Author's Note: I'm not dead, I promise! It was my first semester at a four year university, just transferred from a CC and it hit me like a truck. Also, on a side note, don't take your student councilor's word for it. If a professor consistently scores a 1.5/5 on ratemyprofessor, that is a huge red flag and you should pick the different teacher. My councilor told me it didn't matter, fuck that, yes it does. Anyway, I have never felt so drained from school before, like damn. I managed to complete this chapter despite all that and I hope I can get back on a schedule guys.
Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.
Zero to Sixty
"Yeah I'll let you in on a little secret," Church said as he leaned in a little, "I've uh... I've actually got a girl back home."
Lockett had no idea how, but the conversation had swept into the topic of relationships.
"Oh yeah? Girlfriend or wife?" Tucker asks.
Church shook his head bashfully and replied "No, man, she's just my girlfriend, ya know? We were gonna get married, but I got shipped out... ah, you know how it works."
"Oh, well, you gonna marry her when you get back?" asks Tucker.
Before Church could answer, Caboose off-handedly commented "I'm not gonna get married. My dad always said, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?""
"Hey, rookie," Church shot the recruit a death glare and hisses "Did you just call my girlfriend a cow?""
"Your dad's divorced right?" asks Lockett.
"Yep!" Caboose chirps, "He has split custody!"
"That's where he got it from," Lockett murmurs to Tucker, he then turns to Church who was slowly stewing in his anger and says "I give you props for how quickly you jumped in to defend your girlfriend's honor."
Church blinks slightly in confusion as she shifts his gaze onto his team leader.
"On another note," Lockett turns quickly back to Caboose, "If that is your dad's common outlook in life, probably should take anything he says with a grain of salt." He then continues "Most cases, you shouldn't treat women like that….in fact you shouldn't treat most people like that."
Caboose nods in affirmation.
"Anyway, Church," Locket snaps back to the cobalt soldier, "He didn't call your girlfriend a cow, his dad called ALL women cows." He turns his head slightly and asks "Caboose, do you think girls are cows?"
"Uh, no," Caboose nervously replies.
"See," shrugs Lockett, "At least he didn't call her one directly her one."
Church gapes at him and then asks "How is he unintentionally calling my girlfriend a cow any better than if he did it on purpose?"
Lockett stares blankly for a moment before he sheepishly replies "You got me."
A brief silence permeated the group and Locket ultimately decided maybe it was best if Caboose left the situation.
"Hey Caboose."
"Yes sergeant?" Caboose blinks.
"It's almost 11," he tells the young private, "What don't you go get lunch ready."
"Okay," Caboose nods, he takes a step forward and then stops and turns and begins to ask something. "Do you want me to…."
"Nah," Lockett shook his head, "Just grab a box of MREs from the store room, I won't trouble you since you haven't off-loaded all the equipment yet."
"Alright, be right back," he announces before running off to the base.
At that point, Tucker decided continue the conversation by simply asking "How about you Lockett, you got a girl?"
Locket replies "No, no girlfriend right now but I did, met her on my first deployment."
"Oh, that's cool," Tucker's eyes lit up for a moment and he commented.
"Yeah, I was deployed to this planet called Chorus, near the outer colonies. Got word of an advanced Covenant scouting party," he explains, "She was part of the colonial defense and we hit it off pretty quick."
"Why'd you break up, sounds like you two were pretty happy?" asks Tucker curiously.
"The war happened man," Locket smiles sadly, "She had obligations to defend her home and the army needed me elsewhere."
This time, Church spoke up and asked "You ever going to see her again?"
Locket thought about it for a moment before nodding and saying "Yeah, when I get out I'll visit the planet and see if she's made it, but I don't plan on restarting the relationship if that's what you're asking."
"Why not?" asks the Church.
Lockett shrugs "It's not something I want, it's been years and thinking about it starts to bring up old demons that I'd prefer stayed buried."
Caboose whistled a soft tune as he hauled the box out from the base and out into the canyon, so far his impression of the place was kind of nice. I mean sure he had a rough start with him accidentally insulting Church's girlfriend, but over all he can't really complain for his first deployment.
"Um, excuse me," a voice suddenly calls out, snapping Caboose out of his thoughts.
Caboose looks around him and spots a soldier and red armor who had managed to sneak up on the unsuspecting blue.
"Um, hello," a surprised but still friendly Caboose greets, he didn't know anyone else was coming to the base, maybe this person was important. "How can I help you?"
"Do you guys have any elbow grease?" the man asks.
"Elbow grease?" Caboose murmurs confusedly, he didn't know elbow grease was actually something you could buy. He shook his head "I don't….think so."
"Oh," the man comments, he then asks, "How about head-light fluid?"
That sounded alien to Caboose as well.
He shrugs and says "You're welcome to look in the store." He jerks his head back the way he ame and says, "It's straight down the hall."
"Alright, thanks," with that, the red soldier left Caboose and proceeded down the empty hall. "He was nice," he muses to himself.
He decides to report this to the SGT. and then makes his way up the hill back to the group.
"Hey sergeant!" Caboose calls out.
"What's up?" Locket calls back.
"Do we have any elbow grease or head-light fluid?" Caboose asks.
Lockett quirks his eyebrows at what he had said.
"Those things don't exist man," he replies.
"Oh," Caboose swallows a lump in his throat. "Uh-there's a guy in our base looking for it."
The trio's conversation immediately halts as they contemplate what Caboose had just said. They each share a glance before they all turn to Caboose.
Lockett then said what was on all their minds, "What?"
Caboose points at the base and repeats "There's a guy in the base looking for the stuff I said."
Lockett's head snaps back to the base and manages to vaguely make out a figure walking out of the base holding a large blue flag.
"Shit!" Lockett angrily exclaims, he turns to Church and Tucker and cries "He's got our guide-on!"
"What?!" Church exclaims in disbelief.
"Our flag, he's running off with our flag!" Lcokett cries. "One of you grab the sniper rifle and the rest meet me on the roof!" he barks.
Church cries with a resounding zeal, "Dibs on the sniper rifle!" and then takes off.
Tucker let's our a frustrated "Fuck!" before him and Caboose run after Lockett.
"So he just waltzes up to you and you don't give it a second thought?" Church asks incredulously.
"I did give it a second thought though," Caboose protests, "That's why I came and got you."
"So, why didn't you like to stop him?" asks Tucker as Caboose sputtered.
"Actually, I'll take fault on that one," Lockett mumbles to the surprise of the other two, "I didn't tell him that the Red guys are kinda our enemies."
Tucker and Church share a confused glance before Church corrects him saying "Not "kinda," they ARE the enemy."
Rather than respond, Lockett steps forward and peers through his binoculars, after a few seconds of scanning, he spots the flag.
"There he is!" Lockett announces, he quickly asks "You get the rifle?"
"Yep," Church replies as he shoulders the large weapon and takes aim.
"Alright, he's walking up along the cliff, you see him?" he asks.
"Yeah," Church breathes, "Oh no," he frowns as he spots the color of the figure's armor.
"What?" asks Tucker.
"It's his armor, it's standard issue red," Church breathes.
"Shit," Tuker curses, "That means that's their sergeant."
"Should I take the shot?" asks Church.
Lockett contemplates that for a second, they wouldn't really give these guys live ammo to shoot at each other would they?
At the flip of a coin, he says "Proceed."
"Roger that," Church then chuckles "Say goodnight Sarge."
Everyone then watches Church mag-dump all four rounds of the rifle down range. Lockett was almost impressed with the display, so much was wrong with how he was shooting that it would have been easier to list the things he got right. Maybe that's why these guys have live rounds, almost as if these guys are ment to be cannon fodder or something.
"You're….not actually trained on that, are you?" Lockett asks with a deadpan look. When he didn't get an answer, Lockett followed up with another question, "What did you score on your rifle-qual?"
The blank stare Church gave him said it all.
Lockett lets out a tired sigh and then asks "Tucker, what did you score on your rifle-qual?"
"I shot an expert," he replies.
"Really?" Lockett asks, impressed by the statement, "Forty out of forty?"
"That's right," Tucker confirms.
"Did you attend sniper school?" he asks.
"Yep," he confirms.
"Alright, from now on you're going to be my sniper," he announces.
Tucker silently cheers at the announcement, Lockett could already see the Church protesting.
"Church, those rounds are designed to take out vehicles at 600 yards and I just watched you dump four of them down range in the span of two seconds," he scolds, "Your form is so bad it's like you didn't even go to basic. Until you can shoot with MA5 proficiently, you just aren't allowed to touch the sniper, understand?"
"Yes, sergeant," Church grumbles.
"Can I grab the rifle now?" asks an excited Tucker.
"No," Lockett shook his head, "It's not zeroed, so if you try to fire the thing, all your shots are probably going to miss, speaking of which…." Locket turns to Church and asks "When was the last time any of your weapons were zeroed."
"Not since I've been here," Church replies.
"Alright, then after we get the flag back, that's what we're going to do," Lockett announces.
Tucker then spots something and taps Lockett on the shoulder, Lockett turns to see what Tucker was watching and sees the red soldier waving the flag back at them.
"Well now he's just taunting us," Tucker grumbles, "That's just embarrassing."
"That's it," Church growls and grits his teeth, "We're going after him right?"
"Yeah," Lockett then orders "You two get after him, I'm gonna grab the launcher and meet you there."
"W-wait, why the launcher?" questions Church.
"You really think his team is going to pick him up on foot when they just got a warthog?" Lockett asks rhetorically.
"Warthog?" Church and Tucker blink in confusion.
"You mean the jeep?" asks Church.
"I think I looks like a puma," Tucker argues.
Lockett bites his lip and frustration before growling "Just fucking get him, alive preferably, he's no good to me dead!"
Without another word, Locket runs back down into the base towards the base's armory, grabs an empty launcher and a loaded tube and inserts the tube into the launcher. He runs a quick check with the weapon before attaching it to his back. He then grabs a rifle, runs another check and then slaps in a magazine, and he grabs a handful of other magazines before rushing back to the roof of the base. When he gets there, he sees only Caboose still standing there, off in the distance, he can see Church running after the red.
Wasting no time, he time, he turns to Caboose and barks "Stay here Caboose, we'll be right back!"
"What about the tank?" he cries.
"You guys only had one powerpoint on it! Just come running after us if we need help!" Lockett cries.
Without another though, he charges at the teleporter entrance.
"Wait Lockett!" Caboose cries, "Tucker-"
It was too late, Lockett had gone through the teleporter entrance. Not even a fall second passes and Caboose watches Lockett step out and collapse onto the floor in front of the teleporter exit. This is immediately followed by Lockett's bellowed out curses which echo throughout the canyon. Caboose looks closely and is still puzzled by the lack of Tucker.
There, on the roof of Blood Gulch Outpost Number 1 was the entirety of the Red Team, consisting of Rowe, Grif, and Simmons, were gathered.
"I thought you said this was an important Grif," Rowe grumbles, still pissed from the prank the two played on Donut earlier.
Grif sighs and says "I'm telling you, there were four shots; bam, bam, bam."
"You do realize that if Donut is dead, we have to retrieve his body right?" asks Rowe.
"Do we though?" Grif asks, seriously considering forgetting about their lost private.
Rowe grimaces and growls "Just find him."
Through the scope of the sniper rifle, he spots Church running up a hill.
"Woah, we got a blue on the move," Grif reports. "
"Where's he heading?" asks Rowe as she pulls up the binoculars.
"Towards the cliff," Grif responds.
"Got him," Rowe murmurs, she then comments, "Yeah, he's moving in quite a hurry, my bet whatever direction he's heading in is where we'll find Donut."
"Yeah, got him too," Grif responds, "Wait…." Grif pauses and frowns, "He's got something." Grif focuses on the large blue flag in the private's hands. Grif's face freezes in shock as he slowly lowers the rifle.
"What is it?" asks Simmons.
Rowe turns to face him, also wondering what was wrong.
With a grim looking frown, he says "Simmons, get the Warthog."
"Don't you mean the puma?" he jokes.
Rowe swatts him across the head.
"Ow the back of my head!" he hisses.
"Thanks Rowe," Grif comments.
"No problem," she replies calmly before all three of them take off.
As Donut ran back from the store, he quickly found himself running up the cliffs, he worriedly looked around only to see what seemed like endless grass hills. Soon, Donut was quickly coming to terms with how lost he is. Suddenly there was a bright flash in front of him and he saw a figure suddenly appear, before him. As the light faded, the figure turned into a soldier in light blue colored armor. The soldier looked like he was running before he appeared as he was still in full stride.
He must have originally been on level ground when he started because the soldier took one step forward and when he discovered that he was actually running downhill. The soldier immediately lost his balance and tumbled forward, collapsing onto the ground with a resounding thump. His rifle fell down onto the ground beside him.
"FUCK!" the soldier screams out.
The volume of the bellow actually made Donut jump. Before he could say anything, the soldier instantly jumped up and raised his rifle, removed the safety and pointed it at the confused private.
"Hands where I can see them!" the soldier grunts, still wincing from the fall he took.
"Freeze!" another voice shouts.
He turns and sees another soldier running towards them, this one in cobalt colored armor, he too had his rifle raised and pointed at him.
As Church ran up to the soldier who took their flag, he quickly spotted Lockett, he instantly noticed how their team leader looked like he had low-crawled through the dirt before he had arrived.
"Lockett?" Church blinks, "What happened to you?"
"I just ate shit," he grunts.
"I can see that," Church murmurs, he spots the man sized imprint in the dirt and winces.
"Wait, where's Tucker?" he then asks Lockett.
"I was going to ask you that," Lockett replies.
"God damnit," Church mutters. "You came through the teleporter right?"
"Yeah," Lockett nods, not liking where this is going. "Did Tucker go before me?"
"Yep," Church murmurs.
It wasn't hard for Lockett to put two and two together. Before either could comment, Donut awkwardly clears his throat and they both instantly remember why they're there.
"Hey, why the hell are you guys shooting at me?! You coulda hit me, dicks!" the private exclaims.
"Can it. Don't try to play stupid with me, Sarge. I know who ya are. We've been spying on you for three weeks now," Church growels.
"I just got here two hours ago! And I'm not a Sergeant, I'm a Private," Donut angrily protests.
Lockett and Church share a small glance before Lockett says "Wait….what were you doing at our base?"
"The store?" asks a confused Donut, "I was there to pick up elbow grease and head-light fluid."
Church lets out a small snort in response to his answer while Lockett deadpans.
"You finished AIT what, a month ago?" Lockett suddenly asks.
"Month and a half," Donut corrects.
"Wow," Church mutters in disbelief.
Suddenly, there was another flash and by the teleport exit now stood a figure covered completely in black armor.
"Three!" he screams out.
"THE FUCK?!" Lockett cries and jumps back.
"JESUS!" Church screams and also jumps back.
"HOLY SHIT! Who is this guy?" Donut also screams, completely lost in the chaos.
The black colored soldier notices Lockett standing next to him.
He turns and says "Oh hey Sergeant, when did you get here?"
Lockett blinks and shaky asks "Tucker?"
"Yeah, who else would I be?" he asks nonchalantly.
He turns and also notices Church was there as well.
"Church, you're here too?" questions Tucker, "How did you two get up here ahead of me?"
"And what's with that black shit on your armor?" asks Donut.
Tucker immediately snaps his pistol to Donut and shouts "Freeze, Sarge!"
"Would you stop calling me a Sergeant, I'm still just a Private," Donut frustratingly cries.
"The Sarge is still a Private?" Tucker gasps in shock, "Oh. My. God. Sergeant, the teleporter sent us back in time!"
Church, baffled at his teammate's leap in logic mutters "Tucker, wha…."
"No, no," Lockett cuts him off, with a bemused look on his face, he says "Let him go, I wanna hear this."
Tucker continues explaining his crackpot theory to Church.
"I know you don't know me, but you have to believe what I'm about to tell you," Tucker enthusiastically explains to Church, "Some time in your future I get stationed here in Blood Gulch, and we meet. And this guy here," he points at Lockett, "He comes later and becomes our new team leader. And that guy," he points at Donut, "He gets promoted to Sergeant of the Red Army, and we spy on them. And they get this new jeep, and I'm all like, "There is no way you can pick up chicks in a tank!"
Church stares blankly at Tucker, his mouth hanging open and his face had the look of just sheer awe from what had just come from Tucker's mouth.
"Tucker? What the fuck are you babbling about?" Church exacerbates asos.
"I know all this sounds crazy, but he eventually becomes a Sergeant, and then one day we get a tank, and he comes and steals our flag while we're distracted," Tucker psychotically explains.
"Tucker, that's an interesting theory," Lockett comments, barely hiding the amusement in his voice, "But there's just one small problem." He turns to Donut and asks "What's your MOS?"
"Uh-h," Donut stutters blankly.
"What's your job?" Locket clarifies.
"I'm a soldier?" Donut answers unsurely.
It was not funny anymore. Lockett's previous smile had just fallen into a deadpan stare.
"What was the job your recruiter signed you up for when you first joined the army?" Lockett asks.
"Oh, infantry!" Donut replies.
"What's your rank, specifically what is your pay-grade?" asks Lockett.
"E-2," Donut answers.
"He's only been in for six months at most-" Lockett quickly states.
"Six and a half," Donut interjects.
"SIX months at most!" Locket drowned out Donut's voice.
"Wait, what?" Tucker blinks.
"Meaning, in order for your theory to work," Lockett continues, "Either that kid over there somehow magically jumps three pay grades or the Church was been in for three years and was just demoted a year ago."
"So he-" Tucker starts, pointing at Donut.
"Yes!" an exacerbated Church responds.
"So I didn't go back in time?" Tucker murmurs.
"No," Church scoffs, "THIS," he points to Donut, "Is just some rookie who has just barely even gotten here. He wasn't even suppose to come ot our base, he just got there either by shere stupidity or dumb luck! He also grabbed the first thing he saw which happened to just be our flag."
"And he has the same colored armor as their Sergeant," Lockett tacks on to the end.
"And he has the same colored armor as their Sergeant," Church parrots.
Lockett then started hearing music playing. It was faint at first but it quickly grew louder, and so did an unmistakable growl of a warthog engine. It slowly starts to sink in what is going on, he looks over at his other teammates, Tucker had also noticed the music, but Church remained oblivious as he was too wrapped up in his anger fueled rant.
"He just somehow managed to get past us-"
Finally, when the music became almost unbearably loud, only then did Church notice.
"WHAT IS THAT MUSIC?!" he roars.
"HIT THE DECK!" Lockett screams before diving to the side.
The group scatters as the Red Team's warthog jumps over one of the hills and lands in the middle of where they were gathered.
Author's Note: Hey guys, thank you reading, I appreciate that you all seem to enjoy my story, even if the updates are really slow at the moment, sorry about that by the way. I hope I'll see you guys sooner rather than later, I might even skip updating my RWBY story just to get out an extra chapter for this one. As always, I hope you guys enjoyed, if you wanna see more please leave a review. Remember, Big Brother is watching, always.