After awhile, Kaede retreated to a separate room for some alone time... but not Tuckers definition of alone time, real alone time. Alone with her thoughts. Truthfully, she was happy she was back with everyone with a few exceptions, Donut and Lopez. Donut was with them awhile ago, she hopped he was safe, wherever he was.
Valhala
Donut sneezed as he was putting his newly cleaned armour back on.
"Oh. Someone must be talking about me!" Donut excitedly says. "I hope its good things. Anyway, good thing I got my armour cleaned of blood."
Storage facility
'Its Donut, he's probably fine.' Kaede thinks. She then takes notice of the terminal in the room. Someone seems to have unlocked it and left it. Curiosity taking over, Kaede pulls up a chair and looks through the many options available.
It contained almost everything about Project Freelancer. Agent psych-profiles, A.I. experimentation, Red and Blue simulation bases, equipment logs- wait, Red and Blue simulation bases! Selecting that option, she was greeted with a sub menu with its own options. Red and Blue psych-profiles, battle statistics, simulation scenarios, and one file labeled other.
"Simulation? So it was all a game after all." Kaede silently muses. "A very lethal game." As temped as she was to look up everyone else, she instead was draw to the file labeled other. Inside the files was only one audio recording. 'What could be so special as to warrent its own folder?' Kaede thinks before playing the audio log.
"Beginning play back." Shelia says before the recoding starts. A man with a very condescending voice begins speaking.
"Counselors log #204. After reviewed footage from Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha, we have determined an unexpected anomaly has appeared amongst the simulation troopers there. An individual had suddenly appeared along side the simulation troopers that possesses extraordinary ability's." Kaede sits up and pays full attention this, knowing he was referring to her. "The subject could levitate objects around her with seemingly her mind. The objects that can be lifted can be heavier than what the subject could normally lift. No known limit to the weight capacity of this... power. She can seem to effect objects in a radius of 2 meters, though we cannot 100% confirm this limit as of now."
Meanwhile, Kaede struggled with paying attention. Just the way this guy speaks made her feel like she was back in class in the orphanage where the teachers would speak in this sort of tone.
"I have brought this up to the Director, however, he was disinterested in the subject, choosing to focus more on continuing his research on A.I. theory and the multiple security breaches that have been occurring more lately." The Counsellor continues. "While this is somewhat understandable, I believe we should have made time to at least look into this girl and her powers. A few years ago, she sent in a blood test to our health division. After its results were sent back, we retrieved the blood for further study. Much to our disappointment, the blood was no more than a normal AB negative sample. Where ever this power originates from, it is not in the blood. I would recommend having the girl brought here, however, she disappeared after the soldiers in that area were transferred out. I purposed a small operation to find her, however the Director declined this. He stated that we should be focusing on the upcoming inspection by Chairman Hargrove and the Meta's constant attacks, and I believe he still held no interest, which puzzles me. One would think a Doctor like Doctor Church would jump at the chance to look into something new."
The recording ended leaving Kaede to her thoughts. She hadn't really thought of where her powers came from, only that they were there. She vaguely thought it had something to do with her horns, but that seemed unlikely seeing as plenty of animals with horns don't have the same ability. She briefly entertained the idea of being found by Freelancer and discovering where her powers came from. What was Freelancer really like anyway, besides their asshole agents? Whatever the case, they were busy with other things at the time. And didn't Sarge say he and the others brought down Project Freelancer? Guess its too late. Oh well, if they had to be brought down, they were probably assholes, right? And wait, did they guy says Doctor Church!?
"That sounds amazing!" Caboose exclaims from elsewhere, interrupting her thoughts. Sighing, she gets up and finds Caboose at the exact same time as Grif and Simmons it seemed. "Ah, thats good. Eh, maybe a little to the left."
"What is all this?" Grif asks as the three stare at the makeshift structure.
"Oh, this is new Red base. Welcome." Caboose greets.
"When did you build this?" Simmons asks.
"Oh I didn't build this. Your sergeant did!" Caboose explains.
"What? He built this? When?" Grif questions.
"Oh, just now." Caboose answers.
"He walked out of the room like ten seconds ago!" Grif exclaims.
"Oh he got sad about something so he's making a Red Base here. And I am helping." Caboose explains.
"Sad? What could make Sarge sad?" Kaede questions. While she had seen the man cry, it had NEVER been out of sadness.
"Go away!" They hear Sarge cry out from atop the "base".
"Sarge, what is all this?" Simmons asks.
"Simmons, didn't you hear? We're cannon fodder. Practice! Well if I'm the leader of junk, I may as well have a base made out of junk! Pretty appropriate, right?" Sarge explains. They must have also found those same files.
"Looks like shit." Grif calls out.
"That was rhetorical, dirtbag." Sarge says.
"Sarge, even if all that was fake you still took down Project Freelancer, beat that Meta guy up, and rescued Tucker and I from a desert full of mercenaries!" Kaede calls up to him. "All of that WAS NOT fake."
"Oh please! All of that was luck! In actuality, we ain't worth squat except maybe you and those super powers, but we're the UNSC's trash. Even if we did shit for all that, that doesn't deny the fact that we wasted six years of our lives on a lie!" Sarge exclaims.
"Sir, Kaede makes an excellent point. Even though-" Simmons is cut off.
"Don't call me that." Sarge demands.
"What? Call you what?" Simmons questions.
"Sir. From now on, you call me by my name: Sarge. Or S-Dog. I'm not in charge any more. I quit." Sarge says.
"...you what?" Simmons weakly cries.
"Uh-oh. I get the feeling that somebody else's world got rocked." Grif says.
"Yeh, I'll start working on another fort." Caboose says before walking away.
"We gotta do something!" Simmons cries.
"Yeah. Those six years were the best moments of my life, and at the time, Sarge enjoyed them too. We have to make him see that!" Kaede agrees. Tucker comes in.
"I found a working shower." He says.
"Oh, good." Kaede says before walking off.
"Wait, but what about Sarge!" Simmons cries out.
"Start brainstorming on how we're gonna get his mood up. I'll do the same while riding myself of the smell of sweat." Kaede says back before continuing along.
After her pleasant shower, Kaede returned to see Caboose frantically approach the reds.
"Sargeant, Sargeant." He quickly says.
"What do you want blue?" Sarge grumpily (for him) asks.
"I need your help." Caboose states.
"Our help?" Simmons questions.
"What can we do Caboose?" Kaede asks.
"Church is hurt, they must have gotten to him and Tex." Caboose says.
"What?" Kaede questions.
"Church and Tex left hours ago, where the hell were you?" Grif asks. "And if they got Tex, thats good. It just means she can't beat the crap outta us anymore."
"You keep saying they. Who is they?" Kaede questions.
"The fuck should I know?" Grif shoots back.
"We have to rescue them." Caboose continues.
"Rescue them, are you nuts? No one told them to leave, they're on their own." Grif says.
"I'll help." Kaede says. "But I'm doing this for Church, no one else."
"Why'd you say it like that?" Simmons questions.
"I dunno, it just sounded cool. But I am going for Church. Tex is on her own." Kaede clarifies.
"Good. Sargeant please help." Caboose begs.
"Uh hey dude, I don't know if you've picked up on this yet, but if you wanna convince Sarge to do anything, I don't think the best argument is 'The Blues might die if we don't.'" Grif says.
"Cowboy up Caboose and Kaede, I'm coming with you." Sarge says.
"What?" Grif questions.
"Huh?" Kaede goes, also puzzled by his response.
"I said, I'm helping them." Sarge firmly states.
"Who, the blue guy? Why on Earth would you ever help a Blue for no reason?" Grif asks.
"We need some weapons. How'd your equipment test go, Simmons?" Sarge ignores him.
"About as well as you would expect." Simmons answers.
"What did we lose?" Kaede eyes him.
"Nothing! Nothing. We just didn't get anything out of it." Simmons sighs.
"Heh, thats too bad." Sarge comments.
"Well I'm not going, and you can't make me. You quit, remember? I don't take orders from you any more, and besides, this whole command structure thing was bullshit anyway. We all know that now." Grif says.
"I'm not telling you ta go." Sarge clarifies. "I'm not even asking."
"You're not?" Grif questions.
"Nope. I'm goin'. That's it. You wanna come, come on. But I don't expect you to. Simmons will probably tell you that statistically, some of us will probably die." Sarge says.
"That sounds accurate." Simmons agrees.
"But that's not what's important. Let me ask you two a question: You ever wonder why we're here?" Sarge asks.
"Um, it does seem to be one of life's great mysteries." Grif responds after a beat.
"No, I mean you! What are you doing here? You always act like you wanna quit, but hell, you could've left whenever you wanted. No-one would have stopped ya. So why are you here?" Sarge asks him. 'They could do that?' Kaede inwardly questions. "And you, Simmons."
"Me?" Simmons questions.
"You say you wanna be in charge. They would have given you your own squad a dozen times over. You know it, and I know it. But you're still, here." Sarge continues. "And you Tucker. As much as I hate to admit it, you're actually good at being a soldier."
"I am?" Tucker questions.
"I know you like to make your rude comments, pretend like it all doesn't matter. But an entire alien race chose you to be their hero! So why are you here?" Sarge continues. "And Kaede, you're legal now and have all the skills and knowledge, and powers on top of that, to make a new life elsewhere, which is impressive considering it was us who taught you, so why are you here?"
"Well, I wouldn't-" Tucker cuts Kaede off.
"Don't ruin the speech, this is actually good." He whispers.
"Right." Kaede agrees.
"And Caboose... uh, its good to see you." Sarge continues.
"Thanks. I'm really enjoying the speech so far." Caboose says.
"Maybe you're all here because this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here because you don't have anywhere else to go. Maybe you're all here, because deep down, you want to be here. The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here! For all we know, Tex and Church are dead. That means we're the only ones who know what's happened; the only ones who can prevent them from covering it up. So the way I figure it, these Freelancer guys, wanna use us, take us away from our families, and send us all over the dag gum galaxy just to test if their agents are ready for the big fight? Well, I guess I'm interested in showing 'em, exactly what a big fight is all about. Time to clean the slate. So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even askin'. You do, what you gotta do Private Grif." Sarge finishes.
"Hhh, I'll go get my car keys." Grif groans. Kaede happily claps for him. "Don't push it."
"Ah, alright then. Let's move." Sarge exclaims
"I don't think a jeep will get us there soon enough. But I think I know what we can use." Simmons says before leading the group elsewhere.