Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs. Blue or any of the show's characters. They are the rightful properties of Rooster Teeth.
Chapter Seventeen: The Search
"This is the spot where that Palomo kid was last spotted by traffic cameras." Church announced glumly over the radio, the dark-haired man having remained back at their de facto headquarters.
Lavernius Tucker frowned because of course, for some inexplicable reason, the dopey teenager would've been hanging out in one of the warehouse districts on the outskirts of Chorus. He glanced sideways, towards his fellow group of searchers: Jensen, Simmons, Grif, and Doc. The teal-wearing man had been shocked back when it turned out that Junior's number one babysitter had not only shown up at Church's place with Carolina and Kimball in tow, but had revealed herself to be a Special too. Now? Now he was just determined as all fuck to help the girl find her missing friend.
"But what the fuck was he even doing here of all places?" Tucker voiced out loud in consternation, already annoyed by Palomo's apparent lack of common sense.
"My guess is he wasn't nearly as alone as the surveillance initially wants us to think." Church sighed his usual long-suffering sigh (overly dramatic much?), "Seriously, Tucker, use your brain. This is a pretty obvious kidnapping case."
"You think?" Tucker raised his eyebrows quizzically, "Palomo's folks aren't exactly rich." Even if they had just moved into the Armonia district thanks to his mom's big promotion.
"It probably has more to do with him being a Special too, doesn't it?" Jensen asked quietly, peering keenly at the towering buildings looming all around.
"Who also has an ability that could be pretty damn useful in either the right or wrong hands." Church's voice held a frown in it as he added pensively, "Honestly, you're pretty fortunate that you didn't attract attention yourself."
"I always told Charlie that he needed to be more careful," Jensen let out a frustrated sigh, "Now I feel like this is my fault for not trying hard enough."
"Trust me, Jensen," Tucker told the tan-skinned girl reassuringly, "There's no fucking way you could have stopped that kid from showing off like crazy."
"Are you basing that off of personal experience, Tucker?" Carolina's voice carried over to them on the wind as she landed beside the group.
"Don't do that!" Tucker exclaimed loudly at her sudden arrival, "You're almost as bad as Wash when it comes to lurking!"
Carolina raised a puzzled eyebrow at his statement before turning her red-haired head slightly to where Grif and Simmons were practically standing side-by-side, "Do I even want to know?" She asked them, clearly unimpressed with her Freelancer comrade's choice of allies.
Both Grif and Simmons were rather quick to shake their heads in the negative. …Fucking assholes.
"For the last time, I'm not a lurker!" Washington's tone was exasperated as he dropped down from the sky right beside the other former Freelancer.
"Right, and you just so happen to have borrowing powers to help with your lurky ways." Tucker shot right back at him.
"That isn't even an actual thing." Washington tried pointing out weakly.
"Um, guys?" Doc began tentatively, "Is this really the best time for a semantics discussion?"
"Yeah, aren't we hoping to find clues here or something?" Grif tiredly cut in, no doubt hoping to avoid the argument escalating further.
Carolina threw the chubby man a grateful look, "If we're fortunate enough, Palomo might even still be here."
"Yeah, but with so many buildings," Simmons started nervously before noticing Jensen's worried expression deepening and changing his approach to try and comfort the brunette, "I mean, we're sure to find him!"
Jensen smiled at the redhead gratefully, "I can easily check inside some of the buildings if you want me to!" She offered the group.
Washington frowned at the suggestion, "Even with your intangibility, going alone would be too dangerous."
"Hey, hold up!" Donut's voice chimed in over the radio, "We might not have to do any peeping at all!"
The group looked at one another questioningly as Carolina frowned, "What do you mean by that?" She asked over the channel.
"What I mean is," Donut began cheerily enough, "I'm pretty sure we're looking at Palomo and his kidnappers right now!" He paused to let that sink in, "Want us to go over and say hello?"
"This is, by far, the absolute dumbest plan I've ever heard of." Sherry stated as she and her two-man crew alongside the Triplets walked slowly behind a shuffling, rather nondescript-looking old man.
Iowa raised an eyebrow at her statement, "You really aren't supposed to leave your spot." He gently informed her.
Frustration bloomed in the forefront of her skull, "That's only if you're lost!" She exclaimed back, "It isn't a rule that means you bring someone back to where you kidnapped them!"
"But I might be able to find my way home from here!" The old man whined in what was far too young-sounding a voice for his wizened body, "And no one will even know it's me if I stay like this."
Sherry sighed in defeat, "So is anything looking at all familiar then?" She asked their guest.
"Um," Palomo let out a sheepish laugh, "Not really."
The tan-skinned woman groaned and threw up her hands, "I told you we should have just ponied up the money for a bus ticket."
"Hey! I don't have that kind of cash on me." Idaho declared quickly, "Do you?"
It was a fair point, and both Sherry and Ohio sighed at the same time in response, briefly meeting the other's gaze as they did so.
"Besides, anything we do now is bound to get us into even more trouble." Darryl noted, "We might as well just get it over with and let them catch us on camera!"
"Oh, like ripping off a band-aid!" Terrill added in.
"That really hurts though." Iowa was quick to point out.
Sherry turned back around to face the three former Freelancers in their midst, "Are you sure you guys really want to help us do this?" She asked, "I thought you were fine working for Charon."
The three looked at one another and Ohio let out a small sigh, "Stealing files is one thing. Kidnapping is a whole other matter." She stated firmly.
"We've been dumped all on our own before," Idaho chimed in, "We can manage."
"Yeah, but this time it won't be so much dumped as turned into an actual enemy and active deserter." Darryl pointed out, his tone much more serious than normal, "They might come after you too."
The Triplets all smirked, "Just how far do you think you guys would get without our help, huh?" Ohio asked confidently, in that way that Sherry secretly loved so much.
"You really are special, you know that?" She asked before she could rein herself in, "And I'm not just talking about your powers."
Ohio blushed at the remark as a wave of "Ooh!" and "Ah!" erupted from the four guys around the pair.
"Dang." Palomo was frowning a second later in his old man disguise, "Nothing really looks familiar."
"We might have to scrounge for that bus ticket after all." Sherry murmured over to Ohio, the dark-skinned woman nodding her head in quiet agreement.
"It was worth a shot!" Iowa said as a way to try and encourage the dismayed teenager.
"Was it really though, when he just woke up here after being tasered?" Terrill asked, "If we weren't so notorious in Armonia after our last couple of missions there, we could easily get him home."
"Hey, guys!" A somewhat familiar, altogether cheerful voice called out into the night just then, "Fancy meeting you again!"
"Oh, no." Sherry and Ohio both said in unison as they saw the Special called Donut waving at them across the way. Nearby him were others they recognized after their last encounter, the names gleamed from brief dossiers: Kimball, Sarge, Lopez, Kaikaina, and Grey.
There were footsteps coming from the opposite direction too, and the group turned to see the teal-wearing Tucker and his motley crew effectively cutting off any possible means of escape that they might have had.
"Charlie!" An unknown teenaged girl who was with Tucker's group exclaimed, staring all too-knowingly at the frail, hunched over old man in their midst.
Palomo laughed at this latest turn of events, straightening his posture as he morphed back into his usual appearance, "Hey, Katie! Hey, Mr. Tucker!" He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "This sure is awkward, huh?"
As everyone began moving in the direction of the missing Palomo and his alleged kidnappers, Richard "Dick" Simmons stood back and frowned. He hadn't had much time to process this case before, given how suddenly it had been put into their laps so to speak, but now things were starting to hit him like a ton of bricks. Charon didn't seem to be content with simply stealing files on Specials now. This and their attempted abduction of Matthews proved that they were actively hunting them.
The cyborg's frown deepened, hands instinctively wrapping around his sides as he recalled far too vividly just how he had been taken even though he'd had no powers to speak of. Could that somehow be connected to all of this too? He'd never gotten any information from his captors given how out of it he'd been and just how busy they were with trying to modify his all-too fleshy body with cybernetics. But what if…? Shit, could he even fucking deal with finding out that somehow this could all be related? His mind was screaming at him that he wasn't ready, that he couldn't…
"You okay?"
Simmons glanced up in surprise, having not even noticed that Grif had apparently picked up on his pause and had stopped too, the heavyset man regarding the redhead with something that almost resembled mild concern.
Simmons felt rather guilty for some reason, and chided himself for not dwelling on the more important matter at hand: rescuing Palomo, "Y—yeah." He lied as steadily as he could, "I'm fine."
Grif looked doubtful, stepping towards Simmons and reaching out a rather awkward hand towards him in the process, "If you want, I could…" he began to offer before trailing off, figuring past actions spoke louder than words.
Simmons knew what Grif was implying and abruptly shook his head, "Thanks, but I'll be all right." He was quick to try and assure the other man, fearful of the orange-wearing man's Special ability.
Grif still looked uncertain, but Simmons moved past him as purposefully as he could on his suddenly weak, shaky legs, heading towards what now sounded like yelling while trying to ignore the feel of a pair of warm brown eyes on his back.
"Okay, so maybe we did technically kidnap him," Sherry admitted with her hands raised in the air as if in some sort of surrender, "But we're giving him back now, so no harm, no foul."
"What does that even mean?" Carolina growled out in frustration.
"Oh, I can totally explain it to you later if you want." Kaikaina Grif said, winking at the cyan-wearing redhead, "In private, if you get what I mean."
"Goddamn it, Kai!" A frustrated voice sounded from farther away as Kai stuck out her tongue in her big brother's direction.
For the sake of their combined sanities, David Washington was rather grateful that everyone apparently chose to ignore the siblings' antics for the moment.
"It means we draw the line at taking kids to have who knows what done to them." Ohio stepped forward next to Sherry, a pointed note to her tone as she bitterly added, "Because unlike Charon and Freelancer, we have standards."
Washington and Carolina shared a look, neither one sure of what to say.
"But you are working for Charon, aren't you?" Kimball tried her hardest to keep the conversation going, fearful they were going to get stalled by past grievances.
"You stole those hospital files for them." Grey pointed out with arms crossed.
"Yeah, but no one was getting hurt through that!" The one called Darryl tried protesting.
"I seriously doubt Charon would have benign reasons for wanting those files." Carolina muttered, "Kidnapping Specials they got information on seems like the next logical step."
"It really wouldn't be the first time we'd been duped." Idaho shot back rather testily.
"At least this time we're leaving on our own instead of being abandoned." Ohio's voice was a ferocious whisper.
Washington felt a sudden pang of guilt at her words, and he was dimly aware of both Tucker and Carolina regarding him in concern. He hated it, "Is that what happened to you then?" He heard himself asking as if from far away, "During the project?" He should've asked more fucking questions, he should've…!
Ohio grimaced as she turned to where Jensen and Palomo were quietly talking together just a few meters away, "We didn't come here to talk or fight, okay?" She told Washington succinctly, "Just take the kid if you want him."
"Make sure he gets home safe!" Iowa insisted cheerfully with his own friendly wave.
Tucker frowned from his spot standing next to Washington, "But—!"
Washington felt the sudden buildup of power and just where it was directed thanks to the movement of the air a split-second after Carolina did thanks to still sharing her powers.
He cut Tucker off by racing forward, grabbing Palomo and Jensen by the shoulders and pushing the two teens to the ground in the very same instance that Carolina unleashed a tremendous gust of wind that knocked everyone else flat to the ground.
"Keep down!" Washington exclaimed in warning as he did his best to shield Palomo and Jensen from the explosion that decimated the ground right where they'd been standing mere moments earlier.
"What the actual fuck?" Tucker began, coughing at the smoke and dust now filling the air.
As the debris began to stop raining down and settled, a figure in strange white armor could be seen floating overhead as everyone cautiously got back on their feet. Another blast of energy was already coiling around the newcomer's fingertips as he silently and impassively regarded the still rather shell-shocked group before him.
Washington recognized their attacker, surprise and a whole wave of other emotions flooding through him at the sight of the somehow familiar towering form, "Maine?!" The blond choked out in disbelief.
"Huh." Sarge declared, readying his shotgun, "With friends like yours…"
"¿Como si fueras alguien para hablar?" {"Like you're one to talk?"} Lopez demanded from beside his creator.
"No, he isn't." Carolina was already in a fighting stance and choosing to ignore the aside taking place nearby, "Not anymore." The wind began picking up violently all around her, "And if he's here, then that means we're in for one hell of a fight!"
Author's Notes: This chapter is coming out in celebratory anticipation of a certain movie I'm going to be seeing this weekend! Can you guess which one it is? XD I had a lot of fun writing the dialogue and that cliffhanger was just too good of a stopping point to not use it, even though it will probably mean a longer chapter next time. :)
Next time in Specials: we discover how this round against the Meta plays out, everyone licks their wounds, and some important decisions are made. Oh, and both Grif and Simmons continue to be awkward around each other. XD
Thank you for reading! :D