~ Reach ~

The sudden jolt was what woke both Donut and Caboose from their deep sleep before they saw 479er walk out from the front. "Alright, you two were here, pulled an all-nighter," 479er said to both soldiers while the back (and only enters) began to open. "Welcome home you two."

Right after she said this, the back entrance had open revealed the airport they had landed in and the sight of the city New Alexandria. Both Donut Caboose picked up their few belongings that they had then stepped out of the Pelican and on to the plate from being blinded by the bright light for a moment. While taking in the air of the plant seeing they had been wearing helmets for a long period of time. After a few seconds, past 479er finally went to them after making the last few checks with a clipboard in hand.

"Listen up you two," 479er said getting both soldiers attention to her. "I was given orders to stay here with you two until both of you are done with whatever it is so I'll stay here."

Something must have clicked inside of Donut's head for a moment before he turned to Caboose with a big grin on his face; which did not bring any comfort to you Blue soldier at all, then turning back to 479er. "How about you come back with us." Donut said in a cheery voice that no man should ever do in reality. "Instead of doing absolutely nothing for god knows how we are going to take."

If 479er wasn't wearing her helmet, then both soldiers would have seen her raising an eyebrow at Donut before looking at Caboose. "Look that's very nice of you but I don't want to be a bother to any of you," 479er told them.

Caboose then took a step forward at the moment next to the pilot. "You won't be a bother to us besides," Caboose said then pointed to Donut who then raised his right hand up. "This guy right here doesn't know even know anyone in my family and he's still going to come along."

Said pilot looked at Donut for a moment then raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

The young soldier nodded his head. "Yup."

"Huh, … well okay then."

"Great! So, uh, what's your name?"

Instead of answering right away to both Sim. Troopers, 479er grabbed each side of her helmet before pulling it off her head. Long dark brown hair pulled into a very tight braid fall over her shoulder some loose strands of hairs falling over lightly tanned skin almost covering her sky blue eyes after her helmet came off along with a grinning pilot. "Helena Light but everyone calls me 479er," 479er told both Caboose and Donut who then both snapped out of their trance and looked at the female pilot.

Donut shook his head a bit before responding. "That's a nice name." Donut commented before he looked at Caboose. "So do you know how we're going to your home? Or who is at least giving us a ride over there?"

For a moment Caboose didn't know what to do before remembering that there was one person that he could call at such short notice. "Well, I could someone that I know to pick us up at such short notice." Caboose informed the two.

479er looked at Donut for a moment before said pink (Donut: Light red! Author: SHUT THE FUCK UP DONUT!) shrugged his shoulders. "Do you have a cell phone on you?" 479er asked the blue soldier.

"Truthfully, no I do not." He tells them then raised a finger behind him. "But there is a pay phone inside if I do remember clearly from the last time I was here."

With that said all three soldiers began walking towards the main building of the airport. In the process of looking for a phone, 479er had found someone to watch her 'bird' while gone before giving a very terrifying death threat to the poor soldier who later on both Donut and Caboose learned was a new rookie to the whole thing. Needless to say, both Donut and Caboose added another reason of two why to never get on 479er bad side in fear of their lives and maybe that other guy too. It wasn't long either that they found the area to place their armor or any other equipment on them in a safe storage replacing them with civilian clothing that they brought along with them. After getting a few directions to a nearby pay phone (being lost for an hour didn't really help either) before Caboose pulled out an old phone from one of the many pockets on pants then began book flipping through pages.

"So who are you going to call?" Donut asked now wearing a pink (Donut: LIGHT RED! Author: SHUT THE FUCK UP!) t-shirt, pin- I mean light red military issued pants and (horrifyingly enough) cherry red military combat boots.

Caboose now wearing a blue t-shirt, the blue military issued pant and blue military combat boots picked up the receiver while using his free hand to dig into his pocket fishing out a photo id card with a bar-code on the front next to the photo. "My dad." Caboose answered as he held his card to the scanner for a few seconds before punching in the numbers from his little phone book. "At times like these, he knows how to keep a calm self-esteem."

On the other end of the phone, all three soldiers could hear the call trying to get through before the second ringer ended by a click and a new voice coming through. "Hello?" A deep male voice answered sounding a bit confused.

Caboose couldn't help but smile widely upon hearing the familiar voice after many years. "Yes, is this Ryan J. Caboose?" Michael asked the other male known as Ryan.

(A/N: From this point on I'm calling Caboose by his first name because I'm pretty sure everyone doesn't want to get confused about who is who, am I right?)

The other male hesitated to respond for a moment. "Yes this is him, who am I speaking too?" Ryan asked failing to realize who he was speaking too.

Michael smiled grew even more if was even physically possible. "Well, then sir this is your son Michael J. Caboose speaking to you."

There was a long moment of silence over the phone between the two before laughter was heard from the other end of the line. "Do you want me to get your Ma here? She's been waiting a long time to hear from you." Ryan said in a cheery tone of voice.

For a moment Michael thought about it before remembering what he called for. "No Pa, just a quick favor from you are all really," Michael explained to his Pa.

"Sure, anything for you son."

"I need you to pick up me and two others from the airport. The one that I was deployed from a few years back."

Another row of silence was met between the two before the sound of keys could be heard in the background. "I'll be there in an hour." Ryan suddenly said to Michael.

A small thought past through from the young blue private. "But it takes about two hours to get here from the house, doesn't it?" Michael asked confused at his father's words.

"It's call breaking the speed limit son," Ryan explained while Michael somehow knew his Dad is grinning. After that, the call ended.

Turning to look back at the two who both were waiting silently. "Well?" Both Donut and 479er asked Michael at the same time.

Michael tilted his head to the side a bit before answering. "My dad will be here in an hour." He tells them then picked up his belongs. "We should go to the front to make things a bit faster to leave this place and spend any more time in this place."

Silently agreeing both 479er and Donut before picking up what little belongs they had brought along, soon starting to make their way to the front entrance of the airport.

Back with the rest of the Reds and Blues teams, along with Tex, they had an early start in the day seeing as none of them had slept well that same night after Doc's story and the prank.

Flashback, that same night….

Doc titled his head to the side while smiling before responding in an almost calm manner. "The end."

In front of the medic, Tucker sat very close to Church fearing something was going to appear. Church and Tex held hands behind their backs but showed no fear, well, at least Tex did that is. Sarge looked ready to shoot someone in the face, Simmons and Grif refused to move from their spot fearing to look anywhere else.

After a moment had past Doc let out a yawn while making others, except Tex, flinch at the sudden action. "Well, you guys can keep on telling ghost stories but I'm going to sleep. Night." Doc said before getting up from where he was sitting and walked away to the other side of where Sheila had parked, disappearing into the darkness.

When a few minutes past, both teams looked at one another before Tex decided to break the silence. "Okay," Tex said looking at rest of the sim. Troopers. "Who wants to go next?"

Church sent Tex a small glare at her question. "I don't think anyone else here can top what Doc had told us." He shot back at the black armor Freelancer.

None of the rest of the group seemed to notice a figure behind them as they listen to Tex and Church bickering again until it went behind Grif and whispered very lightly into his ear. "Boo."

About half a second later Grif let out a blood-curdling scream before (literally) jumping into Simmons' arms causing both to tumble over to the ground. When this happened, Simmons swear very loudly at the sudden action. Tucker jumped away from his seat, falling over first before getting back and hull ass out of there. Church screamed while throwing himself behind Tex. Said Freelancer looked around her area to find her gun. While Sarge looked ready to have a double heart attack. The figure then burst out laughing like no tomorrow.

It was a few moments when all (expect Tucker) finally calmed down when they realized who the figure that scared the living hell out of them. "DOC?!" All them (expect Tucker again) yelled out all out once in shock/pissed/annoyed.

Said purple armor medic finally calmed down from laughing too now just chuckling mess. "You guys should have seen your face! I'm so sorry but it was so worth it!" Doc said in between chuckles before finally being able to calm himself down from his laughing fit. "As I said, I really am sorry for that."

Simmons was the first one to break the silence while pushing Grif off him then sat up to glare at Doc. "Will, yeah, you should be." Simmons told the (somewhat) medic before helping Grif up to his feet. "You could have given us heart attacks."

Once on his feet, Grif glared at Doc. "Yeah." Grif said agreeing with his (maybe) friend.

The only one who didn't seem to be phased by the whole thing conversion (and not surprisingly) was Tex who seemed to be in other thoughts since she was simply looking all around them before realizing it. "Church," Tex said still ignoring the other two while looking around. "Where'd Tucker go?"

This got to others to stop what they doing to finally realized the aqua armor 'soldier' was nowhere in sight. "The fuck?!" Church screamed when he finally looked around. "Fucker ran off!"

End of flashback….

They have yet to find Tucker since last night and decided to find him later. "Hey guys," Simmons said breaking the sleepless group silence before pointing at something in the distance. "What's that over there?"

All the looked but were unable to tell what it was from the distance they were at. Upon getting a little bit closer inspection, they saw a familiar aqua armor. "TUCKER?!" Church screamed before he jumped off from the tank/Sheila and bolted towards his fallen friend. Once close enough, church skidded down on his knees next to Tucker then carefully lifted his head up. "Come on your lazy fuck wake the hell up!"

Once the others caught up to the two, Doc frowned when he saw Church shaking the unconscious man rather violently. "Church, shaking him like that isn't helping. Might as well stop. "Doc tells the cobalt soldier while taking out his medical bag. "I'll check him out that I am good on the medical field."

Everyone looked at Doc with so much doubt but looked back down at the soldier a few seconds later. "He's all yours," Tex said then yanked Church, who yelped in surprise, back to allow Doc to work. "Just make it quick. We're going to lose daylight."

Half an hour later…

Wanting to make sure he didn't miss anything, Doc took a bit of time but had determined that Tucker had passed out from exhaustion and dehydration. "In some sense, he should be found. We'll have to wake him up every 10 minutes or so to drink some water, with a little bit of rest too." Doc tells the others while putting his supplies away.

Simmons raised a finger to speak. "But we still need to get to command, how do carry him like this? We're not that close to where we need to be." He pointed out him and the others.

The organ soldier looked at his 'friend' with a spiral look on his face. "And how would you know that?" Grif asked the maroon soldier.

Tex looked at Simmons with a surprise face (which she will forever deny). "No, he's actually right… somehow." Tex said but whispering the last thing while looking away before pulling out a map and a marker. "Look we're here," She made a small dot on the map indicating of where they were at at the moment. "And the command is here." She then drew a line that made about two to three zigzags before stopping. "By jeep, it would at least take half a day to get there. By tank, about a day or two at most. If we somehow had a Pelican it would at least be two hours." After explaining this to both teams, she put the map away in her chest plate.

Church gave an annoyed groaning sound. "So in other words, it's going to take until tomorrow so we can get there?" He asked the Freelancer, who then nodded her head.

"Exactly, we already wasted enough time as it is. We're going to keep going until the next day."

"So, we going to have to keep moving until someone, most likely Grif drops dead. Even though Tucker is out like a light."

"We'll tape him to the side of Sheila."

Keeping quiet the whole time they were talking, Sarge finally decided to speak. "Now where in Sam Hell are we going to tape?" Sarge asked the two Blues members.

At this, Simmons quickly went to Sheila back trank. Opening the back trank and yanking out his bag out. unzipping it Simmons then started to shuffle throw his bag until he found what he was looking for in it. A roll of duct tape. "Sir, I have some duct tape just in case Grif would decide to rid of his gun again," Simmons explained while holding up the role of duct tape.

Grif gave an annoyed look under his helmet towards Simmons at this. "You are the worst kiss ass that I have ever met in my life." He tells the maroon soldier with an annoyed tone of voice.

The Red team leader smiled. "You're a good man Simmons," Sarge said taking the tape while both Church and Tex (mostly Tex really) were dragging Tucker towards Sheila the tank.

When Sarge walked away from the other two, Doc turned to Simmons with a questionable look. "Why do you really have tape on you?" Doc asked Simmons.

"What? Oh, in case Donut starts talking about some shit that will forever haunt us again." Simmons answers/explains then suddenly remembered a horrible memory.

Then Grif groaned loudly at what the other had just said. "Dude I was so close of forgetting that and now you just reminded me of that bullshit," Grif said rubbing his hands on his helmet annoyed.

For just a moment of his life, Doc didn't know what to do. Especially since he's with them.


Author: I had no one to re-edit this for me so please forgive me if it seems a little or a lot off.