Synopsis: [Canon Divergence - Alternate S15] The Reds and Blues saved Chorus, but it has been a year and they are still missing. A motley crew has been gathered with the common goal of finding the war heroes, though the road is more troubled than anyone seems to realize.
A/N: I don't know how many people remember, but a few years back while Season 13 was airing, I published my first longfic for the RvB fandom as the season aired, sort of a challenge to myself to make an alternate version of Season 13′s events to sort of see where things lined up. That fic was Divided and still to this day it's one of my favorite fics I've written for the fandom. It's also inspired me to attempt something similar for this season, though a bit shorter (and a few weeks off from keeping up with the season itself). I'm basically going to go another direction than S15 and hopefully you all will enjoy!
Red vs Blue and related properties © Rooster Teeth
story, Amalgamation AU © RenaRoo
The Search
Chapter One: The Headline
It was the sort of culminating disaster that could not have been scripted.
When the office door burst open, giving way to the proverbial army which had been sent after the Reds and Blues, somehow the ragtag team of former simulation troopers were ready.
Between them and the Charon forces was a desk, a few novelty weapons they had gathered from Chairman Hargrove's trophies, and a repurposed M374 Hephaestus Combat Armor.
And, for a while, that seemed to be all they would need.
The first barrage of bullets from the Charon soldiers was reflected back on them by an overwhelmingly large dome shield manifested from the Hephaestus Armor. Though the power seemed to deplete itself quickly as once the bullets ricocheted back toward their sources, the shield was back down and left the Reds and Blues open to fire upon the next wave with their own signature weapons.
Initially, the hail of bullets from the Reds and Blues were enough to force people back, but the moment that two soldiers broke through the line and tried to stake out the corners of the room, the Blue in the former Meta armor lunged forward at an inhuman speed. There was hacking and slashing of a plasma sword, which confirmed suspicions that it was Lavernius Tucker inside the suit.
Beforehand, the angle of the footage had made it slightly more difficult to confirm identities than she would have liked.
Once the line was broken, there seemed to be some shouted order. Two Reds – Dexter Grif and Richard Simmons – ducked behind the table with the other Blue – Michael Caboose. It cleared them out of the way of the former disgraced medical officer, Frank DuFresne, who fired a rocket launcher through the opened office door.
The explosion was out of view of the camera, but the footage was enough to show a room-wide recoil and stumbling in response to it.
The Red known as only Sarge in his files remained steadily standing in position, firing at nearly the same rate as the automatic weapon that Caboose was holding. An impressive feat lessened by the apparent range of the shotgun which seemed to only take affect when Charon soldiers closed in within five feet of the group.
By that point Franklin Donut and the robotic AI construct known in files as "Lopez the Heavy" were quick to give cover fire for their commander until those who were behind the desk gathered themselves back up and set themselves up for further attack.
What soldiers came into the room had to first get past Tucker, who was moving with undocumented prowess. It was difficult to say how much of it was the armor maintaining the work for him and how much of it had to do with natural progress that was still difficult to assess considering the information barrier that still existed between Chorus and the rest of the governed UNSC space.
By the third round, the footage was damaged, a skip in the recording. It was difficult to assume what happened between frames – one moment Tucker was still at the front of the line, the next he had fallen back and was removing an enhancement from his suit to give to Donut who had fallen between frames.
At one point, Caboose was at the lead, his automatic weapon firing incessantly.
They all fell back again between frames, most huddled behind the desk used for cover fire.
Once the ship began crashing, the footage was upside down – or rather, everyone else was, dodging out of the way of the office furniture and entangled bodies of the soldiers they had taken out as much as they were the incoming attacks.
Half the screen was no longer recording, a crack in the security lens most likely. It was difficult to tell if the Reds and Blues who were not on screen were somehow either in the unrecorded range or had begun moving out of the office holding space between frames.
The recordings from that point forward were stripped bear and it was difficult to see any change, even fast forwarded hours. Until Chorusian soldiers marched in, former Freelancer Agents Carolina and Washington at the head.
With full armors on, it was difficult to read their reactions to the gruesome scene. Without sound it was even harder to tell if they were seeing any of the Reds or Blues in the part of the camera range that was no longer being recorded.
By the time the recording ended, she had less answers than she had started with.
"Damn," she muttered, reaching for her coffee again only to find the mug empty. Dylan Andrews leaned back in her office chair and looked around the darkened office space, annoyance ticking up. "Are there any interns in here? I need coffee and…"
Her voice carried quite a bit – a bit of a curse if one were to ask those closest to her – but it apparently reached no one's ears.
She was alone in the office at two in the morning. Again.
With a long sigh, she got to her feet and removed the drive from her personal computer, closing everything out. She turned and walked toward the door to head to the closet she called an apartment.
Andrews was an award winning journalist, and she could almost taste when she was on the trail of something real. And that was why she had followed the ever evolving story behind the ominous Project Freelancer and its titular war heroes, the Reds and the Blues of Blood Gulch Canyon Outposts Alpha and Outpost One.
She was on a trail, but there was no denying that Dylan didn't have any idea where it'd take her.
Or, perhaps more importantly, who it would end up pissing off.
By the time she finished taking the monorail to her side of town and began fishing for the keys to her apartment, she was already thinking of who of her contacts would give her the most likely in for an interview with the UNSC Chairman himself.
After all, since the embarrassment he had suffered across the cosmos thanks to the Reds and Blues' delivered message, he had been nigh impossible to contact. And the UNSC was notorious for not taking reporters' questions.
Such things had not stopped her before. And Dylan was certain that she would find a way in when she put her key in the lock of her door and found that it lacked that satisfying click she was so used to by that point.
"The hell?" she muttered to herself, going back through her day and wondering if it was possible that, for the first time since college, she actually forgot to lock her own door. But as she double guessed herself, swinging her door open to a disheveled apartment answered that question for her.
"Who the fuck would break into my apartment?" she asked out loud, cautiously entering and turning the light on.
Her gaze immediately shifted toward her kitchenette since the only plausible explanation she could think of was that some sap came to take what ramen was left in the package. But her food was not touched.
Just everything else.
When she walked in a little further, hand going to her pocket to pick up her phone, her heart all but leaped into her throat as something cold pressed against the back of her neck and gave a notable click.
"Please put down your phone, Miss Andrews. On the ground," a commanding voice said lowly.
Dylan could hear the door close behind them. She slowly complied, picking her phone out of her pocket and letting it drop to the ground.
"You know my name, so I'm going to suppose that I've written about you," she said with more confidence than she probably had to spare.
"Quite a few articles, actually," a second voice chimed in. "And we believe you're working on another one right now from the sounds of it."
Suddenly, together, the two voices clicked. Suddenly it all made perfect sense.
Almost.
"Your Agent Washington and Agent Carolina," Dylan announced her epiphany.
"I prefer when people say that in alphabetical order," Carolina sighed, though she did not let up on how hard she was pressing the gun to Dylan's neck. "Wash, check to see if it's on her."
"Got it," Washington responded before walking around to Dylan's front, letting her see him for the first time. He was in full armor, which surely meant they both were. Which was far from inconspicuous and made Dylan wonder how they were getting around the city so easily without being spotted.
"If you told me what you're looking for, I could help you," she attempted to make peace only to have Washington's pat down stop at her pants pockets where he stopped and pulled out the drive. "Hey–"
"Is this the unedited footage?" Washington demanded, holding it in Andrews' face for emphasis.
"That is my personal property–" Dylan attempted to argue.
"Miss Andrews, you are not in a position to risk not answering our questions," Carolina said harshly. "Have you or anyone else edited the footage on that drive?"
"No," she finally answered. "I just finished watching it myself. It's damaged from the point that the ship wrecked forward but it's unedited."
"Damaged?" Washington asked, hand lowering. "How damaged? Can you see how they left the ship?"
"How who left the ship?" Dylan asked. "The Reds and Blues? No. You can't see how–"
Carolina's gun left Dylan's skin and there was a fierce growl before she kicked over the only chair in the apartment. Dylan blinked slowly as her one comfortable piece of furniture was wrecked. "Goddammit!" the Freelancer screamed.
Washington was watching Carolina before he brought his gaze back toward Dylan and, apologetically, shrugged toward her. "Sorry about the chair… and the house…"
"So it's true," Dylan said, ignoring her personal property damage. "The two of you are searching for the Reds and Blues… Chorus isn't hiding them from the UNSC. They've disappeared."
"That's none of your business," Washington assured her.
"You must be joking," Dylan laughed, getting even the angered Carolina's attention. "I'm a reporter. Everything is my business. And if Chorus is being unfairly portrayed by the media on my watch, I need to correct it."
Washington tilted his head. "Is that supposed to endear you to us, Ma'am?"
"We're not exactly the most trusting people, and reporters don't exactly earn a reputation of being trustworthy in our situation," Carolina added, nearing Dylan with an intimidating square to her shoulders.
"It's supposed to open an opportunity for you," Dylan proposed. "The fact is, you might be soldiers, but you're not storytellers. And you're going to need someone to tell this story loud and clear and with a reputation that the public can depend on to deliver it to them. The political climate since you ousted Hargrove has been… hostile and toxic. And the public's curiosity about the Reds and Blues are at an all time high as we near the anniversary of their disappearance." She looked between the two of them. "Besides, you can't possibly think you can search the entire galaxy with just the two of you."
The two Freelancers looked at each other and then back to Dylan.
"Who said it was just the two of us?" Carolina asked cockily.