"Explain yourself soldier!" Sarge loudly exclaimed.
"The blues were dicking around with the teleporter." Grif lazily explained.
"How could you know that when you were snoozing on recon!" Sarge yells.
"They were doing it for hours. I think I got the important information and deserved a break for all the hard work I done." Grif explains.
"Yeah, a few minutes of sitting on your ass and watching other people screwing around is defiantly deserving of a four hour nap." Simmons sarcastically remarks.
"Recon is a hard job." Grif defends.
"You think everything is a hard job." Simmons shoots back.
"I'll show you a hard job when I leave you bleeding on the ground." Sarge cocks his shotgun and points it at Grif. "Besides, we just finished Lopez. He could easily replace you, except do everything better."
"While I do agree with you sir, I do think the fact that their teleporter is working is a vital piece of information." Simmons says.
"Dang nabit, you have your stay of execution then." Sarge grumbles as he lowers his shotgun.
"What were they doing with their teleporter?" Simmons asks.
"I dunno. It looked like they were just throwing rocks through it." Grif explains. "They came out all black and smokey looking."
"Men! Do you know what this could mean!" Sarge exclaims.
"I'm sure you'll tell us." Grif sighs.
"The blues could weaponize this teleporter to fry us alive!" Sarge explains.
"Sir, its high unlikely that-" Simmons is cut off.
"Stow it Simmons!" Sarge barks. "The time to attack is now and now with Lopez, we out number them!"
"I guess thats technically true, but shouldn't we scout ahead before we attack? If we're lucky, we may catch them off guard during a lapse of security, or something like that." Simmons suggests.
"Excellent Idea Simmons!" Sarge exclaims. "Starting tomorrow, you'll being the scouting operation."
"Me?" Simmons questions.
"Yes. We can't trust Grif to do the job right, so you'll be leading this operation." Sarge explains.
"Oh. Thank you sir." Simmons says.
"Wow, if sleeping on the job is gonna get me outta work, I should do it more often." Grif says.
"Meanwhile, Fatass and I will be running though a standard training op." Sarge exclaims.
"Awwwww. Do I have to?" Grif questions.
"You can say hello to my shotgun again." Sarge suggests.
"Ugh, fine." Grif sighs.
"Alright men! The operation begins at 6:00 tomorrow." Sarge announces.
Getting up for the day, Kaede started by taking a shower. Her clothes had yet to arrive, so she had to continue wearing her usual which no doubt smelled by now. Looking back at the barracks, Both Church and Tucker were still asleep. It was 7:30 in the morning, wouldn't soldiers be up earlier?
Shrugging it off, she went into the storage room/ kitchen/ computer room and looked for breakfast. She found some Cheerios cereal, by trying some of it out it tasted stale. Throwing it in the trash, she opted for just some toast. Luckily, they had a toaster, and after enjoying her breakfast, she looked back in the barracks to find Church and Tucker still asleep. Not wanting to disturb them, she began scouring the base for something to do. Nothing in the storage room besides a Bop-it, she played with that for ten minutes before looking for something else. Everything in the storage room looked dangerous or simply wasn't a toy, so she decided to head outside.
It was HOT out, especially with her black hat on. Looking around, there seemed to be nothing in sight but rocks and patches of grass. Of coarse it didn't look she explored the whole canyon yet, as on the other side she saw the canyon went on further. There also seemed to be caves along with a ridge to get a better view of blue base. On the ridge, she spotted something a dark red.
"Im sure Church and Tucker wouldn't mind if explored." She said to herself before heading toward the ridge.
Upon climbing the ridge with the assistance of her 'other hands', Kaede spies a soldier in similar armour to Church and Tucker, only this one is a dark red. He is lying down looking through a rifle similar to the one Church carried around. He seemed to only be using it as a shoe-in for binoculars seeing as he didn't have his finger on the trigger. Seeing as he didn't notice her, he was most likely focused on blue base. That, or he was daydreaming.
Chuckling to herself, Kaede walked over to the soldier and laid down beside him, also looking intently at blue base. He still didn't notice her presence. Kaede then poked his side to see what would happen.
"Not now Grif! I need to focus." The soldier exclaimed, not looking at Kaede. She decided to try something.
"Why so focused?" She asked in the deepest voice she could manage.
"What the hell happened to your voice? You sound like some kind of edge lord." Simmons explains, eyes not leaving the rifles scope. "Did Sarge punch you in the throught?"
"Uh, yeah. He sure did..." Kaede continued in her voice. "That sergeant is rough."
"Well, maybe if you actually did work around here, he wouldn't feel the need to constantly threaten you." He explained. Kaede then begins chuckling at the inherit stupidity of the red. These chuckles finally bring Simmons out of his focused state and back to reality, in which he immediately notices the chuckling ten year old beside him.
"Wha-? Who are you? How'd you get here?" Simmons asks.
"Hello, I'm Kaede. I just crawled up here." Kaede answers. "Who are you?"
"I'm Simmons. What are you doing here?" Simmons asks.
"I was bored, so I decided to look around." Kaede honestly answers.
"You do know this is a warzone, right?" Simmons asks.
"Thats what Church said. Do you know him?" Kaede asks.
"I don't know anyone named Church." Simmons answered. "Only people I know here are all my teammates at red base."
"Can you take me there?" Kaede asks. Church did say they were fighting the reds, but it didn't look like it was anything serious. Church and Tucker both seemed harmless, and so did this Simmons. So why not check out this red base since she had nothing to do. Hopefully the red team was just as funny as the blue team.
"I think its best that I do that." Simmons agrees. "Follow me, I'll take you to red base." Simmons leads, Kaede follows further though the ridge and eventually to a building exactly like blue base, only with red markings. She spies two more soldiers, a red one and an orange one. The red one looks like he is beating the orange one with his gun as the orange one lays on the ground just taking it.
"Ah-haowwwwwwww." The orange one complains as she and Simmons get closer.
"Stop crying you big orange baby." Red says as he continues to whack orange.
"Sarge, what are you doing?" Simmons asks.
"Can't you see Simmons?! I'm getting Grif's pain tolerance levels up so if he's captured by the enemy, he won't spill any information and thus, will be forced to kill him." Sarge explains.
"Excellent idea, sir!" Simmons agrees out of habit.
"Is he going to be okay?" Kaede asks about the one called Grif.
"He'll be fine." Sarge says. "Unfortunately." He mutters the last part so no one can hear. "By the way Simmons, who is this?"
"Im Kaede." Kaede greets.
"Im Sarge. I'm the one in command of this hear Blood Gulch outpost number 1." Sarge says.
"Grif." Grif simply says. "What are you doing in shit hole like this?"
"Exploring." Kaede simply answers.
"Right." Grif answers. From the tone of his voice Kaede guessed he either didn't believe her, or simply didn't care.
"Yup. This is the glorious red team! Three fine soldiers, and one turd pretending to be a soldier." Sarge says.
"Wait, that would make four?" Kaede brings up.
"Yes, Lopez is in the base, fixing up our armoury. He doesn't talk much... or at all." Simmons explains.
"Why don't we give you the extended tour of red base! After all, not many people come by." Sarge suggests.
"Who'd wanna come to a place like this." Grif mutters.
"Maybe if you hadn't told Commands inspection squad we had Cholera, we would get more visitors." Simmons complains.
"Hey, you wanted not to come in the base for a few minutes, I kept them out for hours." Grif defends.
"And when they did come in they stayed for a month." Simmons chastises.
"Whatever. It works, it works." Grif lazily replies.
"Yeah? And I think its time you get back to work!" Sarge yells. "Go help Lopez with the weapons."
"Do I have to?" Grif complains. Sarge cocks his shotgun. "I'm going! I'm going!" Grif yells as he speed walks into the , Kaede smiles, hiding back her laughter as best she can. These guys might be even funnier than the blues!
"Shall we show you around?" Simmons asks.
"Yes please." Kaede responds. Red base was more or less the same as Blue base with a few additions. There seemed to be two barracks as apposed to just blue teams one. Grif, Simmons and Lopez slept in one while Sarge had the other to himself. Additionally, red team had a workshop, separate to their storage room. While inside, she spotted Lopez, the brown soldier and just as Simmons said, he never spoke. On some level, it kinda creeped her out, something was just... robotic about him.
Moving outside, the roof was more or less the same as blue bases with the exception of the teleporter not being operational along with pistols and rifles littering the place.
"This place is messy." Kaede states
"Grif!" Sarge yells.
"Sorry about that. A certain SOMEONE on this team has a habit of leaving things on the ground." Simmons complains.
"What." Grif calls back as he slowly makes his way to the roof.
"Clean up this mess. On the double!" Sarge demands.
"Does it have to be on the double? How about on the half?" Grif questions. Wanting to help, Kaede uses her invisible arms to pick up the dropped weapons.
"Should I bring them to Lopez?" She asks. Upon seeing the floating weapons, the reds are left speachless.
"Uhh... what in the sam hill is going on?" Sarge questions.
"Are... are you doing that?" Simmons asks. Maybe revealing her powers so suddenly wasn't a good idea.
"Umm... yes?" Kaede answers timidly.
"Holy shit!" Grif responds.
"Thats so cool! Why didn't you tell us you have the force!" Simmons exclaims.
"The force?" Kaede questions. Tucker mentioned that too, she would have to ask about that.
"Missy, you have the power to move things with your mind! Thats gotta be useful." Sarge says before turning to Grif. "How does it feel? Being more useless then a little girl!?"
"Meh." Grif responds. Popping a soda from no where and taking a sip.
"Can I have one?" Kaede innocently asks.
"Tell ya what. Help us put away those weapons and you can have all of Grifs." Sarge proposes.
"Yes sir!" Kaede said with a mock salute before taking the weapons to Lopez. As soon as she came back they had a soda ready and waiting for her. She stayed with the reds the rest of the day, watching their antics as they all threw jokes at the expense of each other with the occasionally Simmons kiss assaery towards Sarge. She watched it for hours and there was never a dull moment. Near the end of the day, what would be around supper time, she headed back to blue base.
"Can I come and visit every once in awhile?" Kaede asks.
"If it means you do more of my work like you did today, I highly encourage you to do so." Grif responds.
"Ignore him. We would love it if you came to visit." Simmons says.
"Kaede, consider yourself an honorary member of red team!" Sarge offers a salute.
"Thank you, sir!" Kaede excitedly salutes back. With that, Kaede heads off towards blue base.
"Kaede! Where have you been! We've been worried sick!" Tucker exclaims as she returns.
"Sorry, Tucker." Kaede apologizes. "I woke up before all of you did and decided to explore around the canyon."
"Well next time, let us know when your going out." Church says rather harshly. "I don't need a dead kid on my conscious."
"Yes! I promise I'll let you know when I go out." Kaede bowed as she apologized.
"Okay. Whats for supper, Church?" Tucker asks.
"I'm not your fucking mother! Your making your own supper." Church says back.
"But now that Kaede is here we have to prepare food for her too!" Tucker complains.
"You'll figure it out." Church simply says.
"Fuck you, dude!" Tucker shoots back. They continue like this for awhile, all while Kaede laughs at their antics. With both the Red and Blue teams, her time in Blood Gulch is going to be great!