A/N: Hello all and welcome to chapter 35. You ever wonder why we're here? One of life's greatest mysteries.

Paradox Effect

Summary: Dying sucked. Dying and being killed by the same teammate again? That sucked even more. Dying and being thrown back into Blood Gulch as a girl? That REALLY sucked. Now, Leona Church will have to deal with Tucker's perverted looks, Caboose's stupidity, and worst of all, Tex's laughter…

*Chapter 35*

Leona stood with the rest of Blue Team (and York) on top of Blue Base, armed in case the Reds tried another one of their stupid stunts. Christmas or not, she wouldn't put it past them to try something along the lines of crashing into their fucking base with the Warthog again.

Seriously, did they not know how much work it was to get those dents out of steel? It sucked. And when she called Command for help with the repairs, they pretty much told her to fuck off. Useless assholes. Fuck this goddamn canyon.

"Well, it's finally here," Tucker muttered, kicking a rock off the top of the base out of boredom. "Gotta say, this whole Christmas shit is a lot more boring than I thought. Isn't this supposed to be some giant holiday or something?"

"Yeah well, we didn't exactly have a lot to work with," York muttered. "I'm good but I'm no miracle worker." The tree leaned to the left and he groaned as another stolen ornament crashed to the ground, shattering. "I'm so not cleaning that up."

Yeah, okay, maybe Tucker had a point. This Christmas definitely sucked.

Still. Could be worse.

"So…anyone have anything they want to give as a gift?" Leona asked wearily. "No Church, I'm not asking anything from you. Your idea of a present is to tell me to go fuck myself."

"I thought you didn't have any trouble with that?" Tucker snorted.

"York, get my gun." Leona glared.

"You're holding it," the Freelancer deadpanned.

Oh. Right.

"York, I'm going to need you to commence Operation: Point My Gun At Tucker," Leona said.

"But, uh, Leona?" York smirked. "Operation: Point My Gun At Tucker was just another code word for Operation: Point My Gun At Caboose."

Fuck.

"Commence Operation: Point My Gun At Caboose, then," she snapped.

"Sorry, but that one is exactly what it sounds like." York let out a bark of laughter.

Double fuck. She just couldn't fucking win for once in her goddamn life.

"I hate all of you," she deadpanned. "I really, fucking do. How is it that somehow this is the shittiest excuse for a holiday known to man?"

"Uh, the Reds exist. And their holiday is a lot worse than ours. At least we have decorations." York watched as a second ornament fell. "And a tree."

"That you stole," Leona reminded. "While you already have a bounty on your head."

"Oh give me a break. The Director hired Wyoming to do the job. I guarantee that moustached prick doesn't want to be involved in this shit anymore than I do," he grumbled.

"You sure about that? After he threatened to kill you?" Somehow, Leona was skeptical of that. Her bullshit meter wasn't buying any of it.

"I know him. Just offer him some beer and a pretty girl's company for a night and he'll shut up about it." York rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that look; it worked back in Project Freelancer when he wouldn't stop complaining about being stranded on Emerald Cove. You remember that one?"

"No. Mind reminding me?"

"I love story time! It comes right before nap time!" Caboose was way too happy. "I'll go find cookies and warm milk!"

York, Leona, and Tucker watched him disappear into Blue Base and reappear in the span of about five seconds. How the hell he managed that, she'd never understand. Nor care to.

At the end of the day, she just fucking worked here. End of story.

York cleared his throat and began his story. "So, about maybe five or six years ago, the Director of Project Freelancer sent myself, Tex, Wyoming, Wash, and Massa to Emerald Cove on a mission to retrieve some artifact from a splinter group of the Covenant. We retrieved the damn thing, but our ship took too much damage and we crashed on one of the islands. All of us survived, though some of us didn't take too kindly to sitting around on an island in the middle of nowhere with fuck all to do. Massa and Wash took up surfing of all things. Tex was…well, Tex. I just enjoyed the sun. Wyoming…lost his shit."

"Go on." Leona waved her hand for him to continue. This sounded like good blackmail material right here.

"Wyoming found every possible explosive from the wreck and when we were rescued, he detonated them all at once." York laughed. "It was a beautiful explosion. The Director even saw it from orbit. He thought we were under attack at first and had the ship fire a MAC round just to be safe. When we got back, Wyoming wouldn't stop bitching. I smuggled some beer in and got him a night with a lucky girl. He shut up after that."

"Yikes. How hard was it to explain that one?"

"That's why we had Wash explain. We didn't want to deal with it."

Now that was actually believable. Wyoming losing his mind and blowing up an island? That seemed like a bit of a stretch. "Uh, Delta? Did that actually happen or is he just bullshitting me? Because somehow I find that really hard to believe."

"I can confirm that Agent York's story checks out," Delta replied promptly, a flash of green hovering above York's shoulder. "I do not blame you on your skepticism, though. Several times, it has been known for York to…exaggerate a bit."

"It was one time and it was to prove a point on how dense Wash was," York grumbled indignantly. "Shut up, D."

"Logging off." Delta vanished.

Leona could practically hear the crickets chirping with how quiet it was and she turned to her perverted aqua teammate. "Hey, Tucker? Where the hell is Tex? I thought she was just going to get something. It's been like thirty minutes."

"Dude, I don't know. I don't wanna disturb her and someone has to keep York sane," he said. "You wanna take this one while I keep Caboose occupied?"

"Sure." Leona rolled her eyes. "Just convince him that dirt tastes like chocolate or something, I don't fucking know." 'If it means I don't have to deal with Bluetard for a few minutes, I'll take it.'

Jumping down from the top of the base she went on inside, putting her rifle away. Seeing as the Reds had yet to try anything and it was already the afternoon, chances were they weren't going to attempt anything stupid and spoil their holiday.

"Tex? Tex? Where the hell are you?" the blue-haired woman asked. "We're waiting on you before we start celebrating."

"In here!" She heard the blonde yell from her room and Leona sighed. What the hell could she possibly be looking for in there? It wasn't like she didn't clean it or anything. Compared to the rest of Blue Base it was relatively tidy, though to be fair that wasn't exactly saying much.

With a roll of her eyes she pushed open the door. "Tex, what the fu—"

The blue haired woman stopped dead in her tracks. On her knees with nothing but a red ribbon covering her assets was Tex, the blonde slowly licking her lips. "Merry Christmas~. You going to unwrap your present or no~?"

Leona glanced behind her to check if anyone was coming in after to her before turning back to Tex. Maybe this holiday wouldn't suck so much after all.

A/N: Well, the news. I have my own discord server that I manage (so far only a small group, but all are welcome to join. We're fans of casual shittalk so be warned, but we're chill boys and girls.

My discord server: /natnWXjCMB

-Classiest#8332