Disclaimer: I don't own RvB.
Episode 51: The Closing of a Chapter
Dex shook his head as he and Rick attempted to sort through parts and supplies. "What, exactly, are we looking for?" Dex asked, pulling back to lean against the wall.
"Batteries, power cells, anything," Rick said, voice muffled slightly by the crate his head was stuck in. Dex blinked, leaning his gun against his shoulder as he regarded his comrade and his ridiculous position.
"What is the difference? Ya know, at my level," he asked curiously, knowing that if he didn't clarify Rick would numb his brain with SCIENCE!
"Not the time, Dex!" Rick hissed, head still stuck in a crate, just before a muffled explosion went off outside.
"Really? I always thought the battlefield was the perfect place for banter," Dex shot back, pushing off of the wall and dropping his gun back down into his hands as he made his way toward the exit.
"You hear that?" Red asked over Dex's 'witty' comment, also moving for the door.
"Oh shut up," Rick growled, pulling himself from the crate and taking his gun back up.
"Come on boys!" Red called, running toward the explosion site.
"Remember the days when we ran away from explosions?" Dex asked as he followed.
"Nope," Rick answered honestly, shouldering a rocket launcher.
"Huh. Ya know, neither do I," Dex realized. As the Reds exited the base, Epsilon was thrown into their path by an explosion.
"Whoa! What happened here?" Rick asked, looking down at the Blue with Tucker and Caboose not far behind.
"Wyoming. There," Epsilon answered, barely twitching toward where Washington and Alpha were shooting at something.
"And here I was worried we wouldn't get to kick a little ass today!" Red remarked cheerfully as he and his team turned to watch the 'battle.' Dex chuckled and primed his battle rifle.
"Here we go again~!" he sang as he ran forward with Rick and Red.
"Caboose! Stay with Epps!" Tucker yelled. Dex just barely heard the simple soldier reply with a 'yes' over the sound of exploding grenades.
"Blast it! Reggie found Maine's old Brute Shot I had stashed in our Pelican!" Marley snarled.
"And try not to kill him by accident!" Tucker yelled back to Caboose, whose response was drowned out by Dex bellowing,
"WHY IN THE GALAXY WOULD YOU KEEP SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHERE GUYS LIKE HIM COULD STEAL IT?!" at Marley.
"I was going to give it to you!" Marley yelled back. Meanwhile, Washington rolled forward to gain enough distance to protect against a somewhat clumsy swipe from Wyoming. They traded a few blows before Wyoming disengaged and activated a glitch-ridden invisibility unit. Due to his inexperience with the stealth tech, Wyoming moved too quickly and kicked up puffs of powder. Using these disruptions to the snow's surface, Washington was able to track his opponents movement and threw his bloodied knife into Wyoming's shoulder. A burst of gunfire was replied to with a blast from the Brute Shot and Washington was thrown to an old wreck of a Warthog. By this point, the Reds had arrived.
"Rah!" shouted Red.
"You're a pain in the everywhere, Reggie!" Rick called.
"DIE, FREELANCER!" bellowed Dex. Tucker just threw a grenade while Eagle was busy climbing to find a good perch. Seeing the multitude of ammunition headed his way, Wyoming backed away from the fallen Washington and utilized...
"Skits! A bubble shield!" Eagle hissed. Despite this, the Reds, and Tucker, continued to fire upon the Freelancer.
"You know you're not getting through this, right?" the man remarked.
"Oh yeah! I just enjoy watching explosions," Dex said as he lobbed a plasma grenade at the shield. Fed up, Wyoming executed a picture perfect rocket jump.
"Huh," remarked Eagle.
"That works?!" Rick breathed, nigh on reverent.
"Nerd later, dodge now!" Dex barked, throwing himself out of range as Wyoming came back down from his explosion assisted leap, raining Brute Shot blasts down on them. Rick launched a rocket at the white armored Freelancer... who flipped over it mid-air!
"Dude! How'd you do that?!" Rick asked as he jumped back to avoid a downward slash by the blade of the Brute Shot, Tucker and Red following his lead and jumping back.
"Skill," Wyoming said.
"Um~! Strong with this one, the Smug is," Marley remarked snidely from where she was working on the downed ex-Freelancer Agents.
"Shut up, you!" Wyoming yelled back, not noticing Tucker igniting his energy sword. Still, as Tucker swung, Wyoming managed to bring the broad side of his weapon up to block, throwing Tucker off balance. This also put Wyoming in a position to block a burst of buckshot from Red. Seeing an opening, Dex leapt onto Wyoming's back, wrapping thick arms around the rouge's neck and driving his combat knife deep into his opponent's formerly uninjured shoulder.
"Dude, you're tougher than I remember!" Dex remarked as Wyoming thrashed in his grasp. Somehow, the wiry sniper managed to dislodge the weapons expert before punching Red in the solar plexus and grabbing him by the foot.
"Dagnabit!" Red bellowed as he was swung through the snow. He tried to shoot the rogue, but couldn't get a good angle before he was sent sliding into Dex and Rick.
"Guys?" Eagle asked.
"Oh, like you didn't enjoy that!" Dex replied waspishly from his downed position in the snow as Tucker came in for a direct assault. It ended poorly for both of them with Wyoming punching Tucker in the face as the Blue yelled,
"STAB!" The twin prongs of the energy sword pierced Wyoming's shoulder again, this time making a second hole under the first, which the alien sword widened. Blood poured from the wound and splattered across the already reddened snow, the blood roses from the previous battle mingling and smearing across the snowy plain.
"Wash! Come on, he needs help!" Red said to the downed Freelancer/Phantom. Dex coughed as he pushed himself up.
"Oh no, not this time," he growled, turning to glare at Wyoming. "This time... it's personal," Dex growled, picking up his rifle.
"I can't... I'm done," Wash said, picking up the hook from the Warthog. "Here, take this."
"Ah. That... could come in handy," Dex allowed before grabbing Red's shoulder. "Red, get close to Wyoming and do what you do best. Me and Rick will take care of the rest. Eagle, get down here and get Wash to Marley. Drag him if you have to, I don't care so long as he gets help. Let's move!"
/*/
Marley, for her part, was actually tearing up. "What's with you?" Flowdie asked.
"I thought they had been deprived of this bonding experience when Maine was executed," she said, earning herself a concerned look from Flowdie. "Plus, I'm just... so proud of them. Look! They've wounded Reggie! Even if they didn't send him into the drink, he'd die from blood loss within the hour. And there! Eagle's bringing me Wash! Now I can easily fake his death while integrating him into Blue Team! He'll make a great big brother figure for them! KAI! GRAB ME THE GAUZE AND BIOFOAM! THIS IS GONNA BE A BIG ONE!" Marley declared. Flowdie shook his head and eased himself back out of the way while Kai rushed to do her trainer's bidding.
"She's... really enjoying this, isn't she?" Jack asked, watching Marley and her second protegee set up for Washington.
"Yeah. Ya know... I've never seen her this in her element before," Ed remarked. "Not even when she was fixing me up after my run in with Wyoming."
"Guess her calling is the field, huh?" Jack remarked.
"No kidding," Flowdie answered. The two snipers turned to him with matching airs of, 'really dude?'
"You do know that's the chick you've been crushing on since you met her... right?" Ed asked. Flowdie shrugged.
"It's because she's so at home in the midst of chaos that I love her," he told them. "She's skilled. I don't have to worry about her when I'm gone and when we're out together, I can trust her with my back. It's perfect."
"Dude, how anyone can call you a softhearted hippie is beyond me," Jack said, shaking his head. Flowdie chuckled as he shrugged.
"What can I say, I'm a strange man."
/*/
As Tucker got beat away from the weakening Wyoming, Red approached from the side. A blast of buckshot and Red had the man's attention. Unfortunately, Wyoming's deflection shields were still going strong and the blast did little damage. "Come here, you smarmy son of a bitch!" Red taunted. Wyoming growled and stalked toward the irritating Red. The mild waver in his approach hurt the intimidation factor, but the amount of blood running down his chest made up for it. No doubt about it, Freelancers were some scary resilient people. The two faced each other down in an Epic Walk sequence, Red firing shotgun shells and Wyoming's shields allowing him to shrug the impacts off and keep coming, until they were face to face and Wyoming knocked the shotgun from his enemy's hands and grabbed him by the chest plate.
"Never... insult... my mother," he growled, raising Red an inch off the ground.
"Oh no. I've lost... my shotgun," Red ground out. Dex chuckled over the comm. line.
"Moving. Get that hook on him, Red, or your opportunity is lost," he told the man. Red grunted as he unhooked the line from the back of his belt.
"Hey... Reggie. Settle a bet would you?" he asked, hooking the line to Wyoming's chest plate. "Does that thing kinda look like a big cat to you?"
"What the... ?" Wyoming asked, following Red's line of sight to see Dex and Rick shove the old Warthog off the cliff before looking down at the hook on his chest. "Oh son of a... !" he remarked, looking back at Red for a moment before he was yanked off his feet. "AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" he yelled as he was dragged through the snow, the memory unit popping off his back as he flew ever nearer to his ultimate death. As he flew past Rick and Dex, he grabbed the nearest limb in an attempt to slow his descent into the cold depths.
"Seriously?!" Dex howled as he was dragged through the newly reddened snow after the Mad Freelancer.
"DEX!" Rick yelled, abandoning his weapon to catch his friend before the Flying Wyoming could pull him all the way over. As the doomed man roared his pain and anguish to the heavens, Rick struggled to hold his friend as he dangled from the cliff.
"Rick! Grab my hand! HELP!" Dex yelled, panic creeping into his voice. Rick felt every nerve in his body light up as he held onto Dex for dear life. He could feel every rapid beat of his heart as sweat broke out all over his body. He couldn't loose Dex, they'd been through too much for that! There was no way Dex was dying on him!
"Hold on! Hold on! Don't let go!" Rick pleaded, knowing that it was rather redundant and there was no way Dex would willingly let go when seventy-five percent of his body was off the cliff! The weapons expert growled and, with his one free arm, slung the Brute Shot he'd stolen off of Wyoming from his back and drove it deep into the frozen ground, narrowly missing Rick's head. "Watch it!" the tech couldn't help but bite out. Dex snarled as he heaved, pulling himself further up onto the cliff.
"A bit of help would be appreciated!" he snapped.
"Right right. Sorry," Rick acquiesced, shimmying back and pulling with both arms. Soon, Dex was back over the lip and lay on his back with a heavy breath.
"Let's not do that again, yeah?" he asked. Rick let out a relieved laugh and collapsed beside the Hawaiian to clap a hand on his shoulder.
"You guys... are nuts," Tucker remarked. Rick and Dex both gave him a Look.
"Dude... who's the one who charged him head on and stabbed him with a sword?! That guy sounds nuts to me," Rick said.
"No kidding," Dex grunted, pushing himself up out of the snow. "Man that gets cold."
"Seriously? Cra-zy!" Tucker said, shaking his head and following the Reds.
"Eh, it's in the job description. You telling me you didn't read the fine print when you signed up?" Rick asked. Tucker jumped slightly when he heard Eagle laughing over the comms.
"Dude, get with the program!" the sniper remarked.
"How do you have my frequency?!" the Blue demanded. His 'comrades' laughed so hard, they nearly fell over.
"We've had your so-called secure channel since the Singing Lopez Incident!" Dex said. Tucker grumbled as they made their way to the sparking memory unit.
"Yeah, I don't know. It's in really bad shape," they heard Doc say. "And so are you."
"Who's in bad shape?" Rick asked as he came jogging up.
"I need you to use it on me," Epsilon said, ignoring the new arrivals.
"DUDE! We just fought a fudging civil war over not giving you up and you want to just dive into a faulty, highly damaged, memory unit?!" Dex asked, highly put out.
"Besides, I'm a medic! I took an oath!" Doc protested.
"Yeah, and so did Marley. Does that stop her from beating us black and blue 'til we're bleeding out our ears before patching us back up?" Dex asked with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
"Dex... you're really not helping the whole 'let's keep Epps from diving into a faulty, highly damaged, memory unit' thing," Rick told him.
"Oh save it," Dex muttered darkly.
"Caboose, here. Pick it up," Epsilon told the infamous-for-teamkilling Blue. Caboose looked Epsilon as close to in the eye as he could and said, with the utmost of sincerity,
"I can't, Church."
"Yes, you can. You do this all the time," Epsilon said in a rather condescending tone.
"Yeah... I don't want too," Caboose said, still completely serious.
"Yeah, okay, okay, Caboose. I'm sure I can do it on my own," Epsilon said, still highly condescending.
"But what if you don't come out again?" Caboose asked softly. Dex flopped down into the snow and propped his chin up on his knee. Rick and Red swiftly followed suit, pulling Tucker down as well.
"Well, you know what Delta always said, right?" Epsilon asked, trying to sound cool.
"Memory is the key," Caboose swiftly parroted.
"If I don't come back, then... your in charge of remembering me, okay? Don't let Tucker help, he'll just mess it up," Epsilon said, causing Tucker to attempt calling out... before being swiftly silenced by the three Red Agents sitting in the snow beside him. Epsilon turned to the memory unit before saying a final, 'bye buddy,' and leaving his robot shell to fall behind him as he entered the memory unit.
"Oh, the bromance is real," Dex muttered.
"My line," Eagle sniped, coming to stand behind his team. Dex shrugged.
"You can't deny it though."
"Hey, that unit looks bad. Let me see if I can stabilize it," Rick said, clambering to kneel beside the sparking piece of technology.
"Doc, why don't you go check with Marley and them?" Red 'offered.' Doc was smart enough to realize it wasn't an offer... but an order.
"Oh no," Rick groaned as the unit began to hum.
"What? What?!" Caboose asked anxiously.
"It's only going to be open a few more seconds. After that... he's not getting out," Rick revealed. Caboose returned his attention to the memory unit.
"Come on, Church. You can do it," he encouraged. "Can you hear me? You can... run toward my voice!" The unit continued to hum and emit sparks, time swiftly slipping away.
"It's shutting down! I can't stop it!" Rick growled, glaring at the tech as thought it had done him a great personal wrong. The humming and sparks stopped and the light faded. Somberly, Caboose asked,
"Church? Are you there?" Rick sighed and stood.
"Caboose..." he said, moving beside the Blue and laying a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"Church?" Caboose asked. He sounded so lost and confused, Rick almost wanted to give the poor man a hug. Instead, he cleared his throat roughly, patted Caboose's shoulder, and walked off to see what else he could help with. He couldn't stand to watch the simple soldier grieve.
/*/
When the UNSC arrived, the Phantoms had already left with the real Washington. All that was left was for the Reds, in their Standard Armor, to convince the officials of their version of events. "And where did the Pelican in the water come from?" the official the BGC was talking to asked.
"Wyoming. Great sniper, terrible pilot. He was already missing an engine before he attempted to land. I mean, who does that?" Red asked. Rick was glad he'd switched off his mic because he had to try really hard not to laugh while Dex twitched. The rest of the BGC could have sworn they heard the weapons expert muttering about testing blades on stone heads and buckshot brains being irritating to the point of instant hostility. They wisely stayed silent, though Red could admit to breaking out in a cold sweat. Luckily, the guy from the UNSC didn't seem to hear Dex's comments.
"Man, the Chairman's gonna be pissed! The budget only allows for one crashed Pelican per mission!" the official hissed. He sighed and looked back up at the BGC. "Alright, well, I guess you guys check out. You can head back to your training bases now."
"Yeah. We'll do that," Rick muttered sarcastically inside his soundproof helmet.
"We just call them 'bases,'" Red remarked, causing the UNSC soldier to chuckle.
"I bet," he muttered.
"Hey, we solved your problem. Not bad for 'trainees,'" Dex growled, grip tightening on his BR. The others backed away from him, just a little.
"Gotta hand it to ya," the UNSC soldier allowed, standing next to the dead armor of Washington, "killing one of these agents would be tough, but three? And this guy..." he turned to regard the still body of 'Agent Washington.' "The Chairman will not be happy he's dead. Think he wanted to debrief him personally. Not to mention the three helping him."
"He had others with him?" Dex asked, putting on what he thought should have been an Oscar worthy performance.
"I didn't see 'em," Eagle remarked nonchalantly, inspecting his sniper rifle for water damage.
"You sure this guy had help?" Red asked, nodding toward 'Washington.'
"Yeah. There was only the one," Tucker agreed, making a vague 'one' motion with his hand.
"And the Phantoms," Caboose said with a nod. The others all turned to him.
"The what now?" Al asked, quirking his head curiously.
"You know, the Phantoms! Ed and Jack and Marley," Caboose said.
"Records say he was assisted by Freelancer Agents North Dakota, New York, and Oregon," the official offered.
"Dude... those guys are dead. Check again," Rick said, mic finally turned back on. The soldier hummed as he checked again before tilting his head in confusion.
"Huh. You're right. They are listed as either KIA or MIA. Guess that checks out too," he said before nodding toward Caboose. "Might want to get him checked out. He must be seeing things."
"Oh, we already know what his problem is," Dex said. "See, someone had the bright idea of rebooting his armor. While he was wearing it."
"Yikes. Yeah, that would do it. You sure he's okay with a gun?" the official asked with another pointed nod. The BCG chuckled.
"Oh yeah, just be careful how you phrase orders and don't ever have him at your back in a fight," Dex said.
"Anyway, be sure to tell the Chairman we're sorry," added Al.
"Whatever. You're free to go. If we need you, we know where to find you," the UNSC guy said as he walked away.
"Come on fellas, let's go home," Red said, though he made no move to leave.
"Right. Hey, Blues! This way!" Dex called with a large, overhead wave and began leading the others away from the area. Once they couldn't hear the UNSC's equipment, Dex called Marley and the ship dropped down before them.
"All aboard~!" called Marley. Dex chuckled and hopped in before settling down in a chair with his new toys across his legs.
"Thanks for the pickup, Marley," Eagle said as he hopped up.
"Thank Niner," Marley retorted as the Blues clambered in.
"Wait... you're just going to accept the loss of Epsilon? Just like that?" Rick asked.
"After all the trouble you went through looking for him?" demanded Red.
"That's... whoa," Eagle remarked. Marley shrugged with a 'meh.'
"He's got some things he needs to sort out before he's ready to rejoin us. Besides, he's acting as bait at the moment," she answered.
"Bait?" asked Dex, interest peaked.
"Umhum. A little redheaded spitfire's gonna come after you lot looking to retrieve Epps. Actually, she's looking for the Director, same as Tex was. Only... she thinks Epps can help her find him," Marley said. "And you guys were the last ones to see him, so she'll come for you. And I am really looking forward to a certain reunion," she added, looking over at Ed.
"Wait... are you talking about... Carolina?!" Wash asked, staring at Marley.
"Yes," Marley admitted.
"Wait... you said she'd find my journal entries, not me," Ed said. Marley shrugged.
"Honestly, I'm not expecting you to be around when she gets to Blood Gulch. She's... not ready to see you again, Ed. It's when she watches your journals that she allows herself to recognize that she misses you," she admitted. Ed sighed and nodded, accepting Marley's explanation. After that, it was a fairly quite ride back to Valhalla.
/*/
It was quite a sight when the Pelican touched down in Valhalla and the Reds and Blues filed out. What most people didn't know... was that there were five others there that day. Five others that were cloaked so well they appeared to disappear. "Right, okay, just give me a minute to reorient myself..." the trooper in orange muttered. "Blue Base over there," he said, pointing to the north end of the canyon where a concrete base stood, adorned with faded and tattered blue banners displaying an eagle in flight. "Red Base that-a-way," he remembered, looking to the south where an almost identical base sat, it's red snake banners just as faded and torn as their opponent's. "Cave entrances were... ah-ha! Right over there," an orange armored finger pointed to three small openings in the cliff face; one to the north, one to the south, and one on a high ledge on the west side of the canyon. "Alright! Home sweet home," the soldier sighed.
"Grif... you're being melodramatic. Stop it," a soldier in maroon armor said. The first one, Grif, scoffed.
"Melodramatic he says. Melodramatic. You want melodrama? I'll give you melodrama! Oh! We're back! Ah, Valhalla, how I never missed you~!" he said, putting on an almost Shakespearean act.
"Shut it, Dirtbag!" the soldier in red bellowed. Grif swept him a mocking bow.
"Oh, but of course Sarge!" he said with scathing sarcasm. "I didn't realize you disliked melodrama so much! Of course, I'll stop!"
"Grif... you're going to make him shoot you," the maroon soldier warned.
"Simmons. I'm always about to be shot by this madman. With me, tempting fate is just another term for living," Grif explained, throwing an arm around his friend's shoulder.
"Man, those guys are crazy!" a soldier in cyan remarked, watching the other three walk away, toward the south.
"Are we any better?" a man in cobalt asked.
"You do realize Grif's my brother, right?" the only woman in the group put in.
"SANDWICHES!" shouted a man in primary blue.
"What do sandwiches have to do with Grif being Kai's brother?" the cyan soldier asked.
"It's Caboose, Tucker," the cobalt soldier remarked as he turned to the north. "His purpose is comic relief."
"I thought comic relief characters were supposed to be 'plucky' and, ya know, comedic," Tucker said, following his friend.
"I've always thought Caboose was funny," Kai offered, bouncing along behind the two men.
"Are we there yet?" Caboose asked.
"Don't start with me, Caboose," Tucker said with a weary sigh.
"Okay!" the Blue chirped. "Hey Church, are we there yet?"
"Two minutes, Caboose. Two minutes," the cobalt soldier, now identified as Church, answered.
"YAY!" yelled Caboose. As the Blues and Reds entered their bases, the Unseen Five entered the caves through the entrances Grif's little playacting pointed out to them.
"Why did we have to sneak down here?" asked a woman.
"Because the surface is being watched," another answered. The Five arrived at an underground computer and the leader uncloaked to reveal a woman in black armor with and ODST helmet and maroon accents. "Okay, D, do your thing," the Woman in Black answered, waving someone forward. A moment later, and the screen lit up with a green vector drawing of a Mark VI SPARTAN. "How's it look in there, D?" the WiB asked.
"It is... sufficient, Agent Black," the A.I. told her, rendering into a more complete image. "All surveillance is now under my control. Do you wish to go dark?"
"No," Black told the A.I. "Let our boys relax and unwind a little before we make any plans. Guys, pick a bunk and unpack. Grab some rest if you can. I'm calling the BGC down after lights out. D, make sure you loop the footage of their rooms before calling for them. I don't want anyone looking too closely at this canyon... or the soldiers within it," she ordered. Four other figures uncloaked and spread out. "And now... we wait," Black said, mostly to herself, before heading inside to find a bunk for herself.
/*/
'It's the darkest right before dawn.' The name of who said those words has been lost to the foggy mists of time, but the phrase remains. As does the truth it holds... metaphorical or otherwise. It was three o'clock in the morning, standard time, when the Reds and Blues dropped down into the cavern through the secret entrances they'd dug through their storage rooms. "Seriously, when did we dig that, why did we dig it, and why are we using it now?" Tucker asked.
"Oh, you guys didn't dig it," Dex said as he stepped out of the shadows. "We did, then told Kai about it so that when surveillance was tightened on the canyon you guys could use it."
"Welcome... to the Resistance!" Eagle declared dramatically from the battlements(?) of the Red(?) base. Tucker pointed at him with a 'seriously dude?' tilt of his helmet.
"Yeah, we don't know," Dex drawled.
"Best to ignore him when he gets like that," Rick said from the front door. Inside they found Marley and her Phantoms sitting around a table. Actually, the Phantoms sat around it while Marley was at the head.
"Am I the only one who feels like they're crashing an Illuminati meeting?" Al asked. Marley chuckled and stood, spreading her arms wide.
"Welcome, Reds and Blues!" she declared. "I am Dr. Marlene White, former Agent Oregon of Project Freelancer and founder of the Phantoms. I came to this canyon almost five years ago and started something the far-reaching consequences of which I could not have been aware. I came to this canyon to inject a bit of drama into Red Team's life as I knew the coming trials would center around the Blue Team. Nearly five years ago I started Project Red. Honestly, I didn't have a clue what I was doing then and I don't really have much of a clue now. All I know is one path the future could have taken. That route is now either blasted to bits or altered so severely it's nigh on unrecognizable. And that... is a spectacular realization."
"Wait wait wait... You know the future?" Wash asked. "Tell me I'm not the only one who finds that unbelievable."
"Oh-ho, you're not, trust me," Flowdie said with a laugh.
"She couldn't have saved me if she didn't have some knowledge of future events," Jack added.
"My head's still spinning from what she's told me," Ed agreed.
"Finished?" Marley drawled, giving the present Phantoms the gimlet eye.
"Yes ma'am!" they snapped.
"Ya know, a lot of things suddenly make a good deal more sense," Niner admitted.
"Good. Can I get on with my speech?" Marley asked.
"Yep, all good," Niner said, sitting back in her seat.
"Thank you. As I was saying, what I know of the future is worth little more than a skeleton outline if that. And as I told you on the ride over here, Carolina is going to be coming for you to help her get Epps to help her find dear old dad so she can have closure. Along the..." Marley began, only to be interrupted by just about everyone in the room exclaiming in shock. Her favorites were; 'Director be what!?' 'Carolina's his?!' and 'I have a pseudo-daughter?!' "Ah, the sound of confusion. Love it~!" she sang before slamming Al's head into the table. "QUITE!" she bellowed. Once the room was under control, she grinned at them. "Yes, Carolina is the Director's daughter. If you want to see her as a pseudo-daughter, Al, then go for it. Just don't call her that to her face. If anyone can punch an A.I and make it stick, it'd be Carolina. She is the real Agent Texas' daughter after all."
"Oh, what?!" Al squawked, taking a tumble out of his chair. Dex chuckled and leaned over to Rick.
"Tell me you got a video of that," he said, throat tight with repressed laughter.
"Oh yeah," Rick answered with Smug.
"Sweet~!" Dex sang. Marley sighed and shook her head.
"Family trees aside... I called you here to induct you, the BGC, into the Phantoms. That means measurements for armor, scheduling for additional training, and of course... instruction in the fine art... of mind-bending!" she said, ending with relish.
"Mind-bending?" Tucker asked. Marley nodded.
"Some people have a more... perverse wording for it, but yes. Mind bending. Ya know when you take a person's perceptions or understanding of the world and then... bend it. Distort it. Make them laugh along with you then stop and stare while scratching their heads. Getting them to say, 'Yeah... wait, what?' is an example of a minor mind bend. Kai's actually got a bit of a head start. So do Eagle and Dex. Rick a little bit too. Oh! And Red successfully bent the laws of physics to make himself look like a cardboard cut-out once! That was pretty epic," she said.
"You mean... we'll get to learn how to make, like, hammerspace? Like how Rick could pull maroon spray paint out of nowhere?" Al asked.
"Or how he managed to sharpen knives by spinning them in the air?" Dex added.
"Yep! Wait. When did that happen?" Marley said.
"Oh, that was when we were hiding from you while trying to come up with a plan to beat you and/or blow you up," Dex revealed.
"Huh. Man, ya leave for a month or so and you miss all the good stuff!" Marley lamented. "No matter. Yeah, you'll learn how to do insane junk like that. Out of the box thinking is your greatest asset, use it! Train it. Trust it. You guys nearly had us a few times. The training we'll offer you should merely make it easier for your off the wall ideas to actually work." The BGC and the Phantoms traded looks.
"Something tells me this... is gonna be epic," Eagle said.
"Also, I've decided that every couple of meetings we'll take a break and have a sort of... story time. A Q&A session. What do you think of that? If you agree, that's how we'll spend the rest of tonight. Leave the planning and scheduling for tomorrow," Marley added.
"Q&A for the win!" was the general consensus.
"Very well. What question would you like answered first?" Marley asked to get things started.
"How did you get recruited into the Project, Marley?" Dex asked. The woman in question chuckled and shook her head.
"It's not exactly a pretty story. Sure you wanna hear it?" she asked. Everyone leaned in. "Okay. It started with an attack on a research facility on Iegos."
/?/
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you have any questions for the Phantoms or BGC, let me know in a review or a PM because this is my version of season 9 where a good portion of back story is added in. Until next time,
regenengel3.