Lopez translations at the end notes for those curious. I personally don't think they're all that necessary to the events of the story but they were fun.

Red vs Blue and related characters © Rooster Teeth
story © RenaRoo

Divided
Chapter Ten: Landfall

"Idiotas."

He had been skeptical from the moment his limbs had come to a sparking halt in the aftermath of the explosion and the various emergency respondents had looked at him the way scared gerbils looked at the family cat. He had been utterly resolved to his fate when they mishandled his parts and dumped him in the garage. And he had beenexpectant when the army engineers just looked to each other with confused shrugs hours later.

It wasn't that Lopez entirely blamed the soldiers of Chorus for not understanding how to repair him properly, it was a side effect of being a highly advanced android compiled by the genius of an idiot, it was just that, like anyone else who dealt with him, they spoke around him as if he couldn't understand them.

But eh. Maybe it wasn't that they were anti-robites. Maybe they were just racist.

"Uhhh, we're sorry, Sir," the younger engineer said, rubbing at his grease covered face as he watched Lopez's newly articulating arm beginning to repair the rest of himself piece by piece. "We're not entirely sure what you are saying."

"Nadie lo hace," Lopez said blankly as he rotated his second wrist. If he could scowl, he would have as it glitched just before ending rotation. He lowered the arm back to the table and reached for the soldering iron. "Hablo de mi diversión. Es el futuro. Usted es tonto para no saber español."

The two grease monkeys looked at him with not a single inkling of what was being said. Lopez rotated his wrist completely and nodded to it before reaching over the table to grab his leg.

"Uh, what?" one finally muttered, scratching at his head.

Lopez counted out the wires to discern what was or was not disconnected. He didn't even bother to look at the engineers to repeat evenly, "Idiotas."

"Hey, uh, foreman?" the younger said, looking to the other. "I don't know what he's saying... but do you get the impression he's... making fun of us?"

Looking up just as he reconnected the socket of his leg, Lopez focused on the two. "Mierda," he said, a bit aghast. "Usted es más consciente que mis creadores. Pero eso no dice mucho."

"What" the foreman said with no sense of irony.

Lopez sighed. "No importa."

"Heyyyyyy Lopez!" a sing-song voice called from the streets, leading to the company of three to look to the open garage door, though it wouldn't have required a solitary extra syllable for Lopez to know exactly who was on the other end of that voice. "Where are you, mi amigo?"

"¡Maldita sea!" Lopez groaned, finishing the readjustment of his final limb with a click. He looked to the clueless soldiers. "Esperaba sólo el Freelancer sobrevivió."

Sure enough, though, Donut came directly through the door, his helmet oddly off, exposing his collection of fresh bruises along with the familiar old scars. Lopez merely sighed.

It was hard to give Sarge competition for least favorite, but Lopez was always surprised with how much of a try Donut seemed willing to give it. Not that any of their crew of brightly colored soldiers managed to get on the robot's good side.

Though Doc was at times close when he was also attempting to take over the galaxy.

"Lopez! There you are!" Donut said with a wide grin. "Buena vista que tiene."

Lopez just stared at him for a moment before growling out, "Deje de insultar a mi lengua. Ya estamos utilizando traducción internet suficiente."

Donut smiled brightly. "Honky dorey, Mr. Grouchy Robot Pants. Thanks for asking."

"Me da igual," Lopez muttered before reaching for his weaponry and beginning to restock.

"I'm glad to see you up and about, Lopez," Donut continued, coming over to the robot's side, head bobbing in his walk. "You might be slim and fashionable as a head, but you're definitely less useful in the battlefield when that happens! And we all know that joke of you having a useless robot head in the battle field is such a 2007 joke. Can you say 'da-ay-ay-ted.'"

"No. No con esta configuración de idioma," Lopez grunted in return.

"Yeah, exactly," Donut nodded. "Are you done suiting up? I don't want to sound like I'm rushing you or anything, but I'd like for you to hurry so we can go find Wash." The soldier's bright blue eyes stared into Lopez earnestly. "I'm worried about him. I guess he's injured or something and, well, he's being Wash and not taking care of himself. Can you believe that?"

Lopez, perplexed, looked at him. "¿El tipo que nos disparó? Sí."

"Helping Wash and the others is exactly what I plan to do, Lopez," Donut responded immediately, a determined smirk on his face. "I'm glad you share my absolutely positive attitude! Now, c'mon. We need to go to the War Room and put that Big Bad Mr. Freelancer to bed!"

Groaning, the robot prepared to clearly state his case for exactly not doing that on the deaf ears of all those around him, but found the sound of racing boots interrupted him.

He and Donut looked to the soldiers that entered from the street, winded.

"Private Donut! And... uh. Mr. Roboto?" the heavily breathing soldier said, a curious look sent Lopez's way.

"¡No mames!" he groaned in return.

"Lopez!" Donut said, aghast. "I'm sure he knows that silver plating is so last season! No need to get nasty." He then looked, exuberantly, to the soldier. "Go on, soldier! Tell us the news. I hope it's good news."

"You're wanted in the War Room! Immediately!" the soldier gasped out. "There's been a call from one of the landing sites.

Immediately, Lopez and Donut both tensed.

"Uh oh," Donut whispered.

Listening to the static after Sarge's last transmission was one of the hardest things Doyle thought he had been forced to do since having leadership thrust upon him such a short time ago. His grip on the back of the communicator chair had been bruising.

Then their subsequent transmission came in from an unidentified soldier at Bravo... and Doyle realized it wasn't the hardest thing he had to do after all.

The information whirled in his mind.

"Colonel Sarge has been killed in the line of fire."

Those words... they were entirely too much. And he was waiting on their own Reds and Blues still located in Armonia to meet with him so that Doyle could somehow find a way to break the news to them. And Doyle was very poor at breaking bad news.

He almost overlooked as a secondary transmission began to come in, only barely managing to direct a soldier to answer the message.

"This is Artificial Intelligence Unit Epsilon from landing coordinates Juliett-Victor-Golf," a very flat, robotic tone spoke over the speakers. It was barely recognizable as the tiny blue AI Doyle had come to associate with their curious friends.

"Oh, well, carry on," Doyle spoke up, a little lost for words.

"Received information of a secondary wave of pirates headed to our location. Currently are moving out. I will personally attempt to maintain radio contact. Until contacted with different coordinates do not - I repeat, do not - send reinforcements."

"Understood more than you know," Doyle uttered, feeling the quiver of shock returning to his system. "Crash Site Bravo-"

"Breaking up. Will radio in shortly," the AI interjected before fading out.

Doyle stared at the computer, still attempting to process when the soldier turned to his side, looking seriously at the general.

"Sir?" the soldier spoke up slowly. "Does that mean that both groups we have located are now going to be at unknown coordinates? How are we supposed to bring them back if we don't know where either of them are?"

Staring back, Doyle sighed. "My dear boy," he responded, "at the moment, that is the least of my concerns."

He turned at the sound of approaching feet, his gaze meeting Donut, Lopez, and Washington as they entered the War Room, Washington looking as though he had not taken Carolina up on her advice about resting.

"Did you hear something?" Donut asked.

"Is it Tucker and Caboose?" Wash asked immediately. "The other war parties, you've heard from them?"

Doyle flinched. "I am... afraid it is news from our other fronts," Doyle said lowly. "There seems to have been a second wave of insurgents... both parties are on the move."

"Oh, gosh," Donut gasped.

"Were there any casualties?" Wash asked darkly. "We didn't have soldiers to spare."

Feeling his throat grow dry, Doyle took a deep breath. The eyes of his three guests studied him carefully.

"I am afraid there was a casualty," Doyle admitted, words fumbling.

"Did Sarge shoot Grif?" Donut asked genuinely.

"Probablemente," the robot muttered.

Wringing his hands, Doyle felt his mouth open, but nothing came out. He just stared back.

Washington's gaze became harder, more intent. "General?" he asked pointedly.

"I am afraid the singular casualty was at Crash Site Bravo..." the general continued, as prompted. "It... I am so very sorry... but it appears... the Colonel did not survive."

The three grew deathly silent.

Donut, face growing ashen, slowly tilted his head back, eyes impossibly widening. "I... I... what..."

Lopez was like a statue, not a word in response.

Washington radiated with a fearsome energy. "What?"

"I am so very sorry, but we just received the call," Doyle said, flinching at their concentrated attention. "I don't know all of the details but it was mid-transmission and... from what we do know he seemed to have... gone quickly. He was... was hit with one of the alien weapons..."

The lightish-red soldier's face broke, glassy eyes filling with tears, nose already beat red, "I... But... He... He was vaporized but... How..." He turned, face streaming with tears. "Wash?"

The black and yellow Freelancer remained very quiet, seemingly turning he information over in his head. "You're saying he was... vaporized?" Wash asked darkly.

"Yes," Doyle said, barely more than a whisper.

Without any further warning, Donut broke into a shrill cry, crumbling over and falling to his knees.

Wash, snapping out of whatever trance he had been brought into from the information, turned quickly to the other soldier, dropping to his knees beside Donut, putting a hand on he Red's back as Donut balanced his hands against the ground. "Donut, breathe," Wash directed.

The younger soldier gasped between heaves, still balling even as he leaned into Wash's chest, continuing the crying in broken gasps.

"Madre de dios," Lopez whispered at the scene.

Doyle felt much the same.

Author's Notes: Lopez translations (in order of appearance):

*"Idiotas" = "Idiots."

*"Nadie lo hace." = "Nobody does."

"Hablo de mi diversión. Es el futuro. Usted es tonto para no saber español." = "I talk for my amusement. It's the future. YOU are stupid for not knowing Spanish."

*"Idiotas" x2

*"Mierda" = "Holy shit."

"Usted es más consciente que mis creadores. Pero eso no dice mucho." = "You are more aware than my creators. But that's not saying much."

*"No importa." = "Nevermind."

*"¡Maldita sea!" = "Damn!"

"Esperaba sólo el Freelancer sobrevivió." = "I was hoping the Freelancer survived."

**** Donut translation: "Buena vista que tiene." = "Good view you have." (reality) = "Good to see you." (Donut vision)

*"Deje de insultar a mi lengua. Ya estamos utilizando traducción internet suficiente." = "Don't insult my tongue. We are using internet translation enough."

*"Ma da igual" = (roughly) "Whatever"

*"No. No con esta configuración de idioma," = "No. Not on this language setting."

*"¿El tipo que nos disparó? Sí." = "The guy who shot us? Yes."

*"¡No mames!" = "No fucking way!"