Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.
Episode 56: Where They Split
The Phantoms gathered in the underground base, all three teams: the Strike Team, Red Team, and Blue Team. They'd been training hard for the past two days, and Niner was close to having a mental breakdown, so they all felt it was high time they had story time. "Ya know, it was actually the Valiant that I met Marley on," Flowdie remarked.
"So... how did you end up on the Mother of Invention?" Rick asked, resting his chin on his crossed arms which rested on the back of his chair, the tech having decided to emulate Dex for the moment and sit backwards in his seat. Flowdie hummed and the flashback began.
/*/
"Go on Flowdie. It's a big chance for you. Just go," Oregon told the cyan agent. Florida, also known as Flowdie, sighed, hanging his head (I didn't want to go, Flowdie recalled. It wouldn't be the same). Oregon sighed and tugged off her helmet so he could see her face. "Flowdie... The MoI is where all the big shots are. Carolina, New York, Wyoming, Maine, Washington. I even heard that Agent Texas was slated to go to the MoI!" she pressed. (It was like she was trying to push me away. Try nothing. I was pushing you away. You know you love me. Just tell your story, Flowers.)
"There is no Agent Texas," Florida groused(I actually glared at you. I guess you couldn't tell. Should have wiped your visor. You still had ODST armor at that point. Fair enough). Oregon sighed.
"That's not the point, Flowdie!" she moaned. Florida fought to keep his amusement down. Oregon had a way of cheering him up without even trying.(You... are a mad man. No normal person would find this uplifting.) "The point is there this is a good thing! You're going up to the big leagues! The Freelancers that spread our name! Just go! You'll have better back up there anyway."
"Not better than you," Florida pouted, looking away. (I really loved you, even then. I was a poor choice for romantic partner at that time. You came around, and it was certainly worth the wait.) Oregon sighed, shaking her head.
"Carolina, Flowdie! Carolina! And Maine! New York! Wyoming! CT! Washington! Those guys are the greats! How could they not be better than me?" she asked. Florida chuckled.
"Easy. They're not you," he said. Oregon scoffed.
"That... was so cheesy Florida. I think you just surpassed American Velveeta!" she exclaimed. (One word and I put you through hell. 'Understood ma'am.' Good.) Florida chuckled, then pulled his helmet off and kissed her. It was so sudden, Oregon couldn't react.
"'S what I was going for, my dear," Florida said, eyes twinkling merrily. Oregon scoffed, slammed her helmet back on, and turned her back.
"Don't do that again, Florida. You might loose your tongue," she growled, her helmet altering her voice to sound more like Agent Minnesota. Florida shrugged.
"Totally worth it," he said, putting his own helmet on before he left for re-deployment.
/*/
Marley sighed and glared at Flowdie. "Now I'm remembering that kiss and my lips are tingling. Thanks a lot," she groused. Flowdie stared at her in shock for a moment, then grinned and pulled her in for a sudden kiss. Catcalls echoed in the concrete base but Marley paid them no mind, lost in the new-familiar feel of Flowdie's slightly chapped, warm lips as they met hers, that same electric tingle running through her just as it had all those years ago, lighting up her nervous system. "Your kisses are a medical mystery," she moaned when Flowdie finally released her. He chuckled, low and deep, eyes half lidded and lips quirked up in a smug half-smile.
"If I'd known you'd remembered that kiss for so long and so fondly, I'd have kissed you far sooner, Marley," he fairly purred. Marley's eyes snapped back open and she sent him a glare that could have curled paint.
"Don't push your luck, Flowers," she growled.
"As you wish," the man demurred, though there was still wicked mischief in his eyes. Ed sighed and leaned back.
"Because Marlene White just can't be normal," he remarked. Marley chuckled humorlessly and thus, the second flashback of the evening began.
/*/
Marlene White had been normal.
Agent Oregon, admittedly, had been slightly less so.
Agent Black is most decidedly abnormal. And it isn't just the fact that she's a former Agent for a top secret organization. It isn't even the experiments the Director had done to her that made her consider herself abnormal. (*She studiously ignored the tensed muscles and threatening growls from her boys. It was the past and there was nothing they could do about it. So why get so worked up about it?{She also studiously ignored that little voice telling her that you would do the same in their position. You'd rant and rage and tear down everything that man built because he dared touch what was yours and he hurt them in ways that were never meant to happen.}) No. It was the visions. The visions of Sim. Troopers that had danced behind her eyes, burning themselves into her brain, that were decidedly not normal. They made her laugh and scream and thrash in her sleep. For two years, she saw these visions every time she slept. And then, she heard that Agent South Dakota had blown a stealth mission to a frozen oil rig and been saved by Agent Carolina. That was when she came to a painful conclusion. Her visions told the future and they painted a rather bleak picture for the Agents of Project Freelancer. That was when her mission began.
She was going to make sure her visions came to be in the best possible way and she was going to save as many lives as possible along the way.
/*/
"Marlene White is dead, killed when Agent Oregon was born. Agent Oregon is too, having vanished into the dark void of space when the stark reality of what she knew hit her. So what was an abnormal ex-soldier, ex-army surgeon to do? Left alone in the vast reaches of space, Agent Oregon remade herself. She found an armor crafter and put in a special order. Soon, it was ready. Pitch black, sleek, cloaked in every possible way and with advanced sound dampening technology. In the cold and the dark, from blood and fear, Agent Black was born. In the cold and the dark, I remade myself from fear and blood into the woman I am today," Marley said, refusing to look at her team, old and new alike. She knew her story, her brokenness, wasn't anything new to these men; and Kai, but it wasn't pretty. Marley wasn't ashamed of herself, exactly, but she was a bit self-conscious about her scars, about the ugliness of her current self and the path that had brought her there. Flowdie scoffed and the Reds shook their heads, even if Marley wasn't looking at them to see their dismissive gestures.
"You're still Marlene White," Dex said firmly, showing the leader she'd helped him develop into.
"You're still Agent Oregon," Rick added calmly, a testament to the progress Marley had made in treating his girl-phobia.
"Yer just a little more than them," Red stated gruffly, revealing his more caring side that the doctor had tried her best to foster.
"Marlene White is the doctor in you," Eagle told the woman flatly, focused blue eyes tracking each twitch in her shoulders and belaying his training as a sniper.
"Agent Oregon is the soldier you rely on," Tucker said softly, as though he was just realizing it himself, and displaying the talent for tactical thinking Marley was itching to draw out and polish to a blinding gleam.
"Agent Black is the combination of the deadliest parts of yourself," Flowdie said with a gentle smile, his tone and expression at odds with the mildly sadistic implications of his fond remark.
"And that's okay," Al put in bluntly with the sardonic snarky tone he had become known for.
"Because we're all made up of broken parts," Steel added with a wry smirk, remembering once again when he'd first met Oregon.
"And we know the kindest parts of you are still there," Ed said with a grin, alluding to her saving them all, in one way or another.
"We can see them when you're just Marley," Jack said, kicking back in his chair and grinning at her like he used to grin at South back when they had still been on good terms.
"Yelling at us to get our skits together," Dex told her with a chuckle and a fond smile.
"When you patch us up after training gets a little too rough," Doc said, a little sheepish since he knew that was supposed to be his job.
"Mostly because of Rick or Dex," Eagle remarked with a pointed smirk.
"Just because you're too slow to get out of the way..." Rick muttered mutinously while Dex chuckled sheepishly and gave the burgundy sniper an only mildly apologetic smile. Marley blinked at them all before her face split into a wide grin.
"You guys..." she muttered, shaking her head fondly at them all.
"Aw! You know you love us!" Dex cheered, bouncing up and around the table to sling a heavy, armor plated arm around Marley's neck.
"That reminds me... there's more to that story," the woman in question said, expression lightening considerably. Once everyone had settled back down, Marley smiled gently at them all. "Everything changed for me in an instant, the instant I heard about Blood Gulch. I knew of the Sim. Troopers Project Freelancer had set up around the galaxy, but this outpost was special. This outpost would grow to be a legend. Or at least, it's Troopers would. And I knew it. I knew it all. It was what made me take up the mantle of Agent Black in the first place, those memories. The show that played in my mind night after night, light humor masking the darker, heavier aspects of the Sim. Troopers lives. The events had been practically burned into my memory, but search as I might, I hadn't been able to find any trace of Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. Or One. At the time, I couldn't seem to remember. But then, it didn't really matter, did it? Not in the grand scheme of things. The more I thought of Blood Gulch, the more I wanted to go there. Right away. But what would I do there? Would I train the soldiers, make them into the heroes and leaders they were on Chorus a bit earlier?"
"Ya know... I think I've heard about this Chorus place before. What's so special about it?" Rick asked, honestly confused. Marley froze for a moment before shaking her head with a weary expression.
"It's a SANFU and a half, Rick. And one that we'll be dragged into sooner or later. It's... actually what I've been training you for, to a certain degree," she admitted. "I won't... can't... tell you more right now but... I will tell you this. Even without my training, you would have likely made it out. Not unscathed, and certainly not without losing even more of your sanity, but you all had a very good chance of living through it... aside from Epsilon who willingly fragmented himself to run the Meta's suit and all of its enhancements to give you lot the best possible chance of survival." Everyone, even Caboose, was solemn at the revelation.
"But... you have trained us," Tucker said after a moment of deep contemplation, looking up from the table to look directly into Marley's eyes. "You are training us," he stressed, determination filling him and straightening his back. "We're not the same Sim Troopers you saw in your visions. We can make it through that war without loosing anyone."
"You're right... just like I was right about Dr. Marlene White and Agent Oregon being dead," Marley said, taking a good portion of the wind from Tucker's sails. "You're not the same... but you're still Lavernius Tucker, Micheal J. Caboose, Dexter Grif, Richard Simmons, Franklin Doughnut, Sarge, Kaikaina Grif, and David. Not to mention all the dead Freelancers in the room. You're different, yes, but at your core... you're still you."
"It's why I couldn't be afraid of you, Dex," Kai said softly. "I knew it was you, my big brother, and that while you had changed... you were still you and my Big Bro could never be dangerous to me." Dex sighed and sagged in his chair for a moment before he shook his head and stood up swiftly, amber eyes burning fiercely.
"After we get Epps back, you're telling us everything you know Chorus. Don't leave out a single detail. Things are going to be different this time around, they probably already are, but some knowledge is better than going in blind," he declared, his words quivering with determination. Marley nodded, a little awed by what her meddling had done to the man.
"I was planning on doing just that, Dex," she told him, getting a nod in return as he sank slowly back into his chair, still ramrod straight. "Well anyway, I decided I couldn't train you to be the heroes of Chorus at the beginning. I couldn't force that kind of growth. Then a thought occurred to me. I couldn't just drop in and start training you, or making you all work together, but maybe I could do it sneaky like. Take you on field trips to help save the rest of the Freelancers or take out the last remnants of hostile aliens. I knew I'd have to do it one by one, to keep it secret, and it'd be easier if I only did it to one team. I smirked under my helmet as my choice became clear.
Red Team.
You guys didn't seem to naturally attract as many crazy adventures as Blue Team. Oh you got dragged along, but Blue Team had all the real drama. 'Look out, Red Team of Blood Gulch. Agent Black is in need of assistance and Agent Oregon has nominated you,' I'd said to myself, plotting a course for the lonely box canyon inhabited by what would become the greatest team of soldiers in the galaxy. And that's when the story of Project Red began," she finished. Dex snorted, lips quirking up in a shadow of his familiar smirk.
"Nearly gave me a heart attack when you picked me up that first time," he said. Marley grinned at him.
"Only the first time? Man, I must be slipping!" she said. Dex chuckled and shook his head.
"Nah, you really gave me a minor heart attack the second time. And the first time you pulled Maroon and I for the same mission? I'm sure you shaved a few years off my life," he said, smirk back in full force.
"I'm sensing another story here," Jack said, eyes flicking from the orange Agent to the humming Doctor.
"A story for another time, I think," Marley said, pulling back with a thoughtful look on her face. "I... need to get my story straight. Disjointed information can be as dangerous as flying blind. Besides... it's the darkest of my visions you're asking for." Immediately, the room was as grave as death.
"I'm sorry, Marley, but we need that intel. If any of the Phantoms in space have information on the current situation on Chorus, we're going to need that too. Once you have the information from your visions worked out, could you contact them?" Dex said seriously. Marley sighed and gave him a wry smile.
"Told ya you'd be great, Captain Grif," she said before vanishing deeper into the base. Dex stood there for a moment longer, frozen as realization crashed over him.
"Holy fire," he breathed, gaining curious looks from the others. "She mentioned that she'd known a Grif before, the day she first picked me up," he explained. "I had no reason not to believe her. She told me he was a good man. Lazy, rude, and a total slob, but a good man. A good captain. He helped end a civil war, giving hope and strength to young, inexperienced soldiers." Realization was hitting the others at this point... except for maybe Caboose. "I just realized... I'm the Grif she 'knew.' She was talking about her visions!"
"Ooh~! That makes much more sense," Caboose said, far too pleased.
"I just know I'm gonna regret this but... more sense than what?" Al asked.
"Marley confusing Dex with his father!" Caboose said, throwing his arms out wide. Everyone blinked at him.
"That... actually wasn't as confusingly illogical as I'd expected," Dex admitted.
"Yeah... that almost made sense itself," Tucker said, still staring at the simple soldier.
"Am I the only one confused by how not confusing the words that came out of Caboose's mouth were?" Rick asked.
"No. You most certainly are not," Niner told him, staring at the one she'd decided was the most insane of the bunch in complete and utter shock. Caboose, as usual, was completely oblivious to the effects of his words and was instead quietly happy with having made sense of some small part of the world.
/?/
A/N: Darn it! Caboose and Marley are being difficult and Ed was having none of it so he's barely in here! Ugh. I just couldn't make this longer so sorry for the shortness. I have a feeling much of this 'season' is going to be similarly short.
Anyway! Next up: PAINTBALL! The Second.