Author's Note: Alright, vacation is over and I had a great time. I hope you guys did too, I know the holidays are statistically the most common time for people to get hit hardest by depression. I hope you were all safe despite the sudden rise in COVID cases. I thought it would be nice to finally get back to work because it turns out, no, I can't just sit there and play Runescape (OSRS) all day, despite me wanting to.
Review Responses: I am not answering all of these as I've answered some in PMs already, and some of them have reveal spoilers if I do respond.
merendinoemiliano: I have no interest in watching that, and I don't particularly find anything interesting about it, sorry.
Guest: Thank you for reading, I hope I make it that far.
Strike Wyvern: Thank you, I appreciate that I'm not the only one who has played those games.
MKDemiGodzilla-Warrior: I am not entirely sure what else I'll be changing, I do know I wanna give a larger focus on the Red Team this time around.
Esteban Chamy: You brought an interesting point about Sister, I am honestly not sure what to do with her, but maybe I can bring her back in Season 7, like around when Donut comes back.
VirgoDragoX: Um, thank you I think, but this isn't quite the story I wanted to make an AU on.
Guest: While I would love to make Lockett the strong silent type, that really doesn't fit in a leadership role if he is expected to inspire, motivate, and you know, lead his fellow soldiers. Also, Colbert is a bad example for the strong silent type, but he is a great example for a leader. Colbert was quiet and to the point whenever it got serious, he was called Iceman because he never lost his cool in combat. He is far from stoic and had some of the funniest dialogue, and he is arguably one of the main reasons alongside CLP. Pearson as to why the show was as good as it was.
Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.
The FNGs
"Hey, that's not exactly what happened," Simmons sputters.
Grif rolls his eyes.
"Yes, it is," Grif says confidently.
Grif could have sworn they had this conversation about five times by now but, honestly what else would they be talking about at this point? The two of them were now standing on the roof of the base and just trying to pass the time, like always. The only highlight to the constant boredom was the fact Sarge was away from base at the moment.
Grif argues back "You said, "I'm not going to the Vegas quadrant," and then the next thing I know you're in an escape pod headed for-"
While the two were talking, they both failed to notice a pair of soldiers make their way up the ramp behind them, one in red, the other in rose. One of them clears their throat.
"Um, excuse me," one of them arrives. "Sirs?"
The other recruit jerks their head at the other as if they had done something wrong.
"Sirs?" Grif mutters, the question has completely thrown the pair's chain of thought.
They both look over and spot the two recruits and Grif's shoulder immediately slump.
"Ah crap," he curses under his breath.
"We were told to report to Blood Gulch Outpost Number One," the other recruit announced.
Grif and Simmons both froze as a distinctly female voice rang out from the other recruit.
"It's a girl," Simmons quietly whimpers to Grif.
"I know," Grif jokes, "This is a big step for you."
Simmons could only whimper as a response.
"How can we help you?" Grif offers.
The two recruits share a glance before the girl responds "Can we speak to the person in charge."
It was then, Grif had just discovered his next piece of entertainment for the next few minutes.
"Yeah actually," Grif cuts in right as a shit eating grin forms behind his helmet.
It's not like anyone can see it, but it's the tone and context that counts.
"You see, Sarge is at command right now getting new orders," Grif explains, "But while he's away, he left PFC. Simmons in charge, I am PV2 Grif, (It's just pronounced "private" but I would be damned if I get my abbreviations wrong). Go ahead Simmons, fill them in."
Grif takes a step back while Simmons stood there staring blankly like a deer in the headlights.
"U-uh, um….well," Simmons stammered as he nervously looked between the two, desperately trying not to meet the female recruits eyes….er visor.
After a full minute of sputtering and back and forth arguing between him and Grif, he manages "W-what are your names?" he asks.
"Finally, we're getting somewhere," Grif laughs.
"I'm SPC. Rowe," she introduced, "I'm your new medic."
"Specialist?!" Simmons cries.
Grif burst out laughing.
"Oh, this is a big step for you Simmons!' Grif jeers, "She's a girl and she's in charge of you!"
Simmons lets out a high pitched squeak. Rowe shoots Simmons a concerned look.
"Oh don't worry about him, he's not as nervous around women as you might think," Grif jokes.
"What?" asks a confused Rowe.
Simmons's head angrily snaps to Grif, it turns out Simmons doesn't like seeing his personal disadvantages dumped out for the world to see.
"He's just triggered by the fact he is now, one step further back from being the future leader of Red Team," Grif mocks. "Now it looks like he'll have to kiss two asses."
Simmons's glare only encouraged Grif to continue.
"God you two should have been here in the morning," Grif wheezes while pointing at the other soldier, "He would no shut up about how, and I quote, "He told me if I had any trouble from you I should... (clears throat then poorly imitates Sarge) "Git in the Warthog, and crush yer head like a tomato-can." And yes, that was exactly how he said it."
"Shut up Grif!" hisses Simmons.
"Kiss ass," Grif fires back.
Simmons angrily swats at Grif's chest making him hiss in pain. Grif glares and hits him back. Simmons raises his hand for another retaliatory strike and Grif quickly wags his finger at him. Apparently Simmons is weak to authoritative gestures, probably stemming from childhood trauma, Grif surmised that it probably has to do with both his mommy and daddy issues.
Okay, none of that was true….actually the parental issues probably are, but a simple gesture wasn't something that would trigger Simmons's long repressed memories. Though, it was by far one of the few things that Grif actually kept from his psych class back in college. Honestly he has no idea why he bothered taking that class and looking back, he wishes he just took health instead. The gesture did manage to make Simmons if only out of confusion, but it was enough to make him pause momentarily thus giving Grif a window to steer the conversation back on topic.
"And who are you?" he asks the male recruit.
The male rookie snapped to attention and then went into parade rest.
"PVT. Donut, reporting for duty!" he announced confidently. He then added with a cheery tone "I'm ready to fight some aliens."
"Alright, a couple things here rookie," Grif already had heard enough and decided to cut in, "First off, Private Donut?" he asks incredulously, "I think somebody needs a new nickname. Secondly, what's with the armor color?"
He points at Rowe and continues "You, I get it, the armor color palette isn't exactly the greatest so you just picked whatever, but what about you?" he points back at Donut.
"This IS the standard issue red," Donut knowingly replies.
"Yeah, I know. Listen. Only two kinds of people wear standard issue armor: officers and recruits. And since you're not threatening to gut me like a fish, you're probably not an officer," Grif scolds. "No one actually keeps that armor after Basic, they give everyone the option to change."
"What?!" cires Donut, "I don't remember that!"
Grif turns to Rowe and asks "Did they give you the option to change armor colors?"
A nod from Rowe said it all.
"You probably weren't paying attention," Simmons sighs.
"Well, your armor is red," Donut reasons while pointing at Simmons.
Simmons sternly counters back with "No, my armor is maroon. Your armor is red."
"Well, how do I get a different color armor?" cries a frustrated Donut.
Grif exaggeratedly shrugs and replies "Hell if I know, we lost all the paperwork for that shit months ago, but hey," he offers, "If you do manage to find whatever Sarge doesn't horde to himself, I'll even help you fill them out."
As Grif eggs on the already frustrated Donut, Rowe sheepishly leans over and whispers to Simmons "Does this kind of thing happen often?"
Simmons lets out a tired groan and grumbles "I bet the blues don't have to put up with this kind of crap."
Meanwhile at the other end of the canyon, Lockett was now the new leader of Blue Team. Turns out that CPT. Flowers has been dead for a while now thus leaving PV2 Church to take over as leader. Also on another note, both him and Tucker should have been promoted by now seeing as they've both been in over a year. Turns out they're both missing a bunch of things really, the main three that Lockett has decided to handle first are: a PT Test, Height and Weight, and a Rifle Qual. He'll tell them tomorrow, let himself get settled in first and allow him a feel for where his team is at.
Currently, his team was gathered out in front of the base in front of the tank where Lockett was giving a power-point presentation on their new vehicle.
"As you can see," Lockett pointed at a picture with his laser pointer, "The steering operates very similar to a steering-wheel you would find in a car."
He turns back to his small audience and sees that Caboose, who was avidly scribbling down notes in his notepad, was the only one who was paying attention. Lockett grimaces when he sees both Church and Tucker focusing on the tank rather than the class on how to use the tank. He then notices Caboose raise his hand.
"Yes, Caboose?"
"If the steering wheel is there, what are the six pedals for?" he asks, confused by the layout. "Also, why are there six pedal and only four directions?"
Lockett blinks in confusion and asks "Where did you get six pedals from, there's only one, and it's the brake and the turret is controlled by the periscope."
Caboose looks down at his notes and sees he had mislabeled something.
"Oh," Caboose mumbles.
"Did you mean the clutch?" asks Lockett as he points at the said handle.
"U-uh, no, never mind," Caboose shook his head.
"I promise you, this tank doesn't have six pedals," Lockett reassures him.
He then quickly flips through the technical manual just to make sure he was looking at the right tank. Thankfully, he was. He was then brought out of his thoughts when his ears picked up a voice.
"You know what? I could blow up the whole goddamn world with this thing," Church dreamily comments.
Lockett deadpans and says "I'm sorry, are you two busy, we can totally do this later."
Tucker and Church blink in surprise as they are reminded of what they were doing at the moment.
"Oh, right, our bad Sergeant," Church quickly replies, "It's just, we're like, blinded by its beauty you know?"
"Wait, Sergeant," Tucker spoke up, "You said this has a manual transmission right?"
"Yeah that's right, I mean it's a hand shaft rather than the traditional clutch you would see on a car but," Lockett nods, "The tank has four for going forward, two for back."
Tucker snaps back to Church and says "Dude, I take that back, you can totally pick up chicks in a tank."
Everyone turns and stares blankly at the aqua colored soldier.
Church decided to be the voice of the group and comments "Tucker, what the fuck?"
"I'm serious dude!" Tucker fervently nods, "Chicks dig dudes with stick-shift cars. Just imagine me, sitting in that seat, cranking the gears, bow chicka wow wow! My guess is we could get at least two of three chicks a piece."
Church's mouth was left agape by the words coming out of Tucker's mouth.
"What the fuck are you going to do with two chicks?" cries Church.
Tucker places and arm onto Church's shoulder and says "Church, women are like Voltron-"
"Alright no," Locket cuts in, "Tucker, please," Lockett begs, "Stop making noises with your mouth."
"I'm just saying Sergeant," Tucker continues, "The more women you got, the happier you are. You gotta lighten up a little Sergeant, I'll let you have the first go with the chicks we pick up."
Lockett stares blankly at him for a second before replying "Okay first off, just call me Lockett, I'm getting tired of hearing "Sergeant" at the beginning of every other sentence and as long as you recognize my position of authority, I don't really care."
He then focuses onto Tucker and continues "Secondly, Tucker, I am plenty chill, it's just the stuff flying out of your mouth is literally that stupid."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting some chicks Lockett," Tucker reasons, "It's completely natural, us males have got to mate. It's human nature and all that shit."
"Why are you still talking?" asks Lockett in disbelief.
At this point, both Simmons and Grif had gotten fed up with Donut and hatched a plan to get rid of him.
"Okay, PVT. Donut, look," Simmons began, "Here's the deal."
"I refuse to call him PVT. Donut!" Grif sharply cuts in.
Simmons ignored Grif and continues "We've got a very important mission for you. You think you can handle it?"
"Absolutely!" Donut nods enthusiastically.
"We need you to go to the store, and get two quarts of elbow grease," Simmons explains.
"Yeah and uh, pick up some headlight fluid for the Puma too," Grif quickly adds.
The two share a quick, nervous glance before turning back to Donut.
"The what?" Donut asks as he scratches his head.
Simmons rolls his eyes and replies "He means the Warthog."
He sees Donut still looking confused and he's adds "The jeep?" to which Donut finally nods.
Grif steps forward and asks "You do know where the store is, right, Rookie?"
Still confused, rather than saying no, Donut nervously nods and replies "What? Yeah, yeah, of course I do. Sure, no problem."
Simmons and Grif share another blank stare before Simmons says to him "Well, get going then."
A flustered Donut takes off and without even looking, Grif shouts after him "Other way."
Donut turns around, sheepishly saying "I knew that. Just got turned around that's all."
At that moment, Rowe came back to the roof of the base.
"I gotta say you guys are pretty well stocked on medical supplies," she whistles.
"Well Sarge does run a tight ship," Simmons chuckles.
Rowe shook her head and commented "No, I mean it's basically untouched, there was a layer of dust on everything when I entered the room." He furrows her brow as she recalls what she saw, "It's almost as if you guys have never even…." She looks at the base and frowns, she immediately gets the sense that something was off, "Used them."
She looks around at the two and then quickly figures it out.
"Where's Donut?" she asks the two remaining soldiers.
"Oh shit, we forgot about her," Grif quietly mutters.
"Wait so, if there's already a training program in the tank, why are you still teaching us the class?" Church inquires.
"It's an Army program and on top of that it's also in the testing phase," Lockett replies matter-of-factly, "I do not trust that program to properly teach you how to drive a tank."
"Isn't it our job to test it though?" asks Caboose.
Lockett replies "We're going to do that either way, it's just I would much rather you guys know how to do it ahead of time in the event god forbid where I get incapcitated and one of you has to take over as the operator. Plus I still have to legally give you guys that actual driver's test anyway."
"Great," Tucker murmurs, "We actually get to do stuff for once."
"Wait, so where did you send him?" Rowe asks in complete disbelief.
"We sent him to the store," chuckles Simmons.
"The store?" Rowe tilts her head and curiously comments "The don't recall a store ever existing in this place."
Grif snickers "It's because it doesn't."
"So you sent him out searching for something that doesn't exist, and now he's just wandering around the place aimlessly?" Rowe asks, growing ever slightly more angry as time goes on.
Simmons waves it off saying "Don't worry about it, he'll probably just wander around the canyon for a few hours and then come back." Simmons pauses and then adds "Whether he ever figures out that there's no store is another discussion."
"My bet's a week," Grif affirmed.
"And that doesn't worry you at all?" asks Rowe.
Grif waves out to the wide and barren expanse that is Blood Gulch.
"Look at this place!" Grif scoffs, "Look how big and empty it is! Judging by his sense of direction from earlier, he'll wander around for hours and never even reach half-way through the damn thing."
Rowe deadpans and asks the two "Is there any other building in this canyon?"
"The Blue Base," they both answer.
"And what happens if he manages to wander there?" she raises an eyebrow.
Grif and Simmons went silent, they hadn't thought about that.
"Elbow-grease, how stupid do they think I am?" Donut grumbles to himself.
He stops and shoots a glare back at the direction he came from.
"When I get back from the store with the head-light fluid, I'm gonna talk to the Sergeant," he promises.
As he clears the next hill, he comes across Blue Base and he smiles, mistaking it for the store.
"Finally, there it is," Donut smiles as he breathes a sigh of relief, he then looks closer at where the Blue Team was gathered and excitedly cries "Oh sweet, they sell tanks!"
Author's Note: I'm a little lacking on what the original CE armor colors were, apparently the answer to that question is nonexistent on Google. Until I go and plug in my old copy of Halo CE, I'm gonna rely on an answer I found on a Halo forum. The original idea was to keep it similar to canon RvB while revamping the dialogue. If I were to enter into the more AU areas, then it probably won't be a huge change to the overall timeline, as I do intend for the characters to end up at the right places. For the first five seasons specifically, I probably won't change much save for more dialogue and shenanigans, the later seasons are definitely up for debate on what I do. Anyway, this is chapter two, I hope you like it and I'll see you guys as soon as I can. Spring Semester just started, I'll try to be consistent with my updates, especially while juggling my other story. Like always, leave a review, if you want to see more please follow the story and I'll see you guys on the next one. Remember, Big Brother is watching….always.
