Florida continued down the halls of blue base, alone in his thoughts.
Was it really him? Was it really Alpha? Recovery had spent so much time and effort looking for him, and here he was. In some box canyon, thinking he was a sim trooper, stuck in a war with no end. It was almost too stupid to be true. But knowing that this was Leonard Church made it perfectly believable. Florida chuckled at that little thought, but quickly returned to his endless questions. What of Agent Texas? What happened between her and the Alpha? Could Texas still be-

Florida paused in his internal questionnaire for a second, but continued walking, pretending he didn't hear the barely audible tip tap echo of his own footsteps behind him. He began making his way to the exit of the base, hoping to draw his hunter out into the light with his men to help him, when there was a sudden noise of an explosion, followed closely of course by shouts and screams, the loudest of which being Church (of course).

Florida sped to a run, dashing out of the base. Stopping outside he witnessed quite the sight. Grif was alive, and currently shouting bloody murder while aiming a rocket launcher quite threateningly at Sheila, whilst the rest of red team looked on from their machine-gun mounted jeep, mostly seeming supportive of their orange teammate, but wary of 300 ton death machine just a little aways from them. On the flipside, Church was loudly and angrily cussing out the reds while gesturing wildly about once every millisecond. Tucker looked ready to brawl, fists up and everything. Caboose was clutching his head and just yelling random unintelligible things.
Florida was quickly on the scene, hoping to mediate whatever conflict had just arisen.

"Fellas, fellas, what's going on he-"

"THIS JACKASS DENTED ME!" Screeched Sheila indignantly.

"THESE JACKASSES BLEW MY ARM OFF!" Grif screeched at an even higher pitch than a machine, and with nearly twice the anger.

In response, Church and Tucker whirled on the orange sim trooper.

"How many fucking times do I have to say it? IT WASN'T US ASSHAT!" Church yelled,

"WELL THEN WHO THE FUCK WAS IT?" Grif continued yelling his head off.

"Everyone lets just calm down so we-"

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? I HAD MY ARM TORN OFF AND GOT IT REPLACED WITH HIS!" Grif angrily swung a hand over to gesture at Simmons.

"At least you have a natural arm...I'm a fucking robot now." Simmons leaned his on the jeep pouting.

"Oh no, que pesadilla Oh no, what a nightmare." The only robot in the room sarcastically remarked.

"Now's no time for jokes Lopez!" Donut chided the brown robot, who simply threw up his hands in exasperated reply.

Grif turned back to the blues and Sheila, with a dark look on his face (though of course no one could see it) he raised the rocket launcher.

"So now I'm gonna blow up that fucking tank." Grif growled,

Immediately the guns of the blue team were trained on him. In response the reds raised their own firearms into aiming positions. A dangerous silence hung in the air. No one dared to even breath.

"Red team, I'm going to put my gun down, so we can all have a nice little talk." Florida began to lower his weapon.

Meeting eyes with Sarge the two tracking each other's movement carefully, suspiciously. Florida set his weapon down lightly and stood with both hands raised. This earned weird looks from most of his team, which of course he ignored.

"Now can we talk?" The reds glanced at each other for a moment, then Sarge lowered his shotgun.

"Let's hear him out." The red leader gruffly nodded to his soldiers who, reluctantly, lowered their weapons.

As soon as everyone had dropped their guards Florida began to say something but was almost immediately cut off by a large knife being stuck through his lower abdomen. The soldier cried out in great pain before being lifted off his feet and thrown to the ground, bleeding, clutching his wound. It didn't take long for blue team and Sarge to leap into action. The red leader bounded over and began applying pressure to Florida's wound. Tucker helped while Church stepped in front of Florida to confront the new attacker.

However Church's anger seeped away when he saw the soldier.

The enemy wore white armor and an EVA helmet, with brown shoulder pads. In their hands they held possibly the most threatening weapon ever, looked like some kind of knife-rifle? But the most unsettling thing about them...was that Church felt like he knew this soldier...but from where?

He wouldn't get to finding an answer as the soldier lunged for him, knife-rifle outstretched to add two to the stab count. Luckily the blue soldier leaped away in time, the soldier burying their weapon in the earth, looking up to meet the brunt of a full buckshot to the chest. The white-clad soldier flew backwards, letting go of their weapon in the process, but quickly stood to look at its attackers. Sarge racked his shotgun menacingly as he approached the soldier.

"ATTACKKKKK!" The leader yelled, charging at the enemy.

He soon found this a poor idea, after firing one shell into his opponents shoulder, the larger enemy grabbed him by the armor collar and threw the red like a ragdoll over their shoulder.
Turning back to the reds and blues, they cracked their knuckles menacingly exerting a gulp from everyone, but nonetheless, Church stood between the enemy and the teams.

"Who the fuck are you?" He questioned the ever-silent soldier.

His question was answered by the sudden appearance of what appeared to be a miniature person on fire, hovering above the white-clad soldiers shoulder.

"WE, are the Meta. YOU, are in our way." It replied to Church in a monotone voice. The large Meta let out an animalistic growl.

Simmons turned to Donut and whispered,

"Did he just growl at us?"

Suddenly, another small glowing figure, this one in a green glow and wearing armor, appeared next to the fiery figure.

"Sigma," it spoke in a no-less monotone voice, "That is the Alpha. We can't j-"

"Your concern is noted Delta, now leave." Sigma shooed away Delta, who quickly dissipated.

"Are those...A.I?" Church inquired to no one in particular,

"What," Asked Caboose, "What's the A stand for?"

"Artificial." Church stated.

"...what's the I-"

"Intelligence."

"Right, right, right," Caboose nodded to himself, "What's the A again?"

Sigma seemingly having had enough of all this, waved his hand to get the Metas attention,

"Meta? Kill them." The Meta nodded and immediately rushed Church.

Church let out only half a yelp before a hand gripped tightly around his throat, strangling him. The blue kicked at the Meta before landing a solid hit into their throat. Sending the soldier stumbling. The Meta recovered super quickly though, and only seemed to have become more pissed off. Thankfully for Church, Caboose was just in time to deliver a swift, and what also sounded like a painful, uppercut right into the Metas jaw. This sent the soldier staggering backwards. Also seemingly pissing him off more.

The reds and blues, now feeling emboldened, stepped up to form a line, readying their guns on the enemy. The Meta paused as he overlooked his adversaries, made an internal decision, and fled.
Immediately following the Metas retreat an exuberant Grif yelled,

"We did it! Dibs on his weapon!" Yanking it out of the ground, the group gave him mostly exasperated looks until a voice behind them all startled the group.

"You sure did do it." The group whirled around.

They all turned looking up to the ridge. Everyone held deadly silence. All except for Church, because as soon as he spied the figure he froze.

"T-Tex?" He choked out. The black armored soldier put both hands to her hips, and nodded.

"Hello boys."