(A/N) Hey all, NicKenny here with a new story from the Freelancer Collaboration, to coincide with the release of Red vs Blue Season 11, finally revealing the full story of X-Ray and Vav, and their struggle against the villainous Community, the shadowy organisation running much of the organised crime within Achievement City.

At the moment we are still looking for writers to take part in this project, so, if you're interested, please head on over to our forum. It's also called The Freelancer Collaboration, and is under the Misc and then Red vs Blue categories. You can't miss it. :) Myself and Jerem6401 will be heading this project, but for any inquiries about the fic please message us on this account, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Anyway, I'm going to leave you now to begin the fic, and hopefully we'll be seeing all of you again very soon.

Enjoy!


Chapter One - Let's Start

Dr Gavin Free / Vav

Written by NicKenny


"The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by." – Felix Adler


Dr Gavin Free hastily changed into his jeans and FISH!™ t-shirt, throwing his scrubs into the laundry bin next to his locker, almost falling over in the process. Letting out a small scream, he stuck out his left hand and caught the edge of his locker's door, using it to regain his balance.

'Idiot,' he thought to himself. 'What would Michael have said if he had seen that?'

"Nice screaming, Gavvy-Wavvy. You wet yourself or did you just realise One Direction tickets had just gone up on sale?"

'Damnit!' So much for that hope.

"Michael," he replied, his voice quavering slightly. "There is nothing wrong with One Direction. One-D are top, and I…I won't stand hear and let you insult them."

Michael held up his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll let you off. So, what did you do to youself?"

"Fell over."

"Ah," Michael said, nodding slightly as realisation dawned. "Smooth. Just as well you did it now, rather than during that heart transplant we were doing earlier. I swear to God, if you drop another heart during surgery, the Chief is going to have both our asses fired."

Gavin sighed, shrugging Michael's criticisms aside. "Yeah, yeah. But that heart joke I made was pretty funny. I'd almost go as far as to say that it is the funniest thing I have ever done." After a moment's pause he decided to add: "While sober."

His colleague chuckled, changing out of his own scrubs. "What, the 'Michael, I'll give you my heart' line? Not bad, but the bit when you described his liver as 'doo doo' really cracked me up. Almost ended up stabbing the guy with the scalpel."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Gavin muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"…What was what?" Gavin replied, smiling in mock (or possibly, very real) confusion.

Michael just shook his head and sighed, opening his locker and rummaging around inside for a moment. "I worry about you, sometimes, you know that? If you didn't have me looking out for you, where would you be?"

'Probably a lot better off,' Gavin thought in the privacy of his mind, but kept his mouth shut. After all, he didn't have all that many friends. It wouldn't do to piss off one of the few he had.

Living a double-life made it difficult to keep in contact with people. It was one of the few regrets that he had.

Michael's head re-appeared from his locker, with a wide smile displayed over his face. "Hey Gavin, come over here for a second."

Gavin cautiously made his way over, not quite trusting Michael, having learnt his lesson a long time beforehand. Trusting Michael did not work out.

"What," he asked slowly, as Michael stared at him with an incredibly serious face, his previous mirth forgotten, and he held out his hands, which where clasped together. He opened them, cupping his hands, to reveal a small black box which, when he opened it a moment later, revealed a sparkling diamond ring.

Gavin raised his fist to his mouth and bit into it, supressing a squeal of shock and delight. "Oh, Michael! I don't know what to say! This is…this is just such a special moment for me! Yes, of course, yes!"

Michael stared at him for a moment, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about? This is for Lindsay! I'm going to propose to her next week. It's our anniversary and I'm taking her out to the same place we went for our first date."

Gavin sighed, filling up with disappointment and shook his head. "So, what, Cluckin' Bell? Totes romantic, man."

Michael just laughed, shutting the box with a snap and swiftly pocketing it. "Whatever man, I just can't wait to see her face. We've been going out a long time, I just think it's time to take the next step , y'know? So…anyway, if she does say yes…would you be interested in being my Best Man?

Gavin paused for a moment as he digested Michael's words, before shaking his head slowly. "Wait 'til she says 'yes' first before asking me that. Don't want to jinx it."

Michael glanced at him and then nodded, shrugging slightly. "I guess you're right. I'll let you know how it goes, anyway, it's goi-"

His voice was cut off as Gavin's phone suddenly started ringing, Ricky Gervais' animal noises echoing out through the locker room. Gav gave an apologetic shrug and took out the phone, answering the call and raising it to his ear.

"It's me. We've got a situation down here in Central. Somebody's killed Kerbal Gunnerz."

Gavin paused, staring at his phone for a second before raising it once more. "Sorry man, going to have to ask you to repeat that."

There was a moment's pause, and that's when Gavin really started to get worried. "Somebody's killed Kerbal, Vav. Apparently he was taken out while off duty, not even suited up or anything. Sniped while crossing the road. J-Roll's on the scene, he rang me a moment ago. The body's been taken up to the Harrison Memorial Hospital, I'm en route as we speak. Get your ass over there, right now!

Gavin nodded, shaking his head. "Got it, I'll be there in fifteen. Don't get the party started without me."

"You got it."

Gavin ended the call and turned to Michael, his face serious. "Sorry man, have to leave. Bit of a…family emergency, I guess you could say."

"I didn't know you had any family in Achievement City? I thought they were all back over in England?!" Michael shouted to Gavin's retreating form, but he received no reply. He shook his head slowly, before turning back to his locker.

'Well that was weird,' he thought, then dismissed it, already turning his mind back to the ring in his pocket. After all, it was Gavin. Weird was his middle name.

Gavin quickly ran into the nearest bathroom in the hospital, sighing in relief as he discovered that it was unoccupied, not totally surprising given how late it was. He strode into the nearest cubicle, slamming the door behind him, already pulling off the t-shirt that he had put on only minutes beforehand, revealing a flash of red, white and blue underneath.

Moments later, a different man emerged from the bathroom, clad in a blue unitard with red boots and gloves, and the Union Jack emblazoned on his chest. He glanced around for a moment, before shrugging and opening the nearest window, casually vaulting out of it and landing nimbly on the ground two stories below. He stood it, dusting himself off, before disappearing into the night.

In the distance, police sirens wailed.


The man observed the crowd before him, within the confines of the hospital. At the moment, they hadn't noticed him, but that would soon change. He remembered how the city was a long time ago, when citizens couldn't leave their houses without the fear of getting mugged, or beaten up, or raped. Then X-Ray and Vav had appeared on the scene, out of nowhere, cracking down on the gangs, going further than the police were allowed or inclined to go.

After a few months, the various gangs that had plagued Achievement City: the Blazes, the Creepers, the Skeletons, the Ghasts, the Zombies, the Spiders and all the rest had been all but destroyed, with only a few small operations left doing business within the city, and these were quickly shut down by the police. The Endermen, originally one of the most ruthless and feared gangs within Achievement City, had been so beaten down that they formed a charity organisation, the Friendermen, to help prevent urban youths from turning to gangs. X-Ray and Vav had saved the city, and other heroes began to turn up out of the blue, revelling in the newfound fame that putting on a mask and cape would grant you.

Kerbal Gunnerz had been one of these "heroes", appearing on the scene long after the major gangs had been broken down, but, still, he did help out in the greater scheme of things. He put quite a few hardened criminals behind bars that might have otherwise been free to commit other crimes in Achievement City.

He had caused quite a stir in the city when he had first appeared, his features hidden behind a black domino mask, his suit jet black with his yellow crosshair insignia emblazoned across his chest, the black cape draped over his shoulders, his assault rifle strapped over his back. His hardcore vigilantism, along with the bodies he often left in his wake, had been received with disapproving words from many local politicians, but the support of the people and the police towards these heroes kept him from receiving a murder charge, as the government quickly brought in a way to both control and legitimise these vigilantes, granting them "Special Operative" status within the local police force.

X-Ray and Vav, however, were never forced to take place in this governmental policy, nor, indeed, where they ever asked to. The government were just as much in awe of those two heroes as the general populace, and were keen to avoid angering them. After all, they had eradicated some of the most powerful and well established gangs within the country, disrupting organised crime throughout the world as drug barons suddenly lost customers, local addicts lost suppliers, and crime in general came to a halt not just in Achievement City, but in much of the surrounding area.

And this all happened within a few weeks! No, the government weren't going to try and mess with X-Ray and Vav anytime soon. Not until they actually thought they stood a chance against them. And hell, no one even knew who the two guys really were!

The man shook his head, bringing his thoughts back to the present, and moved forward, feeling the crowd part before him as he strode up to the policeman holding back the tide of reporters and cameramen, tiredly, and falsely, insisting that there was nothing to see here. The cop on duty, already faced with the strenuous task of keeping the crowd back, blanched in shock as the man strode up to him and motioned for the cop to let him through.

"Oh, it's you!" the cop exclaimed, grinning uneasily. "We've been waiting for you. He's in the mortuary, with the FBI agent."

"Thanks. Keep up the good work, officer." the man asked, barely glancing at the policeman as he walked by him, throwing open the doors of the mortuary and immediately came face to face with another man in a unitard, this one green, with a pair of black gloves, boots and briefs, along with a flowing black cape completing the look that screamed "Superhero". Or Cosplayer. Or Extreme Wardrobe Malfunction.

This time, however, the look was slightly offset by the pair of glasses that sat on the man's nose. Not exactly standard attire for your run-of-the-mill superhero. But then again, X-Ray had never been described as run-of-the-mill.

"'Bought time you got here, Vav. Was starting to think we'd have to start this without you."

Vav just nodded to his teammate, frowning slightly. "You wouldn't do that, X-Ray. After all, I am the brains of this operation."

His partner chuckled, shaking his head slowly. "Oh yeah, how could I forget? Where would we be without the genius of Vav, the World's Greatest Fucking Detective?"

A slight cough echoed from the far side of the room, and Vav smiled as he saw another familiar face.

"J-Roll!" he exclaimed. "Good to see you, man. How's the Bureau since we last met? Still…investigating things?" he finished lamely, floundering slightly.

The man sighed and brushed some imaginary dirt off the left shoulder of his suit, then adjusted his tie. "For the last time, it's Federal Agent Joel Heyman. You guys can concoct whatever made-up names you want for yourselves, but keep me out of it. I have work to do, which is why I called you two in. Now are you going to help, or not?"

"It's ok, it's ok, we're here to help," X-Ray said, holding his hands out reassuringly while mouthing "Testy" to Vav. "What are we looking at here?"

Joel pulled back the sheet that had been placed over the body with a flourish, and Vav was barely able to suppress his flinch. It was, indeed, the body of Kerbal Gunnerz. He might not be wearing his suit, and his face was no longer obscured by his mask, but Kerbal Gunnerz never sought to maintain a secret identity, unlike X-Ray and Vav, and preferred to revel in his fame as a superhero. His face had been splashed across dozens of magazine covers, and it was that same face that was staring back at them.

"Son of a bitch," Vav murmured, sighing heavily, glancing over at X-Ray. "I can't believe it's really him."

X-Ray nodded, and motioned for Vav and Joel to stand back. He blinked a few times, and his iris and pupil began to glow red, slowly fragmenting and diffusing into the whites of his eyes, until it appeared as though his eyes contained red swirls. Vav stared at him, unsurprised, having seen X-Ray using his powers hundreds of times before, and waited until X-Ray finally spoke up, moments later.

"The bullet almost penetrated fully, but it hit one of his ribs on impact, shattering it, and that appears to have slowed it done considerably." He frowned and began to circle the table slowly, a look of intense concentration written across his face. "Wait…there's something written on the bullet."

Agent Heyman started from the corner of the of the room, and walked towards the corpse, curiosity written all over his face. "What does it say? Do you need the coroner to remove it?"

X-Ray twitched, his hand motioning for the FBI agent to back away. "No…" he growled. "The markings are incredibly fine. It's likely that the removal of the bullet will damage them or even erase them completely. I've got it!"

He stood back, shaking slightly, his eyes closed, and when he opened them and turned to look at Vav and Agent Heyman they had resumed their normal look. "Your light's gone out," he murmured, his eyes unfocusing and refocusing rapidly, as he regained his demeanor, his temporary drained state fading away.

A silence fell between the three men, before Agent Heyman tentatively asked: "So what does it mean?"

X-Ray and Vav exchanged a knowing look. "It means that we need more information," Vav murmured slowly, his eyes flicking back to the corpse.

X-Ray nodded back to him, his face lighting up with a rare, and not entirely benevolent, smile. "It's time to visit Denecour."