Red vs. Blue: The Spartan Rejects
Episode 10: Hurtin'

A squad of security personnel lurked in every nook and cranny of the Dawn's hallways. They were searching high and low, looking out for that one fugitive that got away. Male, big eyes, short light brown hair, gray and yellow attire. Piece of cake, right? Well, it would have been…if it weren't for the millions of other crewman that looked just like him.

"Are all of these guys clones?" one security guard cried as a line of identical crewman ambled by him.

"Some are," another guard said, stopping each person to inspect their ID numbers, "Just get them to speak. The brass says he's the only one with an annoying voice."

Fuck you, Darth Vader. Vic stuck his tongue out and made a face, ridiculing the guard from behind a corner. When he saw a few other guards heading toward him, he strafed into a niche in the wall and held his breath, using a rack of crewman jumpsuits as camouflage. After the guards went past, Vic sighed. If I keep hanging around, they're gonna catch me for sure. I gotta get off this ship.

"Psst! Hey!"

The radio support turned his head this way and that, "Huh?"

"Yeah you, blinky! Down here!"

Vic glimpsed downward and saw something concealed in a jumpsuit pant-leg. It rolled out and sneezed, going about in a rudely boisterous New Yorker accent, "Ah-choo! Man! Whoever wore dis, never heard of soap! Schoo-wee!"

"Heyyy! Well if it isn't my undead pal Andy!" Vic grinned, bent down, and picked up the globular brown bomb, "How'd you survive, dude? I thought you blew up back in Blood Gulch!"

"Andy? …Oh, I get it. If I'm a talkin' bomb, I MUST be Andy! Cocksucker. I ain't Andy! I'm his cousin! Francis Martinez Renee Nikolas Cinque Jiao Yamagata III," the bomb bounced animatedly in his hands.

Vic mused with one arm folded and his forefinger and thumb at his chin, "Hmm, that's some name you got there, dude."

"Ehh, just call me Francis."

"Over here! I think I heard something!" The footfalls of numerous boots sadly cut short their acquaintanceship. Vic yipped, almost dropping Francis, "Yuh-oh!"

This slipup caused the blustering bomb to grumble, "S'wrong witchu?"

The petrified radio support retorted, his throat constricted, "T-The guards are after me!"

"Guards…?"

Then a yell came, "Hold it right there!"

With or without an explanation, the look on Vic's face was enough to make Francis perceive this as a vital threat, one that must be dealt with now. He did a fast twirl in Vic's palms and shouted, "Well don't just stand there, ya frozen dick! Run!"

Taking his words to heart, Vic turned tail and tore down the hall. By that time, though, the guards had poured in from the opposite end and have marked their target. "Subject is on the run. Tase him." At the behest of their senior officer, a single guard aimed his taser weapon at the square of Vic's back and fired.

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

You and Tex are not together anymore. That was just an excuse for Keyes. That's right. Just an excu—

"Huh?" Church dashed past the medical bay, skidded to a halt, and backed up to peer through the open doorway, "Doc?"

Hearing his name called, Doc looked up and around, then laid eyes on the cobalt soldier hanging by the entrance. The purple medic cracked a smile and flagged him over with a welcoming hand, "Oh, hey, Church! Come here! I—I mean, we—got something to show you."

When Church came up beside Doc, he was greeted by a pair of stoned Grunts. "Hola amigo! This a friend of yours, Doc?" the crimson one giggled, swinging his breather mask about like a flask.

"You bet he is! His name's Church," the medic introduced, hooked his unpleasant-looking friend around the shoulders, and drew him closer to the giddy pair.

"Huh…'ey, Rarag!" the crimson Grunt bumped his orange colleague, "C'mere an' meet our new pal Church!"

The one regarded as Rarag pulled his face from his breather mask with a "pok!" and said lethargically, "Chaaa? You said somethin', Silsip?"

Church frowned. Something was obviously wrong with these Grunts. For one thing, they didn't up and scatter at the sight of him, the usual reaction of all Grunts when seeing a towering Spartan. It's like these guys are out of energy or are suffering from aspirin overdose or…

"Doc. What did you do to them?"

"Do what?"

"That stuff they're inhaling," Church gestured at the Grunts' breather masks, "That's not methane, is it?"

Insulted, Doc huffed, "Not methane? Wha—Are you suggesting I gave them the incorrect gas? Th-That—That hurts my feelings, Church. That hurts my feelings. A-As much as I'm aware of my incompetence on the battlefield, I assure you I know my way around the medical bay." To prove his case, he crossed the bay to another worktable, picked up a rotund canister, and flashed the label at the cobalt soldier. "See this? It says 'meth—" he did a double-take at the label and blanched at his error, "Oh. 'Benzene'…Oops."

Waving a hand at the two Grunts, Church said in disbelief, "So this is what you wasted my time for? To show me a couple of stoned aliens?"

"Hardly! Take a look at this," Doc sat him down in front of a standard-sized monitor and typed various buttons on the keyboard, "These Grunts were sent to relay this video to their leaders. But, as you can see, I kinda accidentally got them to show the video to me."

The shape of a small, dark triangular spacecraft filled the screen. Church squinted his eyes at it, then spoke flatly to the medic on his right, "Soooo? It's just a Longsword."

Doc's smile did a 180, "It's not just a Longsword. Look again." In the video, the near-invisible craft pitched into the wake of a Covenant Loyalist ship and trailed after it through a portal, the same portal they used to travel to this unknown construct. "Our Covenant allies caught this unregistered ship entering the Earth's atmosphere. They tried hailing to it, but there was no response. Before they could stop it, the ship had disappeared into the Portal."

Church's confused expression cued Doc to explain his discovery, "They detected the bio-signs of an alien, a half alien/half human, and another human aboard that ship."

This information sunk into Church's skull like a rock. "Tex!" he widened his eyes and glanced back at the monitor, "O'Malley brought her here!" What luck, a lead!

"Yes, but after they went through the Portal, the Covenant lost track of them. O'Malley could've taken them anywhere on that alien structure."

Church chewed on his tongue, "Eh, that's all right. I'll find him somehow."

"So does that mean you're going to do this by yourself?"

"No way. That'll take too long," the Blue leader dismissed the idea, "Tucker's abomination of nature was captured as well, so he should be more than happy to help."

Doc then pointed out, "But Tucker's already left with the other troops."

"What?"

"Tucker didn't tell you? …Ohhh, I see! Someone's forgotten to turn on their TEAMCOM!" the medic said in singsong voice.

"Aw, fuckberries."

"Ooh, language!" the jovially high Grunts chided.

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

: ENROUTE TO CARTOGRAPHER, UNKNOWN CONSTRUCT

When the last enemy fell, Johnson, riding inside a Pelican, announced through his COM, "LZ's clear. Commander, bring her down."

"Roger that. Beginning my descent," Keyes' voice replied.

Wind churned around the troop of Marines and Spartans, kicking up dust and debris with a powerful gale. Painfully recalling the time when a ship landed on him, Donut unconsciously backed up to the farthest end of the landing zone. While everybody ducked for cover, the unmistakable form of Forward Unto Dawn whooshed overhead and swooped down to land. Sarge whistled, holding a hand to his eyelevel, "Pretty good driving for a lil' lady. Eh?" He looked to the side and recognized the speck that is Donut on the horizon. "How'd the John Wayne did he get over there so fast?"

After the Dawn obtained a decent site on the plateau, Keyes' voice spoke again on the COM, addressing the Master Chief, "Thanks, Chief. I wouldn't have lasted much longer up there. Come to the back of the frigate."

As they waited for the Chief, Grif entertained himself by hitting his waning force shield against a boulder. "Cheap-as-fart shield. No wonder those Jackal guys keep dying. This thing can only take a few hits!"

"Maybe if you try not destroying it, it might actually last a bit longer," advised Simmons.

Along with three Scorpion tanks and a Warthog, Church dropped out of the Dawn's hangar. He quickly scanned the landing zone and found the Red team lounging near some rocks. Donut just walked in beside them, appearing fairly windswept. "Ah! Hey, Reds!" he called as he hurried over to them.

Sarge glimpsed up and grimaced, like if seeing something gross at the bottom of his shoe, "Hm? Oh. What do you want now, Blue?"

Grif resumed slapping his shield on stuff, not bothering to look at the cobalt soldier, "If this is another help-me-stop-the-Flood favor, you can forget it. In fact, any favor that requires work, you can forget that too."

"No, it's Tucker. Do you know where he is?"

"Do I look like your babysitter?" Sarge brusquely responded, his hand on his hip, "I don't watch namby-pamby Blues. I hunt 'um, gut 'um, and eat 'um for breakfast!"

Contrary to the Red leader's aggressive front, his pink subordinate answered with pure frankness, "He's right behind us with the rest of the Blues. If you wait here, you should see him soon." Such a breach in protocol alarmed the red sergeant so much that Church almost thought the old guy popped an artery. "D-Donut!" Sarge spluttered, "Don't you know you're assisting the enemy?"

"What enemy, Sarge?" Grif inquired innocently, pretending to scout the plateau.

"The Blues! The Blues, fragnabbit!" The scene was as comical as watching a stomping and steaming Yosemite Sam screaming at his two dumb henchmen. "Simmons! Remind them what we are fighting against!" Sarge desperately summoned the aid of his sycophantic second-in-command.

The maroon soldier complied, "Yes, sir. Ahem…Grif, Donut, our enemy is the Covenant Loyalists."

"…And…?" the ruddy sergeant growled under breath, irritation seething from that one word.

"Oh, yes, and the Flood, if they should ever show their ugly mugs," Simmons finished, putting a fist into his other palm, "They're tough and scary, but dumb as hell. So let's kick ass and stay alive, okay?"

"Okay!" Grif and Donut assented in unison.

"NO!" Sarge bellowed, "No no no no no no NO! Rrrr, that does it! All of you! Go read the manual! And once you're done, drop and gimme a hundred while saying 'I hate Blues.' And you…!" He then rounded on Church, wagging a threatening finger at him, "Don't think I'll forget this!" And with that, he stormed away, dragging his men with him as he went.

Church sweatdropped, "Ooookay…" He gazed about and saw most of the Marines and ODSTs have also left. Only a handful of bored soldiers and the Dawn linger on the plateau. In waiting for his Blue teammates to arrive, he sat down on a rock and began to idly scroll through the data chip he still kept from Dr. Pavlovla. He knew he should've turned the chip in to Keyes, but he was curious. If he had told the commander about the chip, she would've confiscated it, ending the likelihood of him learning more of the late doctor's hidden secrets. It's huge risk he's taking, but as someone who's already dead, who gives a damn?

There's my profile, SPARTAN-413. How in the—She's got my whole life's story in here! And here are the others. Tucker, Caboose, Sarge…Hey. I wonder if this file has Sarge's real name in it…Darn it. I don't have the clearance to open it.

He then came up to an extensive list of files, all of which are classified in bold red letters as "RESTRICTED."

What's this…?

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

: CARTOGRAPHER TERMINAL RM

A foursome of shaded figures hopped down from the rafters into the unoccupied room below. Just as predicted, all of the Brute guards seem to have been positioned outside of the room. Even then, they can't take any chances. For the operation to succeed, it must go unnoticed.

"Mwahahaha…At last! The Cartographer! Careful now. They have an awfully heavy patrol outside, so we'd best be quiet. That goes double for you, Tex dear."

"Go fuck yourself," spat the freelancer.

Lopez jerked the connecting energy chain downward, bringing the three prisoners to their knees. Junior and the other Elite warbled angrily, "Blarg! Honk honk! Wort wort wort!" Paying them no heed, the brown Spartan hung over a defiant Tex and took her roughly by the chin.

"You know, if you don't cooperate, I'll have to kill you. And, to tell you the truth, I'd really hate to have to waste one of my Reclaimers."

Tex ripped her chin from his hand and shot back, "I'd rather die than help you!"

The robot straightened up, "Well, after I activate the Halos, you can do just that. But for now…" Pulling them toward the Cartographer's terminal, Lopez shoved Tex forward. "Find me the Control Center!"

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

"Ahh, crud," Church gave in, lying his back against another boulder. Hacking was not his specialty. "I should've asked Simmons to stay. I could use a computer nerd right now."

Just then, a body collapsed beside him. WHUMP! Church nearly fell off his rock, "WTF?"

"Crawling…Weak from lack of fluid…Water…Water…" croaked Caboose his script lines as he rigidly crawled for Church, who in turn was staring at him with a funny face, "…"

"Caboose, you just had water five minutes ago," Tucker walked up next to the prone Blue and prodded him in the side with his foot.

"I know," Caboose's frailty was immediately replaced by a grin, "I just wanted to show Church my desert act. Mommy and Daddy wanted me to go into acting, but I wasn't very good at it, so they thought I'd do better in the army. So what do you think, Church?" He looked to his indifferent friend.

Church glanced aside and itched the back of his neck, "Well, let's just say I wasn't convinced enough to give you any water, and could've just left you there dying of thirst."

Sister then questioned him, "Where have you been anyway? You just missed the awesomest ride ever!"

"Awesome, as in, we almost fell out of the stupid Pelican three times," her aqua companion disagreed.

"But that's what made it awesome!"

"Hey, guys, I need y'all to focus," Church snapped his fingers to stop their chatter, "Tucker, I think I know how to find Tex and your atrocious kid."

Tucker flared up, "Hey! Don't call my kid that! He takes after me!"

"Your kid looks nothing like you!…Alright, alright, so he has the same color armor, fine, but just listen," the cobalt Spartan said edgily, "O'Malley brought them here, but I don't know exactly where. So we're going to need a map."

Caboose eagerly proposed, "Ooh! I could get one at the local 7-11."

"Do they still call it '7-11'? I thought it's called 'Valero' now," Tucker cut in.

Sister joined into the confusion, "But I thought Valero took over Diamond Shamrock."

Church was at the end of his rope. He went through a couple pauses before shouting, "I don't think, I've heard anything so pointless—There's no convenient stores on an alien structure, guys!"

Caboose murmured quietly, like a child claiming to monsters under his bed, "…But I saw one back there…"

"Hurrghh," Church rubbed his face in frustration and rounded on Caboose, "Look, I don't really need your delusions right now. Why don't you make yourself useful and go…play in the sand."

"But there's no sand."

"The rocks then!"

"But you're sitting on them—"

"The fucking pebbles!"

"…But the wind blew them away."

"JUST…go…play," Church glared, his eyes fiery and teeth gnashing.

After Caboose sadly plodded off somewhere, Tucker and Sister apprehensively gazed over at their volcanic leader. Tension mounted in Tucker's voice as he spoke, "You okay? I mean, you're not gonna go…crazy on us again, are you?"

"I-I'm good, I, I brought something," Church un-pocketed a clown stress toy, rapidly squeezed it, and thickly exhaled. The rosy color washed out from his cheeks and his squeezing gradually slowed. The toy looked like it had seen better days. Both aqua and yellow soldiers glanced at each other with uncertainty. But before either person could voice their concern, Church persisted in the outline of their plan. "Right. The map. We need to get to the Cartographer…"

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

"You suck at runnin'."

Vic and Francis sat side by side on a stone cold bunk. Their new "home", or so the Marines have put it, was a plain gray titanium box painted with the ever ubiquitous UNSC logos on each wall. Ordinarily, they would seal the box off with a vibrantly transparent force field so that they can keep the prisoners under constant surveillance. But with the presence of a disgruntled and very volatile bomb, they thought it would be better if they cram them into the more sturdier, bomb-proofed solitary confinement cell.

"To hell wit dis," Francis rolled off the bunk and banged himself against the door, "Hey, comb-ova! I want my phone call!"

Not really fond of his rude remark, the balding guard outside bit back with a sneer, "Sorry. No calls for nonhumans."

"Who are you trying to call, dude?" Vic came up and crouched beside Francis, who replied, "Our lawyer." The radio support pondered this for a second and couldn't recall ever affording one. When he turned to question his cellmate about their so-called lawyer, a muffled ruckus issued from outside. Some shots were fired. "Wuzz goin'…?" Vic pressed his ear against the door just in time to hear a sonorous laser-like zap, a long drawn out scream, and a conclusive silence. Only an alien hum remained.

That hum then amplified as it moved for their cell. On impulse, the two inmates backed away from the door. "I got bad feeling about this, dude…" Vic scooped the bomb up from the floor and held it tight to his chest. The same laser they heard before shot at the cell door and carved it open. What's left of the door fell down like thin sheets of plating. Vic recoiled, squatting in the corner with his hands whipped over his head, "Eyaahhh! Don't hurt me, dude! I'm unarmed! Uhh…The bomb is just a prop!"

Francis wasn't very amused of this lie, "PROP? How 'bout I blow up now, huh? Rain yo' guts all ova tha galaxy an' shit—!"

"Francis. Vic."

The two inmates looked up from their squabbling and laid their eyes (if Francis had any) on a floating red alien cube. "Dude…That voice! You're…!" Vic slowly recognized.

"No time to talk, friends. We have much to do."

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

SCHOOP…POOM!

A large crystal shard exploded a few feet from Donut. "Eep!" he cringed from his spot, fragments of rock and metal plinking off his armor like coins. Turning his head toward his leader, he mewled, "Uhh, Sarge? Why are we doing pushups in the middle of battle?" A tungsten shell whizzed over their heads and blew a Shade to bits.

"Why? I'll tell you why! To pay for your ignorance! And to fuel your anger so you can channel it at the Blues!" Sarge spoke as if the reason was obvious, "It's a known fact that the mind and body is strengthened when put through intense physical and psychological punishment, especially when one is in perilous circumstances. The result is high-quality Efficient killing machines! What you're doing makes perfect sense!"

When another shell rocketed by them a few yards away, a terrified Simmons objected, "But how're we supposed to defend ourselves, sir?"

The red sergeant offhandedly primed his shotgun, "What do you think I'm standing here for, Simmons? I can't afford to lose my only killing machines. I can spare Grif though. He needs to die."

Behind him, a group of Grunt Minors were kicking Grif while he was attempting to do a pushup, "Ow."

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

The Blue team didn't have much to worry about. Most of the vicinity was clear of Covenant activity. There are, however, a minor number of stragglers that would crop up every now and then, making it the Blue team's chore to mop up the mess on their way to the Cartographer.

"Um, Sister?" Tucker approached his yellow comrade as they snacked on their protein bars, "Do you think Caboose has been, I dunno, looking kinda down nowadays?"

Sister munched on her bar and observed Caboose's hunched form from afar, "Well, yeah. Church just yelled at him two minutes ago."

"Before that. Like, he's been sorta depressed or something ever since that thing on Mars."

"Oh. Well, pretty much almost everybody there died except us, and the doc lady died too, so…"

"That's true…"

While the two Spartans stared at Caboose, Church nonchalantly browsed the files of his data chip. Periodically, he would enter a guesstimated password, just to see if he might, by a fluke, access the restricted documents. But after lots of guessing, he gave up and decided to ask for advice. "Hey, guys. What's an eight-letter password that the doc lady could've used?"

"Password," all three of his teammates chorused.

Church was taken aback by their fast answer, "What?"

"The password has to be 'password'," Tucker firmly established, "Just like how the access code has to be 'access code'. Every Red and Blue knows that!"

"But…! Passwords are supposed to be hard to crack! Numbers mixed with letters! This is ONI encrypted top secret information for crying out loud!"

Sister laughed, "Yeah. And we were supposed to be the greatest human weapon in the universe."

Church shook his head, "Whatever. I'm just gonna try it, but I don't think it's gonna—Holy shit, it worked."

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

It didn't look like the Scarab was going to let them off easy this time. The mammoth Covenant walker winded its way down the side of the Cartographer building and onto the battlefield, squashing anyone or anything that crosses its path.

Posted as the Gauss Warthog's gunner, Master Chief led the assault against it. The task was to take out the Scarab's engine core, a job the Chief was becoming quite accustomed to. Thankfully, the three Scorpion tanks that Keyes had imparted to them provided excellent cover fire, keeping the Brute Choppers at bay while he moves in to board the "colossus."

"I don't know what I've been told,

Shootin' Grif is never old!

Sound off!"

CHPOW!

"OWH! Sarge! I almost got one pushup down!"

But the sergeant wasn't listening. Rocking back and forth, sitting on top of Grif's back, he was once again reminiscing on old times. "Y'know, back in my day, we used to line up all the useless soldiers on the fence and pop 'em one by one…"

"Sarge! Scarab!" Simmons hollered.

While humming "Clementine," Sarge pulled out a M41. Just as the Scarab walked over them, he fired at a small blue square right below the joint of one of the legs, crippling it with ease.

"?" Master Chief roved the Gauss cannon in the direction of the blast sound and saw the group of Reds, all of whom were in the middle of what appears to be physical training.

"What…?" Master Chief blinked, then remembered his mission and swiveled his weapon back. An earsplitting boom and a jagged bump told him that they just narrowly evaded a shot from the Scarab's main plasma cannon. "Get us in closer!" the rocket-armed Marine passenger instructed the driver. When they were practically right next to the Scarab, the Chief and the Marine combined their attacks and disabled another joint. The colossus teetered on its unbalanced weight and clumsily sunk to the ground. "Yeahah! Suck on that, bitch!" the Marine hooted.

Scaling into the Scarab wasn't a problem. Searching for the engine core wasn't a problem either. The things that could pose as a problem are…

"I SMELL HUMAN!"

Five minutes later…

"It's no fair," Grif complained, "We did the distracting and he takes all the credit for it!"

The sullen group of Reds, except Sarge, watched with envious eyes as the Marines hailed the Chief. Behind them were the smoky charred remains of the Scarab. "Well, you can't really blame him. He did jump into the Scarab, killed every enemy inside, and blew the whole thing to smithereens," Donut pointed out, albeit, a bit reluctantly.

The orange Spartan then turned on him, "Oh, so now you're backing him up? After doing a hundred pushups in the middle of a warzone, nearly getting shot and stepped on by an alien behemoth, AND almost got caught in an explosion?"

"If there is anyone you should be mad at, Grif, it's you-know-who," Simmons nodded his head toward Sarge's back. Apparently unaware of their mutinous mumblings, the sergeant was busy reloading his shotgun. Sliding the last bullet home, he wheeled about and commanded, "Up and at 'em, Reds! We're movin' out!"

Reds, schmeds, Grif scoffed inwardly, As if that team ever existed…

OOOoooOOOoooOOO

: To be continued…