This. This is the kinda leadership Tucker could dig! No civil war with a psychopath breathing down your neck until he so rudely catches your grenade. No weird narcissistic AI telling him to kill himself for being a bad leader. Just a bunch of morons learning how to shoot better than Church. And Carolina thought their missions would be hard pssh.

And okay, he was a bit worried to leave himself but c'mon, that's exactly why he had to go! He clearly made himself a bit too codependent on his teammates if that was his worst fear!

Of course that didn't make it any less of a pleasant surprise to hear a familiar voice or two.

"Tucker!"

He spun around eagerly, and speak of the devil, "Carolina, Wash! Come to check me out? Newbies are inside, breaks and shit, y'know."

"Tucker listen, this is important-"

"-Wait a fucking minute, did you two get chicks on your team? Come the fuck on!"

"Yeah this is Shatter Squad. One, East, Axel, Raymond, and West. But-"

One and East huh? Tucker could totally work with that. He glanced between the two of them, before settling on the pink one, "Hey baby, are you sure your name's not North? Because my needle's pointing your way, Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow."

For once Tucker was grateful for years of experience with girls who didn't quite appreciate his comments as he narrowly avoided an angry smack. Maybe the blue one would appreciate it more-

"Tucker, focus, we've got a serious problem."

He bit back a further sexual quip when he finally noticed the tenseness in his pals' body language along with the tone of their voice, "Oh don't fucking tell me, it's another fucking Blue team problem? How is that even possible, your new team color is mostly Red!"

"Viper is coming, they want your sword. It's the last piece they need to unlock the ultimate weapon."

Alright seriously, Tucker knew his sword was fucking cool, but why was everyone so damn obsessed with it? But more importantly, "Who's Viper? And what the fuck does it unlock now, another genocide temple?"

"Something like that," admitted Wash.

"Viper's realll scary dudes. They got a bunch of glowing weapons and we think you're the last target," added Raymond.

Oh great, he's the Doyle now. Fantastic. With a quick radio-in to tell his team to stay inside for a while as he dealt with something personal, he glanced back up at the others, "Alright, what's the plan?"

But like a true blue team problem, planning would have to wait, as an explosion not far off caught everyone's attention.

"We need to get Tucker out of here now! All other objectives are secondary. West, you've just recovered yourself. You, Wash, and One go with Tucker-"

"What no way, I want to help fight Zero, not run away!," interjected One.

"And I think I should stay with you Carolina, I'm more experienced at fighting. It'd be better for Raymond or East to go with Tucker," added Wash.

"Wash I don't think you should fight in the thick of it all…"

"Why not?," started Wash before East cut him off with a, "I'll go. I'm the fastest after all."

"You want to join the same team as me?," questioned West at the same time Raymond stammered out a, "I..don't think that's a good idea. I mean...I'll just go y'know?"

"What happened to that whole talk about trust Ray? Should I trust you're full of shit then?"

"What? No! I just think-"

Another bang, much closer this time, once more silenced everyone before Carolina emphasized, "Anyone who wants to go with Tucker leave now. The rest of us will keep Viper preoccupied before catching up."

"Come on, we parked an airship not far from here. Let's grab some combat vehicles, it's the fastest way to reach it," stated West leaderly as Tucker followed him along with East and Raymond. East was giving everyone a wide berth, as if they forced her to follow them instead of inviting herself along.

Tucker glanced behind him briefly at his friends, who he could just glimpse being engaged by some edgy black-and-red fucker. He spoke in an attention-commanding tone, "Oh Axel, and here I thought that precious family made you soft."

They were too far away now to catch any replies beyond One's sharp, "Don't talk to my dad like that creep!" followed by the bang of gunfire.

Tucker focused ahead of them once again. They'd nearly reached the nearest vehicle without interruption which was crazy because didn't they mention there was multiple Viper agents-

"Rookie, look out!"

Raymond leaped back from the Warthog he was approaching as some silvery-blue asshole crushed the vehicle from above, cackling as he did so. Alright seriously, what the fuck.

The Viper member unveiled a fucking glowing axe (what executioner nonsense is this?), but a shot from the side interrupted any attack at the ready.

"You guys go, we got this!," announced Wash, and while Tucker wasn't super fond of this whole split-up and endanger his friends with two lunatics, he also trusted their judgement. They did kick Felix and Locus' ass before, and now they had two more soldiers to help them stall until they got their lift out.

With some maneuvering to not get hit by a stray bullet or stay anywhere in Viper's range, they managed to board the next nearest pair of Warthogs. But it was a short-lived victory, as some black-and-purple bitch practically popped out of nowhere to grab a jeep for herself to chase after them.

"You know, I dreamed I'd be pursued by a woman, didn't think it'd be quite like this though."

She shot towards both of their tires, and Tucker knew they were fleeing, but shouldn't they try to stop that? Alright, to Ray and East's credit they were driving, although weirdly enough only Raymond was swerving around when he and West's vehicle wasn't even the real target. After another beat where it was clear West had no intention of firing back (how injured was he?), Tucker scrambled out of the passenger seat and up to the turret.

"What are you doing? Stay down," commanded East, but screw that! Just because he was the priority didn't mean he was going to sit around and do nothing. Sure the Reds usually operated one of these, but if fucking Simmons could use it so could he.

He returned turret fire, and the hardest part, beyond hitting the purple shit, was staying up there. Because seriously, why now was East driving erratically? Was she trying to knock him off or just his aim? Alright he knew she didn't appreciate his witty one-liner, but was now really the time?

"We're just about there, get down won't you?"

"And then what? She'll follow us into the plane!"

"Don't worry, we'll handle everything. Just complete the mission."

The sudden stilted intonation made Tucker pause in his shooting, and in that moment the Viper agent switched her gun for a blade. The whoosh of the weapon happened too fast for anyone to react, as she planted sticky bombs on both Warthogs, rolling off to avoid the sudden explosions.

After a minute of soreness and catching his breath, Ray's voice echoed through his headset, "Holy shit are you okay?"

He gave a tired laugh before responding with, "Yeah I'm fine. Still have my sword too."

"Great! I gotta help West up but I think he's fine too. I mean the doctors will probably yell at us for this but-nevermind, get to the plane! Oh and do you see East?"

Tucker fully lifted himself out of the dirt, trying to get his bearings and spot the pink soldier simultaneously. With a look around he concluded the good news was they landed right near the plane, and East was still alive. The bad news was-

"Do I want to know why she's flickering?"

There was a lull on the other line causing Tucker to turn in their direction. Raymond had gotten West into a sitting position, but must have halted upon hearing the question. Tucker saw West move his arm to his own radio with a slight shake of pain before answering, "Get on now, take off without us. We'll distract Dan-Phase."

"What? No! I'm not ditching everyone!"

"Yes, you are. You have to get that sword out of here. Get on the plane, lock it down, and take off now."

"Listen dude. I might not fully understand what's happening here, but I know better than to abandon anyone, even for good reasons. We deal with that Phase chick together, pick the others up, and then we all go."

With that air of finality, Tucker returned to East. She was still fizzing, which probably indicated some crazy bullshit tech malfunction, but after a tentative tap confirmed he wouldn't get electrocuted he pulled her the rest of the way up.

"You didn't leave. We thought...Aren't you worried about your sword?"

"Nah, sword's bonded to me. And trust me, I've swish swish stabbed way scarier foes than some teleporting knife chick."

East shook her head as if that wasn't what she meant, but couldn't seem to vocalize her real question. Shoot, hope she's not too disoriented from the crash. At least the others were on their feet again, but that also included - Tucker unveiled his sword in preparation. He noticed Raymond nervously grab his gun, but the other two didn't move.

"Danyell please, let us go. The others will never know."

"You know begging isn't your color, although neither is orange. You should consider red," before she punctuated the statement with a slash towards West, who made no attempt to dodge.

Yeah he had no idea what that was about, but Tucker wasn't about to let him become chopped meat. He lunged ahead, retaliating with a strike of his own. Phase reacted in surprise to this turn of events for some reason (what, was he stuck with the pussyfest half of the team?) before they dueled blades.

And sure, Phase's knife might be some modern marvel of teleportation tech, but Tucker wielded this alien blade for years. He smirked as her knife flew somewhere behind him, ready for her to go after it.

"Hey don't feel bad, you're already looking sharp to me."

Instead of teleporting or falling for his charms, she unsheathed her own artifact. A wine-colored trident glowing on the points. She fumbled grabbing it, clearly more used to her knife. Its surprise appearance made Raymond tighten his grip on the gun, and a shot went off towards her hands. She hissed at the impact, but didn't drop her trident, and Tucker didn't miss the way West forcibly lowered Ray's gun afterward.

Even with the ache she must feel, it didn't make sense the way she didn't go for a first strike to any of them. In fact, if anything, she was focusing on something behind him. He swiftly peeked back to see East had drawn closer at some point clutching Phase's knife.

"Oh do you want to stick it in her? Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow."

But as East inched closer to the stagnant action, another shimmer of tech caused her to shudder and fall to her knees.

"East!"

At the cry, Phase teleported to the pink girl. Tucker spun to protect East, but it was immediately clear stabbing wasn't on her mind as she cradled her.

"I'm sorry Phase...it's too much now...I can't…"

"No, I thought you could handle the explosion on top of everything else. I'm sorry."

"I thought he would bring me into the plane...but he stayed. He doesn't know most of us...why?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter. Screw this, we have to refuse now."

"No...you'll get in trouble...we can't fail we're so close…"

"I'll figure something out. I always do."

And thus, the two merged into one pink-and-gold girl, because why not culminate today's bullshit with that. The fact Raymond was more curious than surprised and West had no reaction would irk Tucker if he didn't accept the fact he came into whatever interpersonal drama this is later than the rest.

Phase? East? Pheast? admired her completed form with a happier sounding, "It's so nice to be whole again, but I could use a charge." Then she turned to him in a less than friendly way, "Sorry, but I can't come back empty-handed."

Trying to shake off the confusion of whatever just happened, he readied to duel her to...well shit is he supposed to go easy on her now or…? The others still weren't helping, but they weren't seriously expecting him to just roll over and give her the sword?

She glanced between both weapons she now possessed, and in an even more baffling move she put the knife away. He wasn't sure what she planned to do with the trident, but swinging the alien-metal stick half as hard as she could towards his head to knock him out hadn't been it…