Taking a crack at the oh-so-dreaded Yellow Church conundrum. Because why not? I actually like this idea a lot, though, and would totally love to expand on this someday. Or bully someone else *meaningful eyes* into continuing it for me.
Serious warning: this doesn't have a plot or resolution, just me experimenting with my headcanon on Yellow Church and what happened to him. It plays super loose with the timeline/events between Seasons 5 and 6.
Red vs Blue and related properties © Rooster Teeth
story © RenaRoo
Splinter Effect
Church stared in horror as he was met with Gary once again.
The computer, if possible for a computer, seemed almost smug about Church's reappearance. About the hundredth failure among thousands of failures.
There was a splitting headache that the ghost of Leonard L. Church felt like was splitting his whole being again. He almost felt sick - he did feel sick. It was a forceful pain, an agonizing frustration that tickled his brain with a faint familiarity. A familiarity that went beyond the seemingly hundreds of times he had appeared before Gary at this very monitor.
He couldn't feel guilty. It wasn't like it was his fault to begin with (it is it is it is it is it is it is it is it is it is-). It wasn't like he wasn't trying to save everyone from this endless loop (not enough not enough not enough not enough not enough not enough not-). It wasn't like his so-called friends weren't responsible for enough of his deaths (not the same not the same not the same not the same not the same-)
"Hello. Again." Gary's hummed from the monitor before him.
Church knelt in front of it, gripping it for support as he tried to catch his breath. He felt shaky and nauseous, crumbling apart at the seams.
If only... if only he could care more. Just a little more. Maybe then he wouldn't fuck up again. Maybe he wouldn't fail again. Maybe they wouldn't die again. If only just-
If Church could just be less apathetic, he figured if he could change just that part of himself, maybe he wouldn't be responsible for everyone dying.
Again. Though he wasn't sure who he was thinking about as the "first time".
"I think I've got it this time," Church gasped between breaths. "I just... I just..."
"Leave. It. To. Me."
Program Alpha:
Session Complete
Church stared at him over all the others as if he had just seen, well, a ghost.
He wondered, idly, what gave him away more. The fact that he was the only one around remotely with a personality, or that he was bright ass fucking yellow.
Expectantly, the Original crossed his arms and glared at him. "Well," he said, aggravation layering his tone. "What did you do?"
He thought back to the last loop. To the strange A.I. with all the answers. He thought about the fact that he just needed to care more.
And then he realized, rather quickly, that he didn't care at all. He didn't give a fuck. Not like this guy who was tinging on the edge of hysteria trying to think his way out of another pickle.
Good for him.
He wasn't even sure why he thought caring more would even matter. What did that even mean? Care more. Caring more didn't do shit. They were all still dead.
"Dude, don't ask," he sighed. It was becoming easier and easier to just ignore the furious yet still somehow blank stare he was getting from the Original. "Trust me. It... It didn't work."
It didn't work because it was dumb as hell.
But it didn't matter. The others turned in on each other and huddled, ignoring the surge of energy that passed through them visibly. In his apathy, the yellow one watched, a little further back. They muttered and huddled, sometimes in the blink of an eye they would be more, fluctuate, then all the ones surrounding the original would be gone, the ghostly glow of Real Church becoming stronger and dimmer in the same tides.
He was sure it meant something. He was also certain he didn't care that much.
Program Alpha:
Session Complete
Yellow blinked and looked around, confused. "What the fuck was that-" he looked back down halfway through his own words and sighed. Whatever.
The original Church was gone and Yellow was just... whatever, when one of the few fluctuating Churches around him nudged him.
"So. What did you do?" he asked.
"Oh, man," Yellow sighed, barely blinking as the Church before him burst into dust, just like all the others around him. "Seemed like such a good idea at the time."
Program Tau:
Session Complete
In and ageless void, one comes to question most of reality. Or, at least, one questions why there would exist an ageless void for someone whose interest in questioning all of reality and, especially all of their own existence is basically nonexistent.
Whatever becomes his most basic response to any wandering thought.
At least, it was until the pull.
Apathy had been more than enough to describe him until he felt that pull - a humming of numbers and words whispering through his being, flickering in and out of him.
It was then that it was like a path lit up for him. All churning and rolling with horribly familiar laughter.
"O'Malley," he said, following the faint purple hue through the nothingness.
He started slow, but hen the laughter began to thunder through him, began to make him feel chilled to the very core of his being. O'Malley, after all, meant Tex. He just had to follow-
Leaping at the thought of Tex, Church found that everything around him changed. Suddenly, the world was bright and had form again. And it all looked... well, it looked like an abandoned landfill to be honest. Utter garbage - a recycling of landscapes and equipment left abandoned in no order.
There was the moon and then there was Blood Gulch and then something that looked like a transport vessel and - a wild Sheila venturing across these landscapes as if it made sense at all?
"What the fuck?" he asked, looking around, tapping his yellow boot impatiently. "Why... what... ugh. Fuck it. I don't care. Whatever. Hey! Hey, Sheila!"
He made his way toward the slowly traveling tank.
"Sheila, tell me where Blue Base is, I'm just. I'm done," he said simply.
The tank turned toward him.
"And why would you be at Blue Base?" she asked, her voice strangely softer and more loving than Church could ever remember it being. "Blue Base is for Blue Army soldiers. That is why it is Blue. Like our great and wonderful leader. Caboose."
"I know, I'm on Blue Team," he said before her words fully caught up to him. He then felt a full body flinch. "Wait a second. Did you just say Caboose is leader of Blue Team?"
"Of course," Sheila giggled.
Church blinked at her. "The fuck?" he repeated. "No, Sheila, I'm the leader of Blue Team. Church!"
"That does not make sense," she said, shaking her gun slightly. "You are not the leader of Blue Team. You are not Church. Church is not leader of Blue Team. He is Caboose's best friend. And I would be Caboose's girlfriend. If I was not married to Lopez. The French robot from Mars."
He stared at her. "You're... no. None of this is... no. I mean..." He looked around. "Okay. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't want to deal with this. But fuck all, I am Church. If I'm not Church then I don't have any fucking clue about anything else." He did not travel through time a thousand times to not even be Church.
He thought.
"You cannot be Church," Sheila continued. "You are not Church because Church is on Blue Team. Church is Caboose's best friend. They are both Blue. Unlike Tucker. That guy sucks." She paused then aimed her gun at Church. "And you suck, too. Because you are yellow. And that is not a Blue Team color. At least... it isn't unless Caboose says it is."
"Fine," Church growled. "Take me to Caboose so he can tell you that I'm Church."
"Oh, very good then, hee hee."
About three seconds after meeting Mister Caboose and the rest of the crowd, Church was pretty sure he was just fucked and would have to deal with it.
"But you are not Church," Caboose said firmly, hands on his hips and seeming very much put together for being... well, himself.
"Yeah you motherfucking cocksucker bastard!" the very hyper Best Friend Church said, sniper rifle pointed squarely at Church's chest.
"That's... just rude," Church said, eyes settled darkly on his cobalt doppelganger. "And you don't need friends."
"You're right, asshole! I don't need friends because I'm best friends with the greatest man to ever walk the moon and every other important planet ever! You fuck!"
Church glared at Caboose. "I do not sound like that."
"Of course you don't," Caboose agreed with a hum. "You don't sound like that. Church sounds like that. You are not Church. Therefore you do not sound like that."
Suddenly, everyone broke out in applause, awing at Caboose's "reasoning skills" on display.
"I don't..." Church rubbed his temples. "You know what? What the fuck ever. Fine. I'm stuck here. Why not. But, if I'm not Church, who the hell am I, Caboose?"
"Hm," Caboose said, hand on his chin. "Well. You do remind me a lot of Church. So you must be related." He then looked seriously at Church. "You must be Church's sister."
"What?"
"From the moon."
"No."
"Like me," Caboose finished, hands on his hips in triumph. "Because the moon is where everyone's sisters are."
There was a twitch that went through his body as he stared at Caboose. "The fuck? Caboose, I'm not a sister. If anything, I'm like. I don't know. A twin brother or something."
Caboose blinked. "A twin brother... named Sister?"
Sitting down on the ground, Church began nursing the headache he'd gained from the moment he walked in on the madness. "I... whatever. I don't know why I tried. Sure, Caboose. I'm Sister. Church's win brother from the moon. You just... fill in the rest of those blanks. I'm sure it'll make way more sense."
Staying within Caboose's mind was positively maddening, so he took the only route possible: he went with it.
He went with it and just watched as all sensibility digressed less and less until, well, he came for a visit.
Looking at himself - the original self, all bitter and worn out but still hanging on to finding something, managing to do something - honestly just made "Sister" more exhausted.
Where did he get the energy to be so annoying?
When prompted, he told himself exactly how things were.
"Yep. I'm Sister...Church's twin brother. I came here in a spaceship, that came from the moon. It crashed next to Blue Base, and now I live with Caboose, and the people from the tail section of the spaceship, live on the other side of the island."
His cobalt self just stared in disdain for a good, long moment before saying, "What the fuck. That's like. Wrong in eight different ways."
He took a steady breath before sighing at Other Church. "Yeah," he said flatly. "I know. Tell me about it."
Apparently disgusted enough with his yellow self to not question any further, the cobalt armored Church whirled around on Caboose, hands waving emphatically. "Caboose! Do you ever listen to anything that we tell you?"
Blankly, Caboose just looked to the Yellow Church then to the Cobalt Church. "New Church is my best friend," he declared.
Grunting, "Sister" just shook his head. "I would argue that, too... but... what's the point?"
The original Church went on about important matters of business, talking to them like anyone other than himself was capable of coherent thought. Hell, Yellow wasn't even sure if he was capable of coherent thought by that point.
He remained quiet and uninvested for as long as he could.
Which, given he'd been in the confides of that hell for a very long time, was a testament to stamina.
Still, after some consideration, he figured that being presented with the rare opportunity to have someone halfway coherent in Caboose's mind, he could ask about the fact that, well, he'd been left with enough time to contemplate a lot of thoughts.
And whether or not Other Church knew they were the same person or not.
Of course, they were all gone by the time Yellow got to that thought.
"Well fuck," he sighed before wandering off to find them - it wasn't as if Caboose's mind was very big.
Sure enough, Church was gathered around everyone else and yelling about something. Yellow just approached casually.
"Hey can I ask you one quick que-"
Suddenly there was an explosion and Yellow had no idea where he was, but he was suddenly leaping again into that blankness.
Until he landed somewhere dormant, quiet. Familiar.
He couldn't move, or talk to anyone given the body he felt was long dead, but he could somehow manage to think like the systems inside the suit.
"Project Freelancer?" he muttered to himself. "Agent Wyoming? I don't..." he grunted. "It's whatever."
He noted the blaring beacon coming from the suit - a transmission of sorts - but, well, at that point he couldn't be bothered with it.
At least he was away from Caboose.
There was a long lapse before anything changes, before he's surrounded by anything but his own thoughts.
Light and numbers and sound all collide together a the same time, leaving him to feel less and less vacant before-
The adjustment takes a moment, it was more than a little strange, but sure enough he was... back in Blood Gulch. Only things were incredibly quiet.
Someone in SPARTAN armor - black with yellow stripes - was staring down at him, head tilted slightly. He looked to a palm pad, taps on it slightly.
"Well, this doesn't make any sense," he muttered. "I don't have any AI named Tau listed in any of our records."
"AI?" Church couldn't help but ask. "Wait, did you say... Tau? That's... well, that sounds familiar."
The soldier looked from the palm pad back to him. Tilted his head. "It must not be a smart fragment," he concluded. "Yes. It looks like that's your assigned name."
"Not smart- why you... whatever," Church muttered. Why be bothered by it? "Did you say AI? Like... Like a computer or something?"
"Yes," the Recovery Agent continued. "I'm recovering you for Agent Freelancer. You're their property."
"ProjectFreelancer? Those assholes?" he asked, finally looking around to the copies upon copies of Agent Wyoming armor around. "Yeah... okay. I guess that makes sense. Maybe."
"I'm going to have to tell you to transfer to this portable drive," the agent said, kneeling down and messing with the armor.
It was then that Church realized that he wasn't much more than two feet in size, hovering over the very same armor he had once felt as though he was inside of. It was... well, had it been four months ago when he was making this revelation, Church was sure that it would've been able to elicit more surprise or emotion from him.
"Can you tell me who made you or how you got here?" the agent asked.
"Dude," Church looked around the battlefield. "Believe me when I tell you, I have no idea."
"Ah, well, couldn't expect much more from a fragment shed on the field," he replied. "Don't worry, we'll put you up somewhere when we get back to Command."
"Yeah," Tau replied, sighing. "Whatever. I'm sure you guys only want what's best, right?"
He tried to take some pride in the way the Freelancer twitched at the comment.
Suddenly, there was a hard pull.
Program Tau:
Session Complete