Waiting on the Revolution
By Lovova
Summary: When the revolution starts, Grif is the first to die. But he doesn't have to wait for the others long.
0
It was a revolution. And they were losing. They had a numbers advantage, and they were all pissed; they had hoped this would be enough. But it wasn't. While their numbers was in the thousands, the Freelancers unaligned with them had been trained specifically with killing off their numbers…well, by the thousands. It didn't matter where or how hard they hit, one or two freelancers were enough to rip their platoons to shreds, and did so without guilt or hesitation. To make matters worst, there were many regular soldiers and marines who had not been a part of the 'Red Vs. Blue' experiments, who hadn't been betrayed by the government they had given up everything for, who stood with the freelancers and fought back against the revolutionaries.
They were losing, and Grif found it amazing that his group had still managed to survive this long. Red and Blue united against a common enemy, Mission Control, Sarge and Church and their respective soldiers now did missions together for the Revolution, often escorted by two of the four Freelancers aiding in their cause, Agent Texas and Agent Washington. It was the two freelancers who had really insured all of their survival up to this point, but the mass attack against headquarters today had separated the group, and Grif wished this wasn't the case, because he knew that none of them were going to last long without the others.
Despite now fighting alongside the blues, Grif found his eyes peering through the crowd looking for soldiers in Red. Specifically, his soldiers in red. But in this madness of men and explosion, Grif couldn't pick out the Standard Red, Maroon, and Pink that he was looking for, and he felt alone and terribly exposed. He wished that he could at least find Simmons. Though neither men had ever dared say anything as sentimental as the word 'friend' out loud, Simmon's out of fear of Sarge's disfavor and Grif out of spite, the truth was that Simmon's was as normal a thing for Grif to see beside him as his own arm, and he felt handicapped without him. As he gunned down another white soldier out to kill him, Grif found himself thinking that if he could just find Simmon's, everything would be fine. They might not win the war, but the two of them could survive, could escape, could find a place to bunker down until Sarge and Donut found them too, with the Blue's doing the same, grouping up, bunkering down, probably somewhere close but just on the opposite side of wherever the Red's were…
Grif saw the explosion before he heard it. And by then it was too late anyway.
1
There was no light. There was no guide. There was only darkness. And Grif, being somewhat of the lazy sort, didn't see any need to venture out into the darkness to see if there was anything out there. And so he sat, his knees tucked under his chin, and waited for something to happen to him.
Time went by. Grif didn't notice.
He heard him before he saw him. For a long time there was nothing, and then there was footsteps, breathing, and someone stood beside him.
"Holy shit! Watch out for the Banshee!" Tucker cried, and then stopped, looking around, alarmed, his glowing sword in hand, "What the hell!"
"Hey dude," Grif greeted, surprised that his voice didn't hurt from disuse. He felt fine though. In fact, the second Tucker had shown up, he felt more clearheaded, like he was capable of thinking. He hadn't realized anything had been wrong before.
Tucker looked down at him, surprised, "Grif? Shit, dude, where the hell did you come from? I thought you were dead! Unless…oh you've gotta be fucking kidding me! Simmon's, you fucker, you didn't dodge the banshee!"
"Simmon's was with you?" Grif asked, looking around curiously, though no Maroon-colored Spartans seemed to show up, "What happened?"
Tucker looked around some more, still tense, still angry, until suddenly every bone in his body seemed to sigh, the turquoise soldier rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as he went to sit by Grif. "Oh, you know, the usual shit. We blew up headquarters the day you died, by the way. So, you know, wasn't in vain and all that."
"Oh yeah? Cool." Grif replied, not surprised to find that he didn't care that much, "Then what happened?"
"Man, everything went downhill from there. Headquarters down was a huge advantage for us, but guess who it was also an advantage for…"
"The aliens?"
"The fucking aliens! Those asshole swooped in the next god damn day, trying to use the civil war to their advantage, so the Revolution had to team up with Mission Control to fight those fuckers off. Man, I told those foreign assholes that if they just waited, hell, if they helped the Revolution we could strike a peace treaty with them, get some headway in negotiations, but noooo, fuckers had to back stab us, just like everyone else. The guys were taking me to the Alien Leader to try and pull some last minute ambassador shit, you know, try and get them to fall back. Guess that's up to Junior now. Poor little guy."
"I still can't believe that you're two year old son is running around playing negotiator in a war." Grif replied casually, enjoying the company, even if Tucker was a fucking asshole. But then, so was everyone else. "You ever think that maybe you should have, I don't know, kept him out of all this?"
"Don't judge me, my kid was born in the battlefield; like there was any way I could have shielded him from this crap," Tucker replied bitterly. He rubbed the top of his helmet a bit before saying more quietly, "Okay, yeah, now that I'm dead and looking back at it, I kind of wish I had done a better job at the whole 'parent' thing. I mean, little dude is all that I'm leaving behind, ya know? I hope he'll be okay."
"Trust me, Tucker, you're god damn abomination is doing just fine," Said Church, as he sat down beside them.
"Well, well, another one bites the dust," Grif joked, much to the annoyance of Church.
"Is that you, Grif? Shut the fuck up, at least I wasn't the first one down. Oh, and Tucker," Church said, "You're kid is five now, and taller then me. Also, he's now the leader of his people. The Aliens agreed to help the revolution, which is much bigger now, by the way, but Mission Control got this weapon, man…I don't even want to fucking talk about it."
"God damn, has it already been three years since I died?" Tucker asked, astounded, "That went by like nothing! How'd you die, Church? Tex finally kill you?"
"Har, har, har, I forgot what a laugh you were," Church replied sarcastically, "Actually, I was on an Information Run, getting the specs on that god damn weapon that I don't want to fucking talk about. I managed to get the information, and I think I was quick enough to send it back to base before the enemy could shut down communications, but then Agent D.C. and Agent California caught me, and the good old Director himself shot me in the face. Couldn't' stand that even with the same DNA I was still better looking then him, I guess."
"The director?" Grif asked, "I thought he was in jail."
"Oh, yeah, they let him out to help fight us," Tucker replied, "They were desperate to stamp us all out before we got even bigger, so they restarted the AI program."
"Yeah, fat lot of good that did him," Church snorted, "It was one of his AI that helped me get the information in the first place. The way it was starting to look was that those AI were ready to join the revolution themselves."
"No," Washington said, sitting down beside Grif, "Those asshole went ahead and started their own revolution."
"Washington?" Church asked, "Man, I wasn't expecting you to be next. I thought for sure it was going to be Caboose or Donut."
"Actually, Caboose kind of stuck with Donut after you died, and, man, I don't know what it is, but those two make a crazy effective team…and by crazy, I mean actual crazy. I don't think they even know what they're doing half the time, but if you point them in the right direction, they will blow up everything within a five mile radius."
"Friend and foe?" Church asked dryly.
Washington shrugged, "Well, we are talking about Caboose here. We just try and get everyone out of the way."
"Look's like that didn't work out too well for you, huh?"Grif goaded, nudging Washington in the ribs.
Washington lifted his head high, looking offended, "Hey man, I performed a noble sacrifice to get here. I blew up the Weapon. Unfortunately, I was on it when it blew. By the way Church, we did get those transcripts you sent, if you were wondering. It saved a lot of lives."
"Eh, whatever," Church shrugged, "So how long has it been since I died? What's happening now? Does Tex miss me? She totally does, doesn't she."
"Five years," Washington replied "and to be honest, I wish I could say the war has made a lot more progress then it has. The revolution got stronger, but Mission Control responded by making Earth a military planet. Now instead of fighting a bunch of Freelancers, we're fighting a bunch of barely trained kids drafted into the war, most of them who don't even know why the revolution exists. It's really put a damper on moral, and most of us are thinking that the revolution should give up on Earth and colonize somewhere, just to stop all this. Meanwhile, the AI's have all decided that human's all suck, and want to gain human recourses just so they can start a battle in obtaining all the alien recourses. It's crazy."
"What about the aliens?" Tucker asked eagerly, "What's my boy been up to?"
"Oh, yeah, the aliens had to withdraw most of their support with us because now Junior's got his own civil war on his hands. Apparently a lot of the aliens don't like his pro-human politics, and his wedding was the straw the broke the camels back."
"Junior got married!" Tucker cried, looking elated, "Oh yes, I knew my boy had skills! Awesome with all the ladies, just like me; Bow Chica Wow Wow! And if it caused a civil war, then a human lady at that, which means my boy's got taste too! No icky alien bits for him!"
"You do remember that your kid is one of those icky aliens, right? To them, we're the weird looking ones," Washington reminded him, "And, you're partly right. Yes, he is marrying a human."
"How does that make him only partly right?" Asked Grif.
"The human is a very nice young man named Steve."
"Oh!"
"Hahaha!"
"God damn it! He gets it from his father!"
"Hey man, at least with alien biology, you're family line is still going to go on," Church teased as Tucker shivered in repulsion, "Aw, come on, he's always been an abomination to nature. Does him being a gay abomination of nature really bug you?"
Tucked sighed, laying down, "No, but still; the only gay friend I ever had was Donut, and he was a pervert. Not to mention my one gay experience, which happened in my sleep and resulted in me getting pregnant. I just hope he turned out to be a better gay guy then that!"
"I take offense to that whole speech." In walked Donut, "And relax; if anything, you'd probably be horrified to find out what a perfect gentlemen Junior grew up to be. A bit of a prude actually; he'd shoot me for the littlest things, like inviting him and Steve to a three-way. I was just being hospitable." Donut replied simply, looking over at Grif, "Grif, man! You're alive! As is all the other dead people I know! Fantastic!" He continued, beaming at everyone else.
"Donut, rethink what you just said," Church advised him.
Donut stopped and thought for a minute before deflating, "Aw, man, I'm dead! I guess that mission really WAS suicidal. And here I thought Simmon's was being overdramatic. But wait, then where is…"
"Church!"
"Oh no."
"Church!" Caboose cried again, tackling the light blue soldier into a hug, who immediately pushed him away. Caboose was unphased by this as he continued on elatedly, "Church, I knew that you were somewhere! Everyone said that you were not because you were not a real person and only real people went to places after they stopped and Donut said that he thought even real people probably didn't go places after they stopped but now look you are here and they were wrong, except for apparently about the whole bad people go to different places then good people because Tucker is here."
This last part was said deadpan as Caboose glared at Tucker, who gave him the middle finger. Caboose shifted, and Church was ready to fight him off again when, to his surprise, Caboose got up and went to sit by Donut, who gave him a companionable pat on the shoulder.
"Hey man. You end up killing that fucker like I told you too?" Donut asked pleasantly.
Caboose nodded, "Yes, I killed the fake Church-Director-Man, but I had to take him into outer space with me and he broke my suit and I stopped breathing. Sorry."
"That's alright man. Hopefully with the Director dead Steve can finally return to his seat in office and get that martial law taken down, and peace talk can finally start."
"Steve's president now?" Washington asked, "I mean, he always talked about it, but I never thought he'd actually do it, especially when he went off to marry Junior."
"Hey, my boy only pairs with the best!" Tucker replied, some parental pride showing.
"Ever since Martial Law went up a year ago, revolutionary sympathizers tripled back on Earth," Donut explained as Caboose leaned comfortably against him, "And with the civil war for the aliens done and their support back with the revolution, Earth practically jumped to elect Steve as leader of the unions because of his ties with both the revolution and the aliens. He's like the ultimate middle man."
"What ended the alien war?" Grif asked, having become so detached with life that the whole thing sounded t o him like a vaguely interesting sci-fi movie.
"The AI Revolution wasn't having any luck with us, mostly because we built them and know very well how they fucking work, so they turned their attention on the Aliens, hoping they'd be easier to subdue. Unfortunately for them, they decided to try and intimidate them with attacks on civilian communities. That pissed the aliens off so much, it pretty much stopped the civil war cold, especially when the revolution came to help. The AI's are kind of like the big bad at the moment, and the Aliens, Earth and the Revolution are all kind of banding together against them. It's going really well!"
"Yeah, back when you died Donut, I'm sure it seemed that way." Said the gruff voice of Sarge, "Move over Grif, you're sitting in my spot."
"What? Dude, I was here first! I literally haven't moved from this spot since I died!" Grif complained, suppressing a yelp when Sarge grabbed his head and firmly, but curiously gently, moved him aside to take his place by Church.
"You haven't moved since you died? Typical lazy Grif; you're soul is just as useless as your body was. Now pipe down boy, and let me enjoy this; I'm amongst a bunch of old dead comrades. This is what a soldier always dreams of for when he died," Sarge scolded, taking a moment to think before adding, "Or, better yet, some scantily clad warrior women in chariots. You men seen any of those lately?"
"Nah, just old dead comrades." Church sighed, "Man, when is Tex going to show up. I'm choking on all the testosterone."
"Dude, you want you're girlfriend to die just because you're bored?" Washington asked. "And face it, of all the people to die next, it's not going to be her."
"Hey, isn't anyone interested in how I died?" Sarge barked.
"How did you die, Sarge?" Grif replied, humoring the old man, who had yet to hit him, which Grif saw as an improvement to when he had been alive.
"Why, fighting the enemy, of course! Died a heroic death in the heat of battle, fighting that bastard O'Malley and his men!"
"O'Malley!" Washington cried, "I thought O'Malley was dead?"
"It was Steve, that old bastard." Sarge sighed, "Got cocky with power and decided to try implanting one of those AI into his own head, rationalized that using one of the captured AI as a weapon would give them an edge against the AI Republic. They're a colony now, not just a group of shouting rebels. Hell, neither are we, now that I think about it, but I still like calling us the Revolutionaries, rather then that new overly complicated name. Anyway, of course the AI he picked was the most dangerous and craziest of them all. O'Malley had control of Steve before you could shout bob's your uncle, and now the bastard has his own damn army of Earth Soldiers and Alien soldiers; hell, even some of our Revolution men defected to him, once he had control of some of the states back down on Earth and was threatening to kill their families. It's all gone to fucking hell."
"Damn that Steve, I knew that rat-awful bastard would be nothing but trouble! What about Junior, is he alright?" Tucker asked, genuinely distressed. Death had made him sentimental.
"Hello, Tucker. Damn near forgot you were that aliens mama," Sarge greeted, "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that one of the first things O'Malley did was capture Junior before anyone had figured out anything had gone wrong. But either O'Malley's planning to use him for something or Steve is still somewhere in that demented head, because from what I hear that Messiah-Wannabee is still alive, and being treated fairly well as far as being a prisoner goes. I wouldn't worry to much about it. That bitch in the black armor was sent to go get him. She'll free him, and once he's back on the throne the aliens will get organized again, and that'll give us an advantage."
"Tex?" Church asked, showing interest again. Like Grif, he had been slowly becoming less attached to the tale of what was happening back on life the longer he was here, "She's still with the revolution then?"
"Still with us? That bitch leads us," Sarge laughed, before adding thoughtfully, "With my assistance, of course. The people you knew in life have all become rather influential in this crazy war. Probably because we're all fucking crazy people! Crazy handles crazy best," Sarge laughed again, "That's what Simmon's always said anyway."
"I can't believe Simmon's has managed to survive this long, " Grif sighed, obviously annoyed, "Caboose and Donut I understand, but to live past Washington and Church? Hell Sarge, I'd have thought you'd two would have at least died to gather, you giving some suicidal order and Simmon's blindly following it."
"What?" Donut said, honestly confused before laughing, "Oh man, I almost forgot the way things used to be. Man, that was…that was a long time ago. Shit Grif, Red Team fucking changed after you died. Especially Simmon's and Sarge."
"Really?" Grif asked, turning to Sarge, "How?"
Sarge took a deep breath, held it, before letting it out, "Ah, don't ask, Grif, it doesn't matter now. I've only been here a minute and life already feels like a damn long time ago."
"Well, in you're defense Sarge, it's certainly been more then a minute," Corrected the now deceased medic, Doc, who stood nervously by the group, looking around before deciding to sit with the blues. "It's been quite a few years since you died, actually. I am dead, aren't I? This isn't some sort of hallucination?" Doc asked.
"Far as I can tell," Church replied, "Hey Doc, standard questions for the new guy around here: How'd you die, and how's the war going?"
"Oh, I suppose I died from the torture," Doc replied candidly, ignoring the startled looks of those around him, "I got captured by the enemy and they wanted to know where we had hidden Junior. I'm rather proud to say that I died before giving away his location."
"Hey, man, thanks! I owe you one for sticking by my boy!" Tucker praised, reaching out for a fist bump, which Doc shyly returned.
"And the war, Doc?" Washington asked.
"You…" Doc sighed, "You won't like my answer."
"It's Red Vs. Blue," said a female voice darkly, "just like fucking twenty years ago."
Everyone looked around to see Agent Tex saunter in, Church standing up upon seeing her, "Tex…"
"Hey Church," Tex said, looking back at him, "I honestly never expected to see you again."
"Yeah, well…" Church mumbled, still looking back at her, "Um…"
They stayed that way for awhile, before Tex sighed, "You know, if you come over to hug me, I'm not going to explode or anything."
That was all the prompting Church needed. They embraced.
Thankfully, it didn't take long ,and the two sat down so that Tex could tell her story. "Shortly after Doc died, everything went from bad to worst to fucking catastrophe. O'Malley…what can I say. He won. The Revolutionary Colonies were captured and dismantled, the aliens barely escaped with Junior and are hiding out in space licking their wounds. Junior swore they'd come back to help as soon as they were war ready again, but they took a huge hit, and that won't be for years. Hell, I wouldn't blame Junior if his people never came back at all; at least someone would have escaped all this."
"The Revolution lost?" Sarge said, horror in his voice, "But…we had gotten so strong…we had given up so much, damn it! What happened!"
"The AI's happened. They had always been formidable, but their limited numbers were what always gave us the advantage; so they took a page out of our book. To increase their numbers, that made copy after copy of the Alpha, and did just like we did; tortured him until a bunch of little soldiers fell out. Can you imagine, Sarge? Fighting an entire army of crazy, hate filled AI? They tore us apart, and they didn't stop there. A third of the human population now has an AI living in their head, in their bodies, including every single Spartan, both Rebel and Earth units. That's what they were hoping to get; a planet full of AI controlled zombies."
"So what went wrong?" Grif asked, "And how did it get you killed."
Behind her helmet, Tex grinned, "The mass creation and insertion of AI into people was done quickly, and of course, sloppily. A lot of us found we had the ability to fight off the control of the AI in our heads, some of us with more success then others. I squashed my AI the second O'Malley tried to shove one in me. And kept doing it as he tried to shove in more and more…I guess the last try finally killed me."
"What did you mean by it being Red Vs. Blue again?" Doc asked.
"Oh yeah, that little treasure. With so many people being able to subdue their AI's, O'Malley took another page out of human history and decided that all of the newly created AI would go through simulation training in order to learn how to control hostile human minds. The new AI would be put into a soldiers head, that soldier would be sent out to some isolated place to protect a base from other soldiers in the exact same position as themselves. AI that learned how to control their soldier enough to the point where they could successfully act out war strategy's were then sent to infect real soldiers and civilians. As you might have guessed, all of the soldiers were painted either red, or blue."
There was silence for awhile. "So…we really lost?" Grif asked, looking at his comrades, who all looked glum.
"Guess so," Donut sighed, looking over at the sleeping Caboose, "He's going to be devastated when I tell him. I always told him that all the dangerous shit we did, that all the people we killed…I always told him it would be worth it once we won the war. Now…hell, he probably won't even understand me when I tell him that despite all of it, we lost."
"Good," Said Simmons, "Because we didn't."
Everyone stood at this, looking back at Simmon's, who stood tall and confident. Different then when Grif had last saw him. Simmon's walked up to them before stopping, taking them all in, "I can't believe all of you are really here." He said quietly.
"What do you mean, we didn't lose?" Tex asked, the freshest dead and the most keen for information, "What happened?"
Without boast, without pride, Simmon's replied back plainly, "I did. I don't know why they did it, probably O'Malley's idea of a fucking joke, but once again I was sent back to Blood Gulch as leader of the Red base, AI after AI filling my head, driving me crazy…but what they didn't think about was that as each AI learned to use us, we we're learning to use them. Slowly but surely, my and my men, and the blues and reds of all the bases, we're becoming experts on how to suppress and even use the AI, to the point where the AI couldn't even tell it was happening to them. We started to communicate to each other secretly, the AI in our heads not realizing they were losing hours of consciousness at a time, thanks to the sun never moving in these god awful planets. I formed a second revolution, but my experience in the last revolution made me more conscious, made me better. I had Red and Blue all over the god damn galaxy secretly training to both control and beat the AI, those having been moved to civilian positions gathering intelligence, slowly but surely gaining support in secret groups both in the command base and down at Earth. My men had become god damned experts, and still we trained, because I decided to wait before attacking. Wait for the thing that would make our victory absolutely certain."
Tucker beamed, "Junior!"
Simmon's nodded, "Junior kept his promise to come back, though it took years. By then, my secret revolution had become influential enough that I could get news to him; he knew where I was, what I was doing, what we were all prepared to do. Over the course of months we sent messages back and forth, collaborating plans of attack."
"And?" Church asked, "How did it go?"
Simmon's back grew straighter, and his hands curled into fists, "We overran and killed all of the AI in a matter of days."
"Yes!" Donut cried, pumping his fist into the air, startling Caboose awake, "Yes!" He turned to Caboose, "We won, buddy! We won the war!"
"Oh good," Caboose replied sleepily, "Which war again?"
Donut just laughed and hugged him, and other small celebrations were happening amongst the group as well. Sarge had crossed his arms over his chest and just started laughing, and Tucker had taken out his sword and was waving it through the air, crying out, "Yeah! That's my boy!". Doc was clapping, and beside him Church and Tex said not a thing, but their hands were clasped tightly together, and Tex was breathing heavily. Church knew that somewhere inside that helmet the love of his life was silently crying, but he wasn't going to say anything. Mostly because he still wasn't sure what happened to a ghost if it was brutally murdered.
As everyone celebrated, Grif walked over to Simmon's, "So, if we won the war, how'd you die man?"
Simmon's looked over at him for a long time. "…Grif?"
Grif rubbed the back of his neck, groaning, "Aw, come on, man, don't tell me you forgot about me after only two decades? How's that supposed to make a guy feel?"
Simmon's continued to stare at him before saying quietly, "Three decades. I died at the age of fifty, five years after the war was over. We were still rebuilding, but peace had long been established, and it was all really a matter of getting the politics figured out by then. After the war…I didn't really have a place, you know? I ended up becoming head of Mission Control, if you can believe it, keeping our armies in shape in case some new threat ever came, but I was failing in health. Doctors said my heart was giving out, that I wasn't eating right, wasn't sleeping right; they said that I was depressed. I didn't believe them at the time, I thought it was just me being lethargic now that there wasn't any war to stimulate me, but now that I'm dead I'm looking back at the last few years and thinking they might have been right. I was depressed."
Grif chuckled, "Man, only you could look at winning a war as a downer. Why were you so messed up?"
Simmon's shrugged, but only barely, as if the response was automatic, "I don't know…Sarge was dead. Donut was dead. Everyone I knew was dead, except for your sister, who married Lopez by the way."
"Slut," Grif replied automatically, though he did like that she had made it, despite having been rumored dead last he heard of her, "So what, you were lonely without Sarge to yell at you or Donut to harass you?"
Simmon's stared at him still, "Yeah," he replied, "Yeah, I was lonely, I guess."
More staring, more silence. And then Simmon's said, "Aw, fuck it." Before drawing the startled Grif into a hug, one of the tightest, nearly painful hug that Grif had ever been given in his life, and not letting go as he said, "Grif, I missed you."
"Oh," Grif replied, uncertainly, after a moment attempting some sort of hug back, though he was mostly confused by the depth of emotion coming out here, "Okay. Yeah. I…I missed you too, man." And saying it aloud made Grif realize that, actually, yeah, he had. And he had never been more glad for his helmet before in his life, because fuck if he suddenly didn't kind of feel like crying.
Eventually Simmon's let him go, and they turned to see everyone looking at them. "What?" Grif asked, feeling defensive, "What now?"
"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" Tex replied, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of sick of this. What happens now?"
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask that since I got here, but," Simmon's turned to Grif, "Exactly why are we here?"
And now everyone was looking at Grif, because he had been here longest, and there was no one else to turn to. And Grif didn't mind at all, because behind his…well, he supposed he could call these assholes his friends now, behind his friends suddenly shone this great white light, and he saw that light and understood and smiled as he casually replied, "What, isn't it obvious?"
The light grew brighter.
"We were waiting for each other."
The End