Me: You might want to reread the last chapter. I added in an segment.
Virge: Damian got shot!
Damian: God damn you.
Me: I editted it before I before I wrote this, so make sure you read it.
...
Utah's POV
Derek's friend is pretty pissed off. "D, you should be angry at Charon. They were the puppet masters." I'm guessing this is Virge's fault somehow.
"Just grab whatever you need and leave." "D" ordered. He walked back inside of the space base.
"What's his problem?" Colorado asked.
"He's pissed off at the other Derek threw him under a bus." I almost forgot that Virge was him for a while
"Who was that guy worked for Charon?" I asked.
"More or less, he was a pawn in Hargroove's games." That isn't exactly an answer. "And they played him like a damn fiddle."
...
North Carolina's POV
Dammit! Now we lost Damian too. "Nice shot, jackass! Now how are we going to get the sword!?" Felix is very pissed off at that decision.
"You could jump after him." Derek suggested. "The sword's well crafted enough to survive falling and freezing."
"He would have jumped anyway." Daniel added.
"At least we don't have to go digging him up with it." Derek noted.
"Yeah. Just imagine prying that thing from his cold, dead hands." Damian said.
"Well, I'm not digging." Felix asked.
"Then I guess you won't need a tombstone, either." I said.
"Ah shit, he's here." Daniel said.
"Surrender now or be killed." I ordered. With all our loses, if we take them in, we can at least cripple Charon's forces enough that they won't be able to finish us off. Locus would be the only leader left, and he isn't exactly a people person. All their new forces would probably turn on him, trying to get off this planet.
"Well look who it is; Agent Carolina." I really hate that guy. "Uh, which one were you again?"
"Where's your sister? Busy fighting Scar-face?" Daniel asked.
"Let's focus on you, instead." I said. "You're outmatched, and your friends aren't coming to save you."
"Then come and get me." Oh, he thinks his shield's gonna save him? I ran and punched the thing. He slid back before hitting me with the shield.
"Out of all the Freelancer's I fought, your definetly the worst fighter." Felix said.
"I can't believe they let that guy into Project Freelancer." Daniel said. "I thought they were supposed to be best of the best."
"Tell me, Agent Carolina; Where are your friends?" Felix asked.
"Right here!" Tucker and the others. Thank fuck. "Dude, you're surrounded! You've got nowhere to go!"
"Oh, come on. I was hoping one of your Freelancer buddies would come to the rescue." Felix is making me want to throw him off the cliff. "What do you think you can do?"
"We've outsmarted you!" Tucker retorted.
"Oh, I'm well aware of that, Tucker. You see, not many people get the best of me." Oh my fucking god, more monologging. "But no one gets the best of me and lives to tell about it." This time, he had purpose. Locus just got here in a Falcon.
"Ohhh, that's—that's bad." Caboose said.
"Affirmative!" Freckles added.
"He was stalling!" Doyle exclaimed.
"No shit!" I yelled.
"And you say I talk too much." Felix said.
"You do." The rest of the Mercenaries noted. They jumped onto the Falcon and retreated.
Oh crap! They have Damian on the Falcon! "Fuck!" I didn't even notice, Derek dissappeared during my confrontation. He jumped and caught him, then had Locus catch them. "Shit!" And he had the sword with him! So everything Damian did was for nothing. And Derek probably knew that would happen when he shot him. "Damn!"
Felix laughed as they flew off. "Sayonara, losers!"
"God damn it!" I am so pissed off right now! I took a rock and threw it at the falcon. I managed to knock someone out of it.
...
West's POV
It's been a few hours. We had a lot of time to relfect. "Sooo, uh... that did not go well." Grif delivered the biggest understatement of the century.
"Yeah."
"Mm-hm."
" It was real bad." Caboose said. "We found Doc." That might even be the worst part.
"Uh, Yeah." This conversation is going poorly.
"That's technically good." Simmons said.
"If you count me getting my healing unit back as good." I noted.
"Well I had a great time!" Sarge added.
"Yeah. It's not every day you get to drive in slow-motion." Mass agreed. "This was a great day on the battlefield."
"Oh, GOOD FOR YOU!" Kimball yelled.
"Unfortunately, Command can't say the same thing." RHO noted.
"He didn't give me a choice. He wanted me to go back and help lead our armies." Doyle apparently is being blamed for not doing anything to save Damian.
"So you let him give them the power to kill everyone on Chorus?!" Kimball yelled.
"Only if They kill the first person the sword came into contact with." PSI noted.
"Since I took the sword first, that means they'd have to kill me before they can use it." Doyle said.
"Great! So now we'll get to waste valuable men to guard you 24/7!" Kimball shouted.
"Well, you'd have more men if you hadn't led them all into a trap!" Doyle reminded.
"Don't you dareturn this around on me!" Kimball snapped.
"Okay, enough! You two are acting like children!" Wash put a stop to this. It's amazing how much he changed.
"HA-HA! You're immature!" If I still had standards for him, I'd tell him he was less mature than them.
"Dish-duty!" Kimball ordered.
"Fuck!" Grif yelled
"What's done is done. So let's quit focusing on what went wrong and start thinking about what we have now, and what we can start doing." When did Wash turn into such a wise leader?
"How's Church and Carolina?" I asked. We found them a little bit after we picked up everyone else. Turns out North was wrong about them being dead.
"Our dear friend Emily has assured me that Carolina will make a full recovery." Doyle reported. "In no small part thank's to the healing unit your purple friend from the caves was carrying." That's great. So he didn't manage to break it during his diemension hoping adventure. "Speaking of which, he'll also be recovering."
"Fuck!" I yelled.
"Can't win 'em all." Simmon's noted. Wait, wasn't he the one that said saving Doc was good news?
"I'm more interested in what happened to Epsilon. Carolina's armor suffered complete shutdown." RHO said.
"Up until now, there has never been a single report of equipment related armor failures; Something is wrong with him specifically, and he isn't telling us what." PSI said.
"What do you think it could be?" Mass asked.
"We have compiled a number of theories of what could have caused it." RHO said.
"File corruption caused by forced removal during our first visit to crash site Alpha, Damage caused indirectly by Santa while agent Carolina was being tested, Virge and Cabooses tampering with his memories, and Rampancy are the most probable causes." PSI said.
"I thought fragments were immune to Rampancy." Wash said. I destictively remember Sigma acting weird after that. I'm pretty sure that was when he turned evil.
"Yes. Theoretically. Epsilon isn't a traditional fragment. He is Alpha and the Omega. All the fragments as a single enity, but also a separate one. He is the closest to a complete AI we have." PSI explained. "Which is why we're concerned. We don't know if it's him being fragmented or nearly whole that is causing the problem."
"Sounds kinda like Virge." Tucker noted.
"Speaking of him, which one did we grab?" Sarge asked. North Carolina managed to knock him out of a Falcon.
"We don't know yet. He apparently locked up his armor to make sure we don't take it. We'd have to give him an AI to override it." Wash explained.
"And we know that's a danger risk to take." I added.
"With what we've seen, it's probably Derek; Virge wouldn't have killed Damian." I said.
"I don't know. Killing Damian him to take the sword himself would make it easier to steal from them." Mass noted.
"He'd never. Virge doesn't kill anyone. Just hurt them really, really bad." I know Virge. He's practically my brother!
"He's changed since we got here. You admitted that." Mass is trying to use my words against me?!
"Is Derek anymore likely to shoot his own brother than Virge?" Wash asked. "Both of them are dangerously unpredictable, and to irrationonal to understand. It's more important we figure who's side he's on than argue over whether or not he's who we think he is." Ok, if Wash keeps dooing this, I'm going to lose my mind again.
"Well, if you want my tactical assessment—" Sarge want's to speak.
"We don't." Grif imterrupted.
"It looks to me like we've got to get to the alien-phone-tower-thingy, pronto! Make a collect call to Earth." Sarge continued. "Dial 1-800-Send-ships-and-kill-pirates! Standard text-messaging rates apply."
"Are you done?" Wash asked.
"I'll think of more." The colonel replied.
"Next time we plan, we should have better plan of attack than 'Attack!'." I explained.
"I couldn't agree more." Doyle agrees with me? I think this is the first time in the war room that ever happened.
"Well, we can't just sit here and wait for Charon to attack!" Kimball yelled.
"Why not? It's heavily fortified and the city reactor rules out the risk of aerial bombings. Our alien artifacts are no good to Charon post-explosion, my dear." Doyle replied.
"Then they'll surround us and wait for our supplies to run dry. Jesus, don't you think about any of this?!" Kimball is still pissed.
"So, you suggest we throw Tucker out there to search for the tower? They'll kill him, and then they'll have two Swords!" Doyle noted.
"Hey, I could make it... maybe." Tucker interjected. I wouldn't put money on it if my life depended.
"I don't have all of the answers, General, but I do know that sometimes you have to risk lives if you want to see results. Even your own. Especially your own. You should have been there, protecting Damian, instead of letting him face them on his own because you were too scared to help him!" Kimball ranted. From what I know of Damian (and the Stark's in general), he'd sooner die for his cause, than abandon it. When I'd first met him, he wouldn't have even gone to Armonia to save everyone. He hated them because in his eyes, everyone was his enemy. But when he realized he was just a puppet, his views changed. He realized that they'd all been on the same the whole time. They just didn't know the enemy was right next to them. After he learned the truth, he realized the people of Chorus were dying for. And that's what he did.
"Kimball!"
"This meeting is over." She left.
"Now, we don't have a plan, and the armies might split up." Mass noted.
"Sooo, uh... that didn't really go well either." Grif, Master of understatement.
"She's right, though." And Doyle's leaving too.
"Where are you going?!" Wash asked.
"My quarters. I'm a failure of a General, and apparently a failure of a human being. Should any of you actually need me, you know where to find me." Doyle announced.
"Actually, I don't think you ever told us where your quarters are." Simmons noted.
"Well then, I'm a failure at leaving, too!" Damn, Doyle. Damn.
"Well, shit." Tucker said.
"I say forget the both of them. If they don't want to run this show, then we'll just do it for them." Sarge said. That sounds reasonable. "First order of business: Red uniforms!" Ah, there it is. I was wondering hiw long until he goes against the blues.
"Damian was the glue holding the alliance together. Now that he's dead, they don't have anyone to trust." Mass noted.
"Well, it took us ages before we were able to trust the Blues." Simmons said.
"Yeah, and some of us are still working on it." Grif added. Sarge was resisting the urge to shoot Caboose as we speak.
"We don't have the time to make them start trusting each other." PSI noted.
"We're going to have to find a way, or none of us are getting off this planet." I said.