TUCKER
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
He floated, the memory of Jenkins and Caboose a fading one. Was it even possible to float, considering where he was?
And speaking of which, present pissed-offness aside, where- in the actual fuck- was he?
All around him, amorphous shapes and swirls punctuated the emerald colored void that filled everything and every-where that he could see. His body had a kind of subliminal numbness to it, and he reflexively twitched his hands to make sure they were still there.
Just imagine this perfect pair of tits, Vern, right here in your face. Squeeze right. Squeeze left. Still intact. Whoop-dee-fuckin-do.
He chanced a look around, eyes locking on something dark in the distance- a square black rectangle, looming ahead like some foreboding backdoor to nothingness, and he wondered for an alarming moment if this was the entrance to...somewhere else.
Screw it. Anything was better than this place, and at any rate- it wasn't like he was fucking going anywhere. He pawed his way towards it, propelling his weightless body forward, fake butterflies swarming his stomach until the doorway grew steadily larger. He took a breath- maybe even his last, he thought, as he passed under the threshold, setting his feet forward.
And then it was gone, in a blink.
Instead, the greenish void was replaced by a dark, close-walled hallway that was illuminated by a faint, glowing light. Tucker tested the ground before he took his first tedious steps towards it, one after the other. As he got closer, the light became a shape, and before long the shape was an object...or something.
It, whatever the hell it was, glowed with a pale white hue, with two vaguely round-shaped blades that ended in needlepoint prongs, with what he could only assume was a handle at the bottom where the lateral blades met. The strange, pale tuning fork sparked with some unknowable electric current, and he felt a small buzz coming from it as he reached his hand forward before-
CRACK!
Tucker jolted almost a foot into the air as the sound blasted in his ears and reverberated in pulses along the corridor's walls. He glanced up, seeing only a slim opening that line the ceiling above him- his only indication of daylight, or even reality. A shadow passed over it, and he saw armored feet standing just next to the gap. Seconds later, a handful of shell casings began trickling in, and he avoided the steaming projectiles as they hit the concrete floor.
Above him, someone was yelling something in a language he couldn't understand as bullets rattled along an unseen wall. More shouting above from voices he couldn't see and countless noises he couldn't place- a chaotic miasma of gunfire, screams, whirring machinery, and- somewhere- someone laughing like it was the end of days. Stay calm.
Jesus fucking christ, what am I fucking doing here? A crackling from the blade-thing drew his gaze back to it, banishing his thought process. Keep your shit together, Vern. Fuck.
He got within spitting distance of- at this point- what he was pretty positive was a sword. Not much else it could be, right? His fingers hovered near the handle, his brain racing as he thought of all the cliche moments he'd ever seen in a movie- most of them involving the death of a certain character of a certain comedic persuasion near the very beginning. But an instant before he touched it, the world around him warped abruptly- like some colossal fucking cartoon show, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for pain, or numbness...or anything.
Seconds passed. Maybe even whole minutes. Then he opened his eyes. Sunlight was hitting his face and the familiar smell of dirt and sweat filled his senses. He looked around, and he saw a familiar structure, just a few dozen yards away from an ocean next to a beach. It couldn't be.
Blue Base? But I was just fucking…
It was more impulse than actual need that made him twist around, just to make sure. Seemed stupid after he did it, with nothing there to remind him of weird black doors.
His home of the past two years looked older, though. Way older. Like someone had just left it there to rot for a couple of decades. Which made absolutely no fucking sense, whatsoever. A flurry of movement snapped his attention to its upper terrace, and he zoomed in with his helmet's HUD. Near the teleporter, a shimmer closed in on a white armored figure, who stood near the edge of the base's upper level with a battle rifle trained on a handful of figures wearing...blue?
Isn't that...Church? He thought it had to be, seeing the long, gun-looking object in the figure's hands as he gestured at the white one. He did a double take when he saw the tank, also looking much older than it should have; on the opposite side of the base from where he'd last seen it- brand new and begging to be misused. It was on, also new. And its turret was leveled at the upper terrace, right at the cluster of blue figures.
And who were those...other white guys? It felt weird putting that exact color in perspective, considering his own...unique complexion. And then everything happened at once, before he could even open his mouth.
The air next to white dude wavered, like a fish passing under the top layer of a lake, and he turned abruptly on his heel with a lighting fast heymaker, and suddenly a black-clad figure appeared from thin air, tumbling over the side of the terrace- but not before something in its hand spat fire at its assailant and knocked him back, and Tucker recognized the staccato rip of an M75 sub-machine gun before an ear-splitting boom shook the earth and sent him diving for the ground.
He spied the smoke trail receding from the tank's main cannon as the blue armored figures turned to leap free of the mesa, before landing haphazardly on the ground below.
All the while, machine gun fire from the tank itself peppered the area around them, turning the dirt into mulch around the pair's feet, while behind them, the ramparts and every major section of Blue Base was swarming with white armored figures, each of them carrying weapons and firing blatantly in his direction.
Tucker squinted as they approached at top speed, swearing like no tomorrow. Is that guy wearing...fucking aqua?
The teal helmet snapped towards him, and its owner stopped for the briefest second, their visors mirroring eachother. But at that exact, horribly inconvenient moment, the world began to twist and warp, the same as before, and Tucker vaguely reached towards the aquamarine soldier, though he couldn't have said why.
Suddenly he was squinting as the blinding glare from what could only be snow flashed across his visor, and at the same time suppressed a shiver that ripped through him like a spear; accompanied by the gust of cold wind that billowed past. A new world greeted him in the next blink, and he almost shivered as white snow billowed past him where before there had only been the grassy knoll in front of Blue Base. Where the fuck was he this ti-?
"FOR THE EVIL MAN HATH NO FUTURE!" Screamed a voice, strained and ragged. "AND THE LAMP OF THE WICKED WILL BE PUT OUT! THIS WHOLE FUCKING UNIVERSE OF FOOLS IS GOING TO BURN! DO YOU HEAR ME?! DO YOU?" As though on cue, something boomed nearby, accompanied by erratic gunshots.
It was so sudden that he actually jumped, his boots sinking farther into the snow when he landed, and trying to move them only cemented him further, despite the storm of quiet, horrible things he spat at the thick white snow, like it was the problem.
A sudden bark of laughter that he would've called psychotic- on a good day- snapped his attention to a nearby hill, covered snow and blotted with dark, steaming spots that surrounded the figure standing on top of it, carrying something large, bulky, and double-tubed, and clad in...purple?
Yes, purple.
"- WILL BE THE CATALYST FOR THE DOOM OF MANKIND! THE GREATEST OF MORTAL FAILURES! ALL OF YOUR BLOODIED SOULS AND WORLDS ARE FORSAKEN TO MY OBLIVION!"
The speaker- or screamer, in this case- stood in obvious triumph, his purple fatigues covered in dark, viscous liquid that steamed in the icy wind, and his equally cold, rasping laughter rang out against the sound of whirling snow in his ears. He got a strange chill as it echoed in his eardrums, before he realized that the tube-thing was leveled in his direction, and he knew what it was in a flash as he saw the two barrel holes.
A rocket launcher.
He'd never actually seen one in action, not even during the war. His birthplace wasn't exactly on the map, so to speak. And fuck all if he was just going to stand here and-
"RUN! Jesus, run!" Screamed another voice. He turned to do so, his feet straining against the glue-like snow, and suddenly realized he wasn't as alone as he'd thought.
Church stood nearby, with the rookie Caboose yammering something incoherent next to him while the Reds- of all fucking people- were backing away from the scene, rifles emptying at something he couldn't see amidst shouts and panicked swearing. And something close by was beeping. Loudly.
Too loud. Can't fucking think. He turned to say something as Church whisked by him, the beeping suddenly so loud that he couldn't hear anything else. Then something whizzed by him with the familiar crack and zip of a sniper rifle, the lasting vapor trail a testament to the panic that seized him like a kick in the balls.
"Fuck! What the fuck is that guy do-" The world was turning again, shifting and morphing like so many bizarre puzzle pieces, the snow giving way to the greenish void. Tucker remained neutral, not moving, not really doing anything. None of this shit made fucking sense to him, so why not just ride it out old school?
It wasn't like this would end well, if he knew his luck. Just like Tuesday. He needed to stop thinking about Tuesday. Not here, and certainly not now.
Jesus, Vern, get your fucking shit together.
And then it was gone- the cold, the snow, the cackling maniac and the incessant beeping. The superseding numbness returned, and he wavered as his feet went from stiff and stuck to complete jelly in less than a second. The loop came and went, taking his numbness with it. Instead, the first thing he felt was heat as he regained feeling in his essentials.
"Oh...god dude, who turned off the goddamn AC?"
Suffocating, sweltering heat- heat that fogged his breath against his helmet and brought several irritant itches springing into focus all over his body. Then he was vaguely aware of something buzzing near his ear as he tore off his helmet, gulping in fresh air...and then coughing as the texture of it filled his throat, too warm and way too moist. He brought a hand up to smack his neck, opening his palm to see if he'd killed the little fucker, and blinked.
Nothing. He looked up, not caring what he saw next. And he breathed out, nice and slow, as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Which was almost impossible to do, with his eyes already used to the all-white glare of the snow-filled place with the maniac.
He stood there for fuck knew how long, willing his pupils to widen despite the moisture that clung to them with every blink. You could drown a fucking elephant in this precipitation. After it was decidedly less dark, Tucker mustered the courage to finally look back up. And gasped.
Dominating the area was a massive, smoothly grooved structure; half-submerged in the primordial muck that surrounded him and ringed in by an impossibly thick canopy of large, curving trees. Archaic symbols that glowed and crackled along its lining filled the dense canopy with a morbid, pale light. The air was filled with the blatant squawking and screeching of any number of animals, and it only took a glance to realize that his feet were submerged in water.
Before a ripple in the puddle drew his gaze up from the ground.
And a pair of small, lidless black eyes greeted him.
Tucker hadn't seen much of the Great War, or even aliens for that matter. The occasional shot of some heavily armored monster on the telecasts back home. Occasionally, the story of a drunken veteran in the local brothel who couldn't get a lap-dance cheaper than the usual lot. Not that his mom- being the dancer in question- ever helped the story progress farther than a few singles and a lazy smile.
So, nothing that really solidified the invaders in his mind.
But this...was a different story.
On the inner corner of both its bulbous black saucers, small antennas extended about half a foot above them, quivering like an insects, with a will of their own. A four pronged mouth gaped at him, and scrawny, pale striped arms poked at his armor with four fingered hands. The alien was shorter than him by a full two feet, with a body eerily similar to a bird's. If you peeled off the bird's feathers and replaced its tail with a broad, oblong stump. It wore what looked like a small ramshackle duffel bag on its angled back, filled to the brim with tiny things that glittered off of the reflection of his visor.
And then it clicked its mandibles at him, eyes flashing with a look that felt...familiar.
It finally dawned on Tucker what- or even who, maybe- he was looking at, and what might have been a scream or an obscenity rose in his throat, before the sudden feeling of absolute lightness took hold again, and he swore as the swamp dissipated; like someone had tossed a pail of water onto this twisted fucking canvas that had become his existence. Or something.
And then his feet brushed against solid metal flooring, and he found himself staring down a group of men in white lab coats, who suddenly dropped what they were doing and snapped to attention. Tucker turned around, desperate to find out what in the actual fuck had just happened. He had to get back- needed to- he had to see more, and find out what the hell it all meant. Maybe if he just went back inside...
But there was nothing when he turned around again. Just an empty, dark doorway.
It wasn't the only one, though. Not by a fucking longshot. At different levels of the segmented chamber, there were other doors. Some were pulsating and green, while others were utterly dark, like the one he'd been through, with only blurry lettering above to identify them. "Sir?" A stranger's voice broke his thoughts. He looked back at the men in the white coats. One of them started forward, holding a clipboard and smiling nervously.
"Captain Flowers! We weren't expecting another visit for-" He began, before one of his colleagues yanked him hard by his sleeve and muttered something into his ear. Tucker did not like the look that came into the man's eyes when he turned back to him..
"You guys wanna tell me what the fuck is going on? Please?" He said, heart racing as he stammered it out in his best adult voice. He was getting fucking scared all of a sudden, and he bit back a surge of anger as the sensation took hold. In the corner of his eye, he saw one of the labcoats smack a hand against a red button, and Tucker caught a rapid blur appear out of the corner of his eye and tensed, fists rising, before-
He didn't see what smacked into him like a battering ram, and he smashed a fist into the first sign of a human face that he saw as he went down, and he heard someone curse as he was crushed into the metal grating with a tooth-jarring whumpf.
"Urgh- get the fuck off me, bitch!" Tucker smacked an elbow into someone's ribcage, and then he was vaguely aware of being lifted by two pairs of arms that were clad in black armor plating. He didn't see the fist coming until someone yanked his helmet off and something clocked him in the jaw with the weight of a fucking semi-truck. The rest was all...delirious.
Jesus, that guy fucking pounded me HARD. Bow chicka bow...nope. He wasn't gonna say it. Not for that one.
As they passed another room, he saw the labeling above the door, which read: OUTPOST 1-A, TT-2.
And it was glowing an almost beckoning color of green- like the sign itself wasn't a clear enough...sign. He was going to take it as he saw it...now.
He launched a foot forward without thinking, and felt someone else's leg give as his armored boot cracked into a knee. The victim shrieked in pain, and suddenly he was back on the floor. He spied his helmet where it had fallen, dropped by one of his kidnappers. He snatched it up, squeezed it onto his head and winced with a loud hiss as it sealed around his skull, just as the crack of a gun behind him and sent something flashing past his face and into the wall in a flurry of sparks.
Ow. That's probably a concussion. Fucking douchebags. Goddamnit, what the FUCK is going on? He saw another black-gloved hand reaching for him, and he darted towards the green entryway, sucking in a breath.
This is gonna fucking hurt, I'd bet money on it. His hand was halfway through it when he felt fingers brushing against his ankle. He turned and glimpsed a silver-colored visor in the center of a midnight black helmet, and he swung wildly. "Get off me you fuck-"
And then the green absorbed him.
"...ccckkkeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr!" The world greeted him in a blinding blur before he smacked into something that he barely recognized as blue before his legs gave way to the ground and he collapsed in a heap. The blue thing- a person, as it turned out- in question went sprawling into the dirt amidst a hail of curses.
"Jesus, fuck!" Shouted a voice. Church?
This was it. This was him going insane; had to be. He numbingly rose from his stupor, and was half-tempted to scratch his head like some hapless moron in a detective comic.
As the rest of the canyon stopped being nothing but a blurry field, he recognized Church- rigid as a fucking door nail- his rifle leveled at a person in red armor, similar to his own, who carried a long, silver pole in his hands. The red's helmet was darting back and forth between him and the cobalt trooper.
He would have stood up, but something that began as a tingle in his ankle turned into a flaring, burning spasm that jerked his leg in a seering fire, and he screamed. Couldn't help himself. Meanwhile, the other blue thing that he'd hit when he came out of the teleporter was picking itself up, a large, burly suit of armor that shouldered a shotgun and stumbled to its feet, one at a time.
"Owwww…shit. Wait, who the fuck are you?" Snapped a big voice. "Talk!" Tucker didn't realize that Mickey was talking to him until the barrel of the shotgun was inches away from his visor, and closing fast. Tucker gave him an appropriate 'what the fuck' glare, before realizing it was pointless, with his helmet on and all.
"The fuck are you talkin about? I'm…" he trailed off as he looked at his hands. And then his arms. And then the rest of his armor. Crap.
Black. He was fucking black, all over. The irony of which was so funny he almost laughed, if the pain in his leg hadn't made the water in his eyes start to sting. He realized vaguely that his nose was bleeding.
"Wait...what the fu- Tucker?" Mickey asked incredulously, the shotgun gradually lowering. Try it again, asshole. I dare you. The red was wavering, obviously as confused as he was, and Church stomped over and extended a hand. Ahead, from the top of the ridge, more sporadic gunfire rang out.
But no one was actually looking at him anymore. They were looking at the teal armored body lying in the dirt. "Okay, hold on, wait a fucking second!" Church snapped, already fuming. "If Tucker is the black one...pun intended...then who the fuck is-"
A flash behind Tucker was punctuated by a burst from Church's battle rifle as he lurched backwards, and a figure in black armor appeared in front of them mid-stumble, before stopping and turning himself around in rapid succession, muttering incoherently.
"You." It came out as a snarl, which disappointed him; he wanted to scream...something at the prick before he put his ass in the ground. But then he saw it. That petite, little fucking disinfectant spray can, dangling like a condemning christmas ornament from his belt line.
"Son of a bitch!" The new arrival's voice confirmed it as he moaned in pain, and Tucker was on his feet, loping towards him.
"Jenkins?" Church lowered the protective seal of his visor, and his blue eyes came to light as he peered at both Tucker and the the black intruder. "Great," Church continued, groaning. "First fucking Tucker comes out, screaming like some fucking banshee, and now this. God...damn dude, is it so much to ask for a fucking moment of peace in this goddamned place?"
Tucker ignored him, balling his fist as he closed in. So, Jenkins isn't dead then. As if reading his thoughts, the formerly green armored trooper turned.
"Tuck-?"
His fist cracked Jenkins' visor. It was all he could do not to take it farther as the sting of the blow sent pulses through his hand. But the pain told him something else, which, at the very least, calmed him down somewhat. If the pain was real, then this had to be real. Right?
"Agh! What the fuck, bro?" Jenkins yanked off his helmet and gave Tucker a very confused, and then very angry look. "The fuck was that for?"
"That was for pushing me in, you fucking asshole!" He shrieked back, and everyone went quiet as he got closer to Jenkins, their helmets almost touching at this point. Mickey had finally collected himself by then, and was slowly edging around one the large boulders that peppered the area, with the occasional glance back at the both of them, and then at Church, who shrugged.
"It was a last minute solution!" Jenkins shouted, getting closer as his face contorted with anger.
"Last minute?"
"Yeah douchebag- last minute! And where the hell do you get off, sucker-punching me in the fucking face?" He shouted, helmet off and a free hand nursing a bruised eye, the other clenched and waiting. Tucker brought his own into a ready stance, before Church was between them in a flash, shoving Jenkins back, and Tucker was about to actually thank the prick before another light blue wrist smacked into his chest and sent him staggering.
"Both of you fuckin idiots calm down! NOW!" Tucker relented after that, seeing the fire behind Church's icy blues. And the pistol he held, cocked in one hand, while the other leveled his battle rifle at the red dude.
"Uh...guys?" Tucker vaguely heard Mickey's voice behind him as Jenkins furiously scrubbed away at the black...stuff still clinging to his frame, and beaming slightly when it dissipated to reveal the original green coloring.
"Not now dude. Seriously." Church snapped, holstering his pistol. But Mickey was starting to move forward, his hand reaching.
"No, Church." He said. "Right now." The big guy's hand clamped on Church's shoulder and spin him around. The guy in the teal armor was getting to his feet. When he stood fully up, Tucker saw the black still clinging to the suit, and suddenly thought of something. He rubbed a thumb against the plating on his arm, and grinned when the black gave way.
"Hey, freeze!" Church barked, and the teal one froze, before he looked over to where the red was- the latter practically tip-toeing away, before Tucker realized that Church was talking to him.
Jenkins was also on his feet, his own pistol trained on the new arrival. "Yeah...freeze!"
"Already said that, dumbass." Church growled. His helmet remained fixed on the teal soldier however, with the same rigidity as his weapon.
The teal soldier was rubbing dirt into his armor, and it had a similar effect, Tucker noted. The bastard was quick, and within one minute he was back to his normal midnight coloring and the rest of the team was gaping by then, helmets rotating back and forth like they were watching a tennis match.
The stranger's hands remained raised. Church jerked the barrel of his weapon towards the red, and the black soldier went over to him until they were side by side. The red, however, was livid.
"Why (cough)...do you keep calling me a sergeant? I'm just a private, and I just got here! Freaking yesterday, man!" Shouted the crimson trooper, indignant and scared all at once, and Tucker noticed for the first time how…well, young he sounded. He suddenly got a strange chill as a thought crossed his mind.
Is this...even real? Am I in the present, or some shit?
Wait- of course he was- what other place could you be? But if the sergeant was still a private…well then, fuck. Maybe he was still in the teleporter. He must have said something, because Church tore his gaze away from their two captives and looked right at him. Even quiet-mouthed Jenkins was looking concerned, if only half-assedly.
"What the fuck are you talking about man?" Church hissed. Tucker had so many different answers to the question- too many, point in fact, and all that came out of his mouth was a short, choppy mumbling.
Christ, it's like I'm back in grade school.
"I think...I think I'm still in the fuckin time-loop...err, teleporter...thing. Whatever." He said, realizing that it had sounded alot better in his head. Mickey had disappeared back up the slope by then, and more gunfire accompanied his arrival at the height of the ridge line.
"Tucker!" Church's voice snapped him out of his mind-fuck. Because that just had to be what it was. It has to be.
"Seriously! What in the fuck are you gabbing about? Did the teleporter make you fucking nuts? Tell me now, or I swear to god..." He took a step closer, his eyes suspicious and piercing, like a temperamental hawk's.
"Maybe the damn thing fried his brains," Jenkins muttered, giving Church a look. Tucker held back the urge to hit him again as he tried to think of a good, solid answer that wouldn't get him thrown into the nearest psych-ward with a whistle and a skip.
At least I'm showing restraint for his punk ass.
"Is this guy a retard?" He heard the red ask, leaning towards the black armored soldier. The latter remained utterly silent, though his head inclined...ever so slightly. Tucker took an angry step forward, a thick inhalation already building in his chest, when Church whirled on the two.
"Red guy? Please shut the fuck up for me. Please!" He turned to Tucker as something began blaring in the background, carrying above the din of gunfire above them. He noticed black dude inching a foot backwards as the sound got louder, and reflexively reach for where his own rifle should have been, and instead just grappled at empty space. And then, the sound got louder still.
Is that...fucking music?