t spend all day being sad! Joe, you can still recite the eulogy you wrote for Bdubs once we’re out of this awful sun.”

“You wrote a eulogy?” Bdubs says, floating closer to Joe as they make their way into the base. Oli remains outside, of course, but Scar does notice how he tilts his turret down as if admiring the paper flowers they placed around the grave marker. Scar reminds himself to take out a few cookies for Oli while Joe is reciting the eulogy. Just because Oli can’t eat them doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the gesture.

The reception is a success, as far as Scar is concerned. The food is excellent— all made by Scar himself, of course— and both Joe and Bdubs seem to genuinely have a good time now that Bdubs is starting on the path to forgiveness and mutual understanding. He’s still being a bit of a grouch and keeps repeating the fact that Joe killed him, but he’ll get over it soon enough. They’re a team, and if they don’t have each other’s backs, then anything could come and happen to them!

Later that day, as Scar takes Joe and Oli to one of the more interesting corners of the canyon to show off the cool fossils in the rock layers, he looks back in time to see Bdubs walking out of the base to stand on the roof in his usual position. He’s wearing— or perhaps inhabiting— the set of armor that Scar had so thoughtfully left in his room earlier that day.

Yep. He’ll get over it soon enough.

[kyleknight]

Going Through A Phase

Once again inspired by @gingermaple's Red vs Blue/Hermitcraft AU. I simply cannot stop thinking about it. I've got a few more silly little ficlets to post for this, hehehe.

wordcount: 1756 warnings: minor violence, war setting brief summary: Joel and the rest of the Reds are getting really tired of all this Blue nonsense going around. Especially that crazy AI that's been infecting half the canyon and trying to turn everyone evil. ao3 link

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

Joe Hills is somewhere on this side of the gulch. The Reds have the Warthog parked on a hill that overlooks much of their territory and there hasn’t been a conspicuously blue armored guy running past their line of sight in at least an hour.

Joel assumes it’s been an hour, anyway. The heat from the vehicle’s engine combined with the heat from the unforgiving sun overhead is making him sweat like crazy. He can’t wait for Ren to inevitably get bored with hunting down the stray Blue and decide to return to the base to get back to more important business like doing nothing for the rest of the day. It’s going to be such a relief to get all this heavy armor and gear off. 

At least Ren isn’t making him get out of the Warthog to look. The sergeant is in the other seat, peering through his tactical binoculars and making muffled noises of discontent every so often. A few paces in front of them, Tango is walking around, saying something under his breath.

There’s a stocky little tree a short distance away that looks like it’s wide enough to hide someone, but it’s partway up a hill and Joel really doesn’t want to get out. He thinks Tango might have noticed too, but the pink-armored man hasn’t gone for it yet.

Joel looks in the direction opposite the tree. “Where do you think Hills went?”

“I don’t see him,” Ren grits out, sounding annoyed. 

“Joe!” Jimmy shouts, actually walking back and forth while pointing his gun out. “Get out here! We just want to talk! We’re not going to shoot you this time!”

Joel scoffs. “As if he’s gonna fall for that,” he says. 

All of a sudden, there’s a sound from the radio. Which would be surprising on its own, because Joel didn’t realize the Warthog had a radio. It’s not like there’s any stations to pick up out here in Blood Gulch, the most miserable and forsaken post in the entire universe. They don’t even have the option to leave the canyon to go to a town, because the closest civilization is basically on the other side of the planet. So yeah, the radio noise is unexpected.

Of course, their helmets are all fitted with short-wave radios so they can all talk with each other when out in the field, but they just use those as basic communicators. Why contact a vehicle when you can just contact a person directly? They can even reach the Blues’ frequency if they want to.

“This is Freelancer Impulse broadcasting on an open channel—” “This is Private Bdubs broadcasting on an open—”

Joel punches buttons with his thumb until the sound cuts off. “Why are the Blues on the radio?” he says, looking over at Ren. “And since when did we have a radio?”

“Hm,” Ren says.

“Weird,” Jimmy says. “I’ll contact them. Hey, Blues! Get off our radio, you’re gonna waste the Warthog’s battery! Do it now, or I’ll kill every last one of you. And then everyone else here as well! You’d better watch out!”

What the heck. Joel leans partway out of the Warthog to look at Jimmy, who has stopped with the pacing and is now standing on top of a flat boulder. “That was pretty menacing,” he admits. “But I think that was a bit too much. I don’t think they’re going to take that kind of a threat seriously.”

“Shut up, you fool.”

Joel frowns. That was mean. Has Jimmy been out in the heat too long?

“Is everything alright, Jimmy?” Ren says, jumping out of the warthog and taking a few paces towards Jimmy. “You’re—”

“What? Acting strange?”

“Well… yes,” Ren says. 

“Maybe this is what happens when I get mad and you all just never noticed the real me!” Jimmy says defiantly. “Maybe you’re all idiots who don’t know anything! Maybe you all suck!”

Joel winces and looks at Ren, who hasn’t moved at all.

“Um,” Tango says. “Jimmy… you’re not saying that to Ren, are you?”

“I mean— maybe you suck, sir!” Jimmy says quickly, his tone going frantic for a moment. “And maybe you don’t! But you do! And I’m going to kill all of you!” And he laughs, like an actual cartoon villain.

Joel rolls his eyes. What a dramatic idiot. “Jimmy, if you were getting dehydrated, you could have just said so,” he says. He grabs one of the canteens from the back and hops out of the Warthog. “Here, I’ve—”

There’s the sound of a gunshot. Joel’s hand hurts, suddenly. It takes a moment for him to connect these as related things. Jimmy— Jimmy just shot the canteen out of his hand. It’s lying on the ground now, its contents spilling into the dusty earth.

“Jimmy! You— you just shot Joel!” Tango gasps.

“What was that for?” Joel demands, holding his hand close to his chest.

“Did you just shoot at Joel?” Ren says. “Jimmy, explain yourself! What do you think you’re doing!?”

“Yes, I shot at Joel! Sir! Because he’s the first target in my plan! I’m going to take over Red base! And then the rest of the canyon, and then the rest of the universe! And then you’ll all finally respect me.”

“That’s an ambitious plan,” Tango says, taking a few steps away from where Jimmy is standing and stomping his foot occasionally in emphasis. “Also, uh. You’re aware that Ren is our sergeant, right? You can’t just take over.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Ren says. “If you’ve got ambitions for leadership, you’re going to have to take it up with Command, because Red base already has a commanding officer.”

“Well then I’ll just have to kill you first.”

Wait a second. Something isn’t quite right here. Joel rubs at his hand. He’s not bleeding, but he’s definitely going to have a nasty bruise from this. 

Jimmy wouldn’t act like this. He doesn’t act like this. Even if he was having a bad day, he’d never say anything like this. He and Joel have sat together just about every night since they were first stationed here talking about everything. About nothing at all. About their lives, their hopes, their musings on the meaning of it all, their dreams for what they’d like to do when they’re finally free from this stupid war. About what kinds of food they miss, and how they’ve forgotten what snow feels like on their skin. 

And about their insecurities as well. Joel has told Jimmy how he’s afraid he’s going to be stuck in this war forever and that he’ll never be able to create beautiful things someday. And Jimmy has confessed that he worries that people will never take him seriously. They’ve done what they could to comfort each other, because it’s all too easy to lose yourself to loneliness in a place like this.

Joel has seen Jimmy sad. He’s seen him frustrated and angry with himself. He’s seen him break down and cry.

But he’s never seen Jimmy act mean like this. He’s never made threats like this. 

He’s too kind for that.

“Uh,” Joel says, leaning forwards a bit to catch Tango’s attention as Jimmy and Ren continue to argue. “Don’t you think Jimmy is acting weirdly… aggressive? Just like how Xisuma was acting?”

Tango goes slack and nearly drops his gun. “You don’t mean…”

“That evil AI,” Joel says. “Omega.”

Jimmy breaks into that ridiculous laughter again, and that seems to be what finalizes their conclusion. Joel stares at Jimmy in horror. 

They’re going to have to do something… but what? They still don’t know how to deal with that creepy AI besides beating up its host until it jumps to something or someone else. Impulse seems to be the one who knows the most, but he’s with the Blues, so he’s out of the question right away.

“What are we gonna do?” Tango whispers, echoing Joel’s thoughts..

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Joel says. “It’s… it’s Jimmy. He doesn’t mean any of it.”

But Jimmy is pointing his rifle at them now, and a heavy weight drops in Joel’s stomach. He can’t fight Jimmy, he just can’t. But he doesn’t want Jimmy to hurt them, or for the Omega AI to continue controlling Jimmy’s actions and his words. 

As he sits there, listening to Jimmy threaten them and wondering what they can possibly do about this, he sees two of the Blues running their way. 

Bdubs.

And Impulse. 

Impulse is making incredible speed, and before Joel can think to call out a warning to Jimmy, Impulse lunges and tackles Jimmy to the ground. Jimmy cries out, startled, but Impulse doesn’t hesitate to start punching him repeatedly. 

“Hey!” Joel says, jumping out of the Warthog. “Get off of him!”

“He’s infected with the AI!” Impulse snaps. 

“We know that!” Tango says. “But he’s our friend! You can’t just attack him!”

“Right now, he’s not your friend,” Impulse says, still punching at a shrieking Jimmy. “This is for his own good!”

“Impulse,” Ren says. “Now might not be the best time, what with Omega still loose and all. But I’d like to extend an offer for you to join the Red Army.”

“Now is definitely not the time!” Joel says. He levels his shotgun at the black-armored freelancer. “Impulse, if you don’t get off our friend, we’re going to shoot you!”

Impulse laughs. “Just try it, losers. I could take you all on with one hand tied behind my back.”

“Hey, Impulse, I think Omega is gone!” Tango says. “Jimmy’s voice is back to normal!”

Impulse pauses and slowly moves off the maroon-armored man. Below him, Jimmy is groaning and writhing weakly on the ground. Joel quickly hurries over to help him up. Tango helps, and together, they assist him in getting back over to the Warthog. Crucially, away from Impulse.

“Jimmy, are you alright?” he says.

“Ugh… I don’t think so,” Jimmy says. “Can we… can we get Xisuma over here? I think I might have broken something.”

Joel glares at Impulse, who has backed off a little but still looks threatening. It doesn’t take much to accomplish that— just about everything Impulse does is terrifying. 

“Where’s it gone?” he demands. “Where’s Omega?”

“I don’t care,” Joel retorts. He and Tango have gotten Jimmy back onto the Warthog, and Ren is coming over to get back in the passenger seat. “That’s a Blue problem. You guys deal with it. Just stop dragging us Reds into all your crazy messes!”